Movies - Hellboy

	Movies - Hellboy

Hellboy is a comic book character, dubbed the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator". He is a large red-skinned demon with a tail, horns broken off to stumps (which some fans mistook for goggles in early issues) and a big stone right hand (the Right Hand of Doom). Created by Mike Mignola, Hellboy's adventures have been chronicled in a sequence of comic book mini-series published by Dark Horse Comics.

The comics were adapted into a 2004 film.

Publication history

Hellboy debuted in 1993 in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 (Dark Horse Comics). Written and drawn by creator Mike Mignola, the stories have a flavor of supernatural adventure with a dark mood embodied by Mignola's unique sense of design (which may be characterized by Mignola's incisive linework, and his distinctive balance of heavy shadows and pure colors).

Mignola's stories are heavily influenced by, and have been dedicated to, H. P. Lovecraft, Jack Kirby, Edgar Allan Poe, and other authors. Horror stories of the Weird Tales variety are another important influence. Writer Robert Bloch has praised Hellboy as one of the most innovative and entertaining comics in recent years. Certain Hellboy stories also draw on folklore from Ireland, Norway, Russia, Malaysia, and Japan, among other countries.

Most of the Hellboy and related B.P.R.D. comics have been collected as trade paperbacks, and some later stories have been crafted by people other than Mignola, including Christopher Golden, Guy Davis and Ryan Sook. Golden has also written several novels about the character.

Hellboy remains one of the few older Dark Horse titles to remain in print, after the company's focus shifted from their own titles to licensed properties.

Character history

Hellboy is a creature summoned in the final months of World War II by a fictional version of Grigori Rasputin, on a small island just off the coast of Scotland ('Tarmagent Island'), having been commissioned by the Nazis to change the tide of war ("Project Ragna Rok"). Hellboy appeared in a fireball in a ruined church in East Bromwich, England, December 23, 1944. He proved not to be a devil, but a little boy-like creature (with red skin, horns, a tail, and a large stone right hand)—hence the name given by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm (pronounced Broom).

Taken by the U.S. forces to an Air Force base somewhere in New Mexico, Hellboy was raised by the United States Army and by the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, a U.S. agency dedicated to combating occult threats. He was granted honorary human status by the United Nations in 1952.

As an adult, Hellboy became the primary agent for the B.P.R.D., alongside several other human and quasi-human agents. His fellow agents include Abe Sapien, an amphibian humanoid ("icthyo sapien"); Liz Sherman, a pyrokinetic; Roger, an unusually large homunculus; and Johann Kraus, a disembodied spiritualist.

Hellboy's adventures in the comics span the 1940s to the present day and involve elements such as sorcerers, Nazis, the Thule Society, hollow earth explorers, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and other oddities such as the Ogdru Jahad.

Several of the storylines deal with Hellboy's Right Hand of Doom and its purpose in initiating the Apocalypse.

The Right Hand of Doom

In Seed of Destruction, Hellboy is confronted by a fictional version of Rasputin and begins to find out what he is doing on Earth and who summoned him there. Hellboy's purpose will be to command the powers that Rasputin is about to unleash upon the world. Hellboy denies this version of his destiny and refuses to be controlled. Attempting to release the Ogdru Jahad, Rasputin is killed, harpooned through the chest by Abe Sapien under the control of the ghost of Elihu Cavendish.

In Wake the Devil, Hellboy meets the Goddess Hecate. Hellboy, addressed as "Anung Un Rama", is told that his arrival on Earth signals its end. At the climax of the story Hellboy is swallowed by Hecate in the form of an iron maiden and some kind of other-worldly conflict ensues, in which he is told that his right hand is a key to open the pit. Again Hellboy refuses, this time breaking off his newly regrown horns, revealing what those two circles on his forehead are.

In Box Full of Evil (collected in the The Right Hand of Doom TPB.), Igor Bromhead gains power over a demon, Ualac, by using that demon's name. Hellboy is also bound by his name, "Anung Un Rama", and the Crown of the Apocalypse, which he wears but is invisible to him, is taken. In taking the crown, Ualac is changed into a much more powerful demon. Hellboy finds out what his name means: "Anung Un Rama, World Destroyer, The Great Beast …" "… and upon his brow is set a crown of fire …". This is not who he is, and so not his name any longer. Ualac is defeated. The crown is kept for Hellboy by Astaroth, in Pandemonium the capital city of Hell, in the House of the Fly, where a seat is reserved for him.

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Movies - Hellboy

Publication history

Character history

The Right Hand of Doom

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