Hellboy: Wake the Devil #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeIssue #3 of Wake the Devil is the pivot point of Mike Mignola's second Hellboy miniseries and one of the most character-introduction-dense single issues in the entire Mignolaverse. It delivers the first full appearance of Roger the Homunculus — an alchemically created giant whose arc across the B.P.R.D. spinoff line would become one of the most emotionally resonant in Mignola's mythology — and supplies the first in-series appearance of Hecate and a brief cameo of the Baba Yaga, two supernatural figures who would echo through Hellboy stories for decades. The issue also marks the moment the Wake the Devil arc shifts from setup into catastrophe: Hellboy faces a resurrected Giurescu while a separate BPRD team accidentally breathes life into Roger, setting off a chain of consequences — Liz Sherman's coma, Bud Waller's death — that ripple into subsequent stories. In Mignola's own words, Wake the Devil as a whole was where he 'put a whole lot more pieces on the board,' cementing the apocalyptic mythology that defined the Hellboy universe going forward.
In "Wake the Devil [Chapter Three]," Hellboy pushes through a siege of Hecate’s minions and a fading Giurescu, setting the stage for a final confrontation. Meanwhile, Rasputin reveals the truth of his own return, while Liz’s BPRD team uncovers a dormant homunculus that ignites to life at her touch. With Hellboy preparing to detonate Castle Giurescu and Zinco delivering Von Klempt’s head to Kroenen, the stakes rise across Romania and beyond. Mike Mignola’s signature art and storytelling anchor this pivotal chapter, with colors by James Sinclair and David Stewart and lettering by Pat Brosseau and Mignola, all under Mignola’s complete creative control—cover by Mike Mignola.
In "Wake the Devil [Chapter Three]," Hellboy battles Hecate’s lingering minions and a weakened Giurescu while Rasputin reveals the truth of his own resurrection to Ilsa. Meanwhile, Liz’s BPRD team uncovers a dormant homunculus in a remote Romanian castle—one that responds to her touch with eerie life. As Hellboy prepares to destroy Castle Giurescu, Zinco delivers Von Klempt’s preserved head to Kroenen in Norway, setting another piece in motion.
In this chilling installment of *Hellboy: Wake the Devil*, Benedict’s twisted game escalates as he confronts the jib-bic in a desperate clash. The next morning, St. George finds himself haunted on an ocean liner stranded in a hillside—first by Benedict, whispering dread of "the return of Gooseflesh," then by the enigmatic Lava, as the filmmaker’s own body betrays him with a grotesque growth. The line between man and monster blurs in this eerie, suspense-driven tale.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Wake the Devil was the second Hellboy miniseries, written and drawn entirely by Mike Mignola and edited by Scott Allie — the same creative pairing that had shepherded Seed of Destruction. The series ran June–October 1996 under Dark Horse's Legend imprint, with color by James Sinclair and lettering by Pat Brosseau. Mignola has noted in interviews that, unlike the first series, he had no guarantee of a follow-up when he wrote Seed of Destruction, but by Wake the Devil he was consciously architecting a larger mythology — including the beast-of-the-apocalypse identity for Hellboy — that he had only sketched in rough outline before. The collected edition of the full miniseries (1997) included a new five-page epilogue and pin-ups by Bruce Timm, P. Craig Russell, and others, with an introduction by Alan Moore, underscoring the series' standing in the art-comics community at the time.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Roger the Homunculus: an unusually large, alchemically created humanoid discovered by BPRD agents Liz Sherman, Bud Waller, and Sidney Leach in a medieval alchemist's lab beneath the ruins of Czege Castle, Romania.
- First in-series appearance of Hecate, ancient goddess of chaos and the supernatural force behind Vladimir Giurescu's vampiric resurrection, as well as a cameo first appearance of Baba Yaga.
- Vladimir Giurescu — the two-hundred-year-old nobleman vampire who is the mission's primary target — rises from his coffin in this issue and battles Hellboy, establishing him as a fully active villain rather than a dormant threat.
- Roger's awakening is triggered when Liz Sherman instinctively channels her pyrokinetic energy into him; the transfer puts Liz into a coma and results in Bud Waller's death, making this issue a major turning point for multiple BPRD characters.
- Story and art by Mike Mignola (writer, penciler, inker); colors by James Sinclair; letters by Pat Brosseau; edited by Scott Allie. Published August 1996 as the third chapter of the five-issue miniseries.
- The issue also features a back-up story, Gary Gianni's MonsterMen ('Silent as the Grave'), a recurring feature across all five issues of the miniseries.
- The contents of this issue have been reprinted in multiple collected editions: the 1997 Wake the Devil trade paperback, the Hellboy Library Edition Vol. 1 (May 2008), the Hellboy Omnibus Vol. 1 (May 2018), and various international editions.
- Plot elements from Wake the Devil were later adapted into the animated film Hellboy: Blood and Iron; Roger himself was produced as a figure in Mezco's comic-based Hellboy action figure line.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Hellboy - Au nom du diable #[nn] (1996), Hellboy: Despierta al Demonio #[nn] (1996), Hellboy #[2] (1997), Hellboy #2 (2002), Corpus Monstrum #1 (2002), Hellboy #[2] (2003), Hellboy Library Edition #1 (2008), Hellboy: Edición Integral #1 (2011), Hellboy Kompendium #1 (2016), Hellboy Omnibus #1 (2018)
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