The action-packed first issue of Sledgehammer 44 is already available and making its rounds among excited comics readers and Mignolaverse fans everywhere. If you haven't picked up the thrilling ride that is Sledgehammer 44 #1 stop on by our digital store or your local comic shop. This new hero is for real.





Dark Horse Comics: Where does Sledgehammer first appear?

John Arcudi: This is the first appearance of the armored character as “Sledgehammer.” In fact, the character gets that name very early in the first issue. As the armor is a tool of the military, it’s a name that obviously carries a lot more of an “oomph!” cachet than the classical “Iron Prometheus.”

DHC: What’s his connection to Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus?

JA: The prototype for the Sledgehammer armor is what appears in that first LoJo series by Mike and Jason Armstrong. “Iron Prometheus” is a more evocative name, of course, and conjures up all the implications of the Titan’s gift of fire to the early people of earth, but so far as anybody knows that original prototype (the armor) was lost in the warehouse explosion.

DHC: What is Vril energy and how does it play into the story of Sledgehammer 44?

Mike Mignola: According to the brain in the jar in Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus, Vril is “God’s own power, Flamma Reconditus,” the power left over after the creation of the world. This is the power, the Secret Fire, that the Watcher Angel Anum dared to steal out of the air to create the Ogdru Jahad. This is the power that allowed the first race of men to make Hyperborea a paradise, but it was their misuse of it that eventually led to the destruction of that race. The secret of how to draw down and control that power was passed on to some of the early humans (like the shaman Shonchin) but those men, fearing that men would misuse the power like the Hyperboreans did, took its secret to the grave with them. Millions of years later, Professor Gallaragas invented Anum’s Fork and the Vril Energy Suit. The fork can draw down and harness the Vril power and feed it into the suit, but that power is very mysterious, extremely dangerous, very hard to control, and can dramatically affect the wearer of the Vril Energy Suit (as seen in Iron Prometheus). Though the first Vril Energy Suit was destroyed and Professor Gallaragas was killed, his daughter (also his assistant) survived to create a second generation of the suit—and that’s Sledgehammer.

DHC: What other B.P.R.D. story threads does Sledgehammer 44 connect to?

JA: For the most part, those threads are being woven right now for future stories, but the Sledgehammer armor did appear in the very first B.P.R.D. series I worked on, The Dead. Mike wanted it in there and as soon as it showed up, ideas started forming in Mike’s, and then later my, head. This is the first step in establishing Sledgehammer’s presence as a significant character—or perhaps “force” would be a better word—in the B.P.R.D. universe.

DHC: What excited you most about creating a focus series for this new character?

JA: Oops. I guess I kinda answered that in the last question, but the chance to develop the concept and bring the Iron Prometheus project that creates Sledgehammer up to date is one thing that made me jump to do this. Helena Gallaragas is the new head of the operation, taking over from her father’s research after he was killed in The Iron Prometheus, and showing that is an important step to understanding where Sledgehammer is going.

DHC: Where do you intend this story to go after this two-parter?

JA: Laurence Campbell and I are already hard at work on another Sledgehammer 44 series, and I don’t want to reveal too much, but it’s going to be killer with Laurence at the helm! We didn’t let the talent slack off from Jason Latour’s great work on this two-parter. We’re keeping this a high-priority project. And there are lots of guest stars that I think everyone will be very happy to see.

Just one more note. We have to mention the great, late John Severin here. The first Sledgehammer 44 script was written for Sev because we were so, so happy with his amazing work on Witchfinder: Lost and Gone Forever and we wanted to just keep working with him. The Sledgehammer concept had been slowly developing all along, but it crystallized under the influence of that golden opportunity—or what seemed like one at the time. Regrettably, Sev passed away before he could do very much work on the book. So a big thanks goes out to that giant of a talent and sweetheart of a man. This book is bittersweet in that regard. I really do miss him, as I’m sure do many others.