Adams (sorry, starting with him again, I know) must intentionally draw bad faces. Everything else is so detailed… faces not. So it’s a choice. A bad one, but a choice.
Mignola and Byrne get a lot of content into this issue. I don’t think Rasputin ever even gets named, just his history introduced—the majority of the issue, besides an opening fight scene, is expository dialogue.
The best thing in the issue is a two page scene with Abe seeing these frog monsters take their human mother down into the bog. It’s the only time Byrne and Mignola take the time to do anything neat. The rest of the issue is all necessary just to get the story told.
It’s far beyond the regular supervillain revealing his evil plan scene. Byrne and Mignola turn it into an issue. I kept wondering where the cliffhanger would be.
Questionably—but impressively—dense.
