#hope this isnt too boring. im glad tumblr allows so many images on posts nowadays

[enkeladyte]

Hellboy & his world

this is for people who dont know anything about hellboy..!

Hellboy is a series created by Mike Mignola, which began in 1994 with the four-issue story arc Seed of Destruction. The story begins in 1944 and establishes his origin story as a hellbound human-demon hybrid, summoned to Earth by Nazis during World War 2 to be used as a weapon against the Allies. This, of course, didn't work out as planned, as the operation was intercepted by a contingent of paranormal experts, soldiers, and the Torch of Liberty, an analogue for Captain America.

Upon finding the infant, a young Professor Trevor Bruttonholm adopts it and names him Hellboy. We also get a sneak peek of Rasputin (yeah, that Rasputin), who is the Nazi's own paranormal expert, and the one who performed the ritual that summoned Hellboy.

Skipping forward a year, the Professor establishes an international organization to combat and research paranormal threats to the world. This group is the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), and nearly every one of our protagonists will be a member of it at one point or another. Hellboy himself is granted honorary human status by the UN, and joins the BPRD in 1952 (having grown at an accelerated rate to the size of a young adult). These early years of his are collected in an ongoing series called 'Hellboy and the BPRD', and they all take place before the rest of the Seed of Destruction story.

Going forward again, we get to 1992, and the Professor goes missing during an expedition in the Arctic. He resurfaces two years later, but is tragically killed in front of Hellboy by a mutant frog creature. This begins a chain of events which leads to a confrontation with a seemingly immortal Rasputin, who reveals to Hellboy that he is destined to end the world.

During this story, we are introduced to two members of the BPRD who aid Hellboy in his fight against Rasputin, and who are close friends of his.

Liz Sherman, a pyrokinetic human with a tragic past,

-- and Abe Sapien, a friendly fishman of unknown origins.

Now, all of this probably sounds familiar. If you've seen Guillermo Del Toro's first Hellboy movie, you'll have seen something close to this exact story, yet there are several key differences. In the movie, Rasputin is the ultimate Big Bad of the story, and there is only a hint of something greater behind the scenes-- but in the comic, it is explicitly stated that he is serving an extra-dimensional being known as the Ogrdu Jahad, the Seven Beasts, also known as the Serpent, the Dragon, and so on. He even summons one of the Serpent's offspring- known as an Ogdru Hem.

The Ogdru Jahad are intrinsic to understanding the story of Hellboy. Their origin goes back to the creation of the world itself, and most of the enemies of the BPRD are either wanting to summon it to end the world, or harness its power for their own benefit. The Hem themselves are a complicated topic. While most of the time they are physical monsters you can fight, they are capable of influencing the world in more subtle ways.

There's also some key characters lacking in every one of the Hellboy films. One that I find quite insulting to leave out is Kate Corrigan.

She plays a supporting role to the rest of the cast, and has several important moments with Hellboy and the others. She also has a few stories in which she plays a much more active role, such as the Wolves of St. August.

There's also a few characters that get their own spinoff titles that delve more into the past of the series, like Lobster Johnson, Sir Edward Grey, or Sledgehammer 44.

Going back to the threats out protagonists face, there are others that come from some unexpected places. Hecate, who plays both the role of antagonist and supporting character of Hellboy, comes from the more mythological side of the world. There are mad scientists, monsters from other realms unrelated to the Ogdru Jahad, secretive cults, vampires, fae creatures, ghosts, zombies, and more.

If I were to name one in particular that poses as big of a threat as the Ogdru Jahad, it would be the denizens of Hell and their forces. Demons, imps, humans who have made pacts with them, and the Dukes that rule over them all. Hellboy is half demon, after all.

Oh yeah. There's also the aliens. They kinda look like Abe, but they're unrelated to any of the goings on of Earth, and are simply monitoring the situation.

Last but not least, there's the Right Hand of Doom. This hulking mass of stone that been attached to Hellboy from birth is not only one of his most useful assets- for pummeling his enemies- but also a curse he carries everywhere with him. It is an iconic part of the character and the mythos surrounding him, and it plays a massive role in his unwilling fate to end the world. The nature of it and how he came to have it are explored in detail throughout the many series Mignola has written.

...and with that, this is the end of a very long post about a very long series. Hopefully it'll be the longest post on this blog. Thank you to anyone who actually read all this, and I hope you stay to learn more about the world of Hellboy!

#hellboy #mike mignola #bprd #comics #hope this isnt too boring. im glad tumblr allows so many images on posts nowadays #itd be unreadable without pics to break up the walls of text #idk if this reads well its been a long time since ive done informative writing