10 Best Comic Books Of The Decade

9. Hellboy In Hell - Mike Mignola & Dave Stewart

Hellboy in Hell
Dark Horse/Mike Mignola & Dave Stewart

Although Hellboy has since returned from the grave as recently as this year, the character's definitive ending arrived in 2016. It's so rare that creative figures who created a superhero are allowed to chart their creation's journey from start to finish, but that's just what Mike Mignola managed to do on Hellboy.

Hellboy is one of the great comics of the last few decades, and a truly wonderful property. Mignola's love for gothic horror and history has always shone through in the comic, and when it became clear that the writer/artist was gearing up to conclude the character's story, fans held their breath.

Anung Un Rama was 'killed' in 2011's The Fury, where he led England's old armies against the forces of Nimue. Hellboy loses his actual heart in the conflict, and plummets to Hell thereafter - seemingly poised to inherit his other destiny as the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

What followed was nothing short of exceptional, as Hellboy in Hell depicted the eponymous character navigating the vast depths of Pandemonium itself. Mignola continues his formidable partnership with Dave Stewart, and their version of Hell is nothing short of exceptional. The atmosphere is peerless, as is the story, which ends Hellboy's adventure in the most stunning way.

Endings really don't get any better.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.