He wasn't supposed to live, but Hellboy was granted a chance at life when the alien assassin assigned to kill him had other thoughts. In Dark Horse's new comic book series The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed, readers will discover why Hellboy's life was spared, and as a special treat for Daily Dead readers, we can exclusively reveal Mike Mignola's variant cover for the first issue that will only be available at the ComicsPRO annual meeting in Memphis, Tennessee.
In addition to creating the ComicsPRO exclusive cover for the first issue of The Visitor, renowned artist Mignola also co-wrote the five-issue series with iZombie co-creator Chris Roberson, who told us:
"When Hellboy first arrived on Earth as a baby, an alien assassin was there waiting for him. THE VISITOR: HOW AND WHY HE STAYED tells the story of why the assassin chose not to execute Hellboy on the spot, and the difficult road that he walked after making that decision."
Mignola's rare variant cover for The Visitor will only be available to comic book retailers attending the ComicsPRO annual meeting in Memphis from February 16th–18th. Take a look at our exclusive reveal of the cover below, and check out the official press release and video for more details on The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed, which comes out on February 22nd.
Previous Press Release: October 18, 2016) In 2017, one of the strangest and most unexpected mysteries of the Hellboy world will be revealed in an all new comic book series from Dark Horse Comics.
In THE VISITOR: HOW AND WHY HE STAYED, legendary Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, iZombie co-creator Chris Roberson and Jack Staff creator Paul Grist will spotlight mysterious aliens and probe into a pivotal moment in Hellboy’s past for a surprising tale that harkens back to the character's first ever appearance. This 5 issue comic book series will be teased in a story in the forthcoming HELLBOY: WINTER SPECIAL 2017 on January 25th, before the first issue of THE VISITOR: HOW AND WHY HE STAYED debuts on February 22, 2017
"In Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, readers were given a brief glimpse of a crew of strange looking aliens monitoring the supernatural doings on Earth from way out in space. We later learned that one of those aliens had been sent to Earth to kill him in 1944, but chose to spare him at the last moment,” said Chris Roberson. “In THE VISITOR, we explore who those aliens are, why that assassin was sent to kill Hellboy, and just what he was doing in all of the years in between."
Joining co-writers Mignola and Roberson, and colorist Bill Crabtree, is cartoonist Paul Grist who will be making his Mignolaverse debut.
“I remember when I first read Hellboy: The Conqueror Worm,” said Grist. “Halfway through Mike Mignola throws in this character who has been tracking Hellboy ever since he arrived on Earth, who then promptly dies and is dismissed by Hellboy in a single sentence. And I thought NO! You can't do that! There has to be more to this guy’s life than that! And it turns out there was. And I'd like to thank Mike for asking me to help tell that story now.”
“THE VISITOR is the story of a stranger in a strange land,” Roberson added. “Stranded on Earth for more than half a century, an alien assassin observes humanity’s capacity both for compassion and for destruction. We see history unfold through his eyes, just as the experience of living among humans changes who he is.”
Dark Horse Comics will publish the first issue of THE VISITOR: HOW AND WHY HE STAYED, the most mysterious Hellboy spinoff yet, on February 22, 2017.
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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