oh, come on now, you could have at least given Liz Sherman pupils...

The two most interesting characters in Hellboy (besides Hellboy) get the focus they deserve in this entertaining one-shot.

Scott Kolins is a penciler. This alone is reason enough to ditch the talentless Guy Davis and give Mr. Kolins the head artist job on the ongoing BPRD series. Accessible without being sloppy, dramatic but still able to yield humor, and admirably well-detailed, Kolins’ draftsmanship is reason alone to pay the whopping three dollars this back issue would cost you. His rendition of Lobster Johnson, as well, captures the spirit of pulp adventure that Mike Mignola’s work is all about.

Thank the lord for Geoff Johns. He’s quickly becoming the new Brian Michael Bendis, a phenomenally talented yet overworked writer whose imprimatur sells like a two-for-one at Sizzler when Overeaters Anonymous rides into town. Night Train is no exception. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mike Mignola—but he’s far better at creating mythology and designing plots than he is at actually scripting them. Mignola rightly deserves the title “visionary—” but visionaries don’t always know how to attend to details. One always feels there’s an element missing from the plot of Mignola’s stories. Geoff Johns, the man who finally got D.C. past the “HAL JORDAN IS EVIL SPOOOOOKY” nonsense, leaves the reader with something Mignola doesn’t always provide: a feeling of satisfaction.    

Worth the money? Heck yeah. Buy it.