Baltimore is an American horror comic book series created by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. The series originally began with an illustrated novel, Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire in 2007. It followed the story of Lord Baltimore's hunt of the vampire Haigus as told by his three friends, Doctor Lemuel Rose, Thomas Childress Jr., and Demetrius Aischros. The series is a part of Mignola and Golden's Outerverse, a shared universe with Joe Golem and other titles such as Lady Baltimore.
Comics
In 2010 Dark Horse Comics began the comic series Baltimore, following Lord Baltimore's hunt for Haigus during the years the original novel skipped over.[1][2][3] From the fifth volume onward, the comic's story has moved beyond the events of the original novel.
Baltimore is a series of miniseries, with each miniseries having its own numbering, but each issue also has an ongoing overall numbering on the inside front cover.
France, August, 1916: Lord Henry Baltimore follows the trail of his nemesis, the vampire Haigus, to a coastal village of Villefranche, where he is arrested by the suspicious local authorities, who summon an inquisitor to interrogate him. Baltimore is freed by a young woman, Vanessa, who insists that he take her with him when he escapes the town. Their ship is attacked at sea and they are stranded on an island filled with derelict ships. When the corpses of the ships' crews rise up to attack them, Baltimore locks Vanessa inside a wrecked U-boat and holds off the horde of revenants until dawn. Vanessa chooses to return home, not knowing that the inquisitor, Judge Duvic, has arrived and is torturing her grandmother to learn Baltimore's whereabouts.
NB Includes several scenes from the novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire in flashback as Baltimore recounts parts of his story.
Germany, October, 1916: When Baltimore passes through the village of Tülingart at night, unmolested, a young boy, Maxie, takes it as proof that the vampires are gone, and convinces his best friend, Rolf, to come outside and see for himself. Rolf is lured under a bridge and almost devoured by gigantic spiders, before Baltimore appears and saves him, killing the spiders and Maxie, who has turned into one of them. Baltimore confirms that the vampires are gone, but the plague has drawn all manner of evil creatures out of hiding.
NOTE: Christopher Golden wanted to retroactively acknowledge the story in the numbering, so this 2011 FCBD issue is 36 in Number in Series.
Lucerne, Switzerland, October, 1916: Baltimore meets American war correspondent Simon Hodge, who was fired from The Boston Globe after insisting that vampires were the cause of the plague. They go to a convent where Haigus is held prisoner by nuns (now vampires), in the service of an occultist (Adolf Hitler) who promised to cure them. The occultist uses Haigus's blood to resurrect Helena Blavatsky, who is "birthed" as a homunculus. In exchange for resurrecting her, the occultist demands that she place a curse on the convent's bells so that all who hear them will become his slaves. When Baltimore reveals to the nuns there is no cure for their vampirism, they turn on the occultist and tear him apart. The nuns kneel in the courtyard and wait for death by the rising sun.
Meanwhile, Judge Duvic continues pursuing Baltimore, torturing and sometimes killing several of the people Baltimore has encountered.
Croatia, May, 1917: While fighting a monstrous creature in mid flight, Baltimore crashes near a makeshift fishing settlement. The locals have abandoned their village to escape Dr. Leskovar, who tried to develop a cure for vampirism, but only succeeded in creating mutated creatures, which he sent out to capture more "subjects" to perfect his cure. Baltimore needs to pass through the village to pick up Haigus's trail, but his conscience won't let him ignore the threat Dr. Leskovar poses. Leskovar drinks a formula that turns him into a monstrous creature so that he can hunt down and destroy all of his creations. Leskovar and Baltimore run back to the fishing camp, where crabs that ate the remains of the monster that crashed Baltimore's plane have mutated. They fight off the mutant crabs, but Leskovar is dragged underwater and drowns.
Verona, Italy, January, 1917: Haigus is working on set paintings for play, La Morte Rossa Trionfante, by theatrical director named Gnecco with lyrics by the severed head of Edgar Allan Poe. All three men are in love with the play's star, Isabella. When Haigus realizes that Isabella is an immortal Muse, he breaks her hold over him, killing Gnecco and burning the theatre down. Meanwhile, Isabella escapes with Poe's head. A week later, Baltimore passes through, and the remaining members of the theatre troupe, now vampires, emerge from hiding to prey on the town.
The Widow – England, June, 1916: Baltimore visits the wife of an old Army comrade in Lincolnshire, who insists her husband is dead. At night, the woman's husband, now a vampire, leaves the house to prey on the townspeople. After confirming that he does not know Haigus's whereabouts, Baltimore dispatches him, then confronts the widow. Seeing that she has been recently turned herself, Baltimore invites her to open the curtains and view the sunrise, which incinerates her.
The Tank – France, July, 1916: Stopping for a meal in a small village in Aquitaine, Baltimore learns of a monster supposedly hiding in a derelict tank left in the middle of a field. Baltimore confronts the monster, a vampire hiding from worse monsters—goblin-like creatures that rise out of the earth and try to devour Baltimore. With the goblins distracted, the vampire attempts to escape, but is caught. Baltimore kills all the goblin creatures and the now half-eaten vampire.
Austria-Hungary September, 1917:Inquisitor Judge Duvic arrives in Sarajevo town to interrogate Simon Hodge for Baltimore's whereabouts. Duvic relates how he was raised as a priest and trained to be an inquisitor by the Church, in response to the vampire plague. He believes Baltimore is tainted by the plague. The interrogation is interrupted when Vanessa (from The Plague Ships) appears in the cell and attacks Duvic, revenge for her grandmother's murder. After Duvic kills her, Hodge furiously challenges his righteousness when Duvic could have easily disarmed her. Shaken, Duvic allows Hodge to leave. Hodge tells him Baltimore will be in Budapest in three weeks' time, and afterward sends a letter to Baltimore, inviting him to deal with a true "monster."
Budapest, Hungary, October, 1917: Baltimore arrives, intending to keep his rendezvous with Judge Duvic. By enforcing strict quarantine measures, the city authorities believe they have succeeded in creating a sanctuary from the plague. A mysterious woman, Signora Fulcanelli, claims to have invented a furnace hot enough to safely incinerate all of the plague's victims. Baltimore spies on her at night, but is distracted by the arrival of Judge Duvic and the two fight. They are interrupted by a swarm of newly created vampires, and Fulcanelli's men take Baltimore prisoner. Fulcanelli is housing a coven of elder vampires—the "high priests" of the Red King, the ancient deity that created the vampires—and collecting plague victims to burn as a beacon to hasten the King's reawakening. Haigus is the eldest of these high priests, but like all of their kind, he had grown savage and apathetic as humanity developed and forgot to worship the Red King, until Baltimore awoke his consciousness on the Ardennes battlefield. Baltimore breaks free and destroys the train's boiler, killing the vampire priests and causing the train to derail. Fulcanelli is trapped on the riverbank by a spike of metal impaled through her shoulder. She confesses to Baltimore that Haigus is headed to London, but he leaves her to die, unable to escape the rising river as it is swelled by a rainstorm. Duvic confronts Baltimore, who stabs him in the chest with a crucifix just as Duvic shoots him in the heart, seemingly without wounding him. After Baltimore leaves, a group of priests gather up Duvic's body and administer last rites, only for Duvic to re-animate as a werewolf and kill all of them.
London, England, November 30, 1919: Baltimore's three friends—Demetrius Aischros, Thomas Childress, Jr., and Dr. Lemuel Rose—meet in a pub in response to Baltimore's summons, but when he doesn't arrive, they accept the invitation of an artist, Bentley, to sleep in his upstairs studio. There, they find an enormous painting of the Red King, and the walls decorated with skeletons, which come alive to attack them. Baltimore's nemesis, Haigus, has become old and weary from all the years of pursuit, and lured them there to draw Baltimore out. Just as the three men are cornered and all seems lost, Baltimore arrives. Haigus gloats that it was Baltimore's own actions that "awoke" Haigus's consciousness, and humanity will never be rid of the vampires now. Baltimore kills Haigus, but is chilled to realize that he feels nothing. In anger and frustration, Baltimore slashes the painting, and the Red King fixes its eyes upon him. Baltimore realizes he had been fighting the symptom all this time, and the true enemy had barely been aware of him until that moment. Later, while recuperating downstairs, Baltimore reaches into his chest and removes his heart, now a lump of tin with his wife's wedding ring set into its side.
In an epilogue, the three companions relate their story to Simon Hodge, with Rose carrying Baltimore's tin heart in a box for evidence. When Hodge asks where Baltimore is now, Rose replies that evil things are awakening all over the world and Baltimore is trying to wipe them out to prevent the Red King from reawakening. NBChapel of Bones is an adaptation of the chapters Crescendo: Lux et Aeternum, Finale: Libera Me, and Coda from the novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire.
Harju, Estonia, February 2, 1920: A woman named Sofia Yalk escapes from the reanimated corpse of her abusive husband and runs into Baltimore, now accompanied by Childress, the Sikh soldier Harish, and a new companion named Quigley. While the corpse kills Quigley, the others manage to chase it off. While the others go to get a carriage for Quigley's body, Sofia recounts to Baltimore her story; After her husband died, a black cat with red eyes appeared over the body, and during the funeral the corpse reanimated and killed everyone it came across while chasing after her. The day after, while looking at coffins for Quigley, the corpse returns, but is finally put down when Sofia lights him on fire, and Baltimore kills a lizard-like creature that emerged from its body. The witch who reanimated him appears to gloat, before fleeing into the woods. The heroes are unable to pursue her, and go to bury Quigley instead. On the way, the undertaker tells them that the witch may have one of the grieving mothers who lost their children to plague, or summoned by them. At the graveyard, they are attacked by more of the lizard-creatures, which crawl out of the buried bodies. The witch appears again and causes it to rain blood before fleeing, but Baltimore pursues her and confronts her at an altar to the Red King. She tries to run again, but Baltimore catches up to her and kills her by the sea, causing the blood rain to stop. Back at the graveyard, the heroes finish burying Quigley, along with the undertaker who was killed in the fighting. After confronting the village women, who admit to being witches but that the witch Juta went too far even for them, Baltimore and his companions leave, joined by Sofia.
Yalta, Crimea, March 18 1920: A young priest with clawmarks across his face awakens from a nightmare to find Baltimore standing by his bed. Baltimore asks the priest, a member of the Inquisition, to tell his story. The priest, Joaquim Rigo, was part of a mission to kill the werewolf Duvic, who has been killing innocents and particularly members of the clergy across Eastern Europe. They chased him to an old castle near Charax, but are killed easily by Duvic. Rigo fled in terror and ends up in the castle chapel, where he confesses the Inquisition's sins and repents. Duvic appears in human form, having twisted his faith to fit his bloodthirsty nature, seeing his curse as a blessing from God which he has attempted to spread to other men of faith, but found them all blasphemers and thus killed them. Turning to wolf form, he attacks Rigo who briefly manages to fight him off but is wounded across the face by his claws. Before Duvic can finish him off, the moonlight shines through a cross-shaped stained glass window, blinding Duvic and causing him to fall through a collapsing floor. Rico barely managed to escape the castle before it collapses entirely, leaving Duvic's fate uncertain. Back in the hospital, Rigo elects to join Baltimore in his quest, retaining his Inquisitor uniform as a reminder of the Inquisition's failings.
The comic book series has been collected in hardcover volumes. Only the first volume has been published in paperback. The series will be collected in a pair of hardcover omnibuses, the second of includes a new story, Monstrous, written by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden, art by Ben Stenbeck, colors by Dave Stewart, and lettering by Clem Robins.[47]
New Regency optioned the rights to adapt Baltimore as a film in September 2007. The novel's authors wrote a screenplay, while David S. Goyer was set to direct. After a leadership change at New Regency, the studio abandoned the project, and the rights have reverted to the authors.[51]
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