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Hellboy is a comic book superhero created by writer-artist Mike Mignola. The character first appeared in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 (August 1993), and has since appeared in various eponymous miniseries, one-shots and intercompany crossovers. The character has been adapted into three live-action feature films – two starring Ron Perlman in 2004 and 2008 in the title role, and the 2019 reboot which starred David Harbour, as well as two straight-to-DVD animated films, again starring Perlman, and four video games – Asylum Seeker, The Science of Evil, as a playable character in Injustice 2, and Web of Wyrd. A fourth live-action film and second reboot, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, will star Jack Kesy as the character. A well-meaning half-Demon (or Cambion) whose true name is Anung Un Rama ("and upon his brow is set a crown of flame"), Hellboy was summoned from Hell to Earth as a baby by Nazi occultists (spawning his hatred for the Third Reich). He appeared in the ruins of an old church in the Outer Hebrides in front of a team assembled by the Allied Forces; among them, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who formed the United States Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.). In time, Hellboy grew to be a large, muscular, red-skinned ape-like man with a tail, horns (which he files off, leaving behind circular stumps on his forehead that resemble goggles), cloven hooves, and an oversized right hand made of stone (the "Right Hand of Doom"). He has been described as smelling of dry-roasted peanuts. Although a bit gruff, he shows none of the malevolence thought to be intrinsic to classical demons and has an ironic sense of humor. This is said to be because of his upbringing under Professor Bruttenholm, who raised him as a normal boy. Hellboy works for the B.P.R.D., an international non-governmental agency, and for himself, against dark forces including Nazis and witches, in a series of tales that have their roots in folklore, pulp magazines, vintage adventure, Lovecraftian horror and horror fiction. In earlier stories, he is identified as the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator". Fictional character biography Hellboy, or "Anung Un Rama" as he was called, was conceived on October 5, 1574, the day his birth-mother, Sarah Hughes, a human woman, was on her deathbed. In life, Sarah was a witch who gained her powers from being a consort of the archdemon Azzael, an Archduke of Hell and Hellboy's "biological" father. Taking Sarah's body to hell when she attempted to repent on her deathbed within a church in East Bromwich, England, Azzael burned her away so their child would be born, and chopped off the newborn's right hand to replace it with the "Right Hand of Doom", a relic with the power to free the Ogdru Jahad (A destructive, seven headed dragon imprisoned in deep space) and awaken the armies of Hell to wage war against Heaven. When the other princes of Hell learned of his actions, Azzael sent his half-demon child away while he was stripped of his powers and imprisoned in ice (like Lucifer in Dante's Divine Comedy). The child is eventually summoned to Earth in the final months of World War II by the "Mad Monk" Grigori Rasputin on Tarmagant Island, off the coast of Scotland, having been commissioned by the Nazis to change the tide of a losing war ("Project Ragna Rok"). As a direct result of this rite, the child appears on Earth in a fireball at what remains of the ruined Bromwich Church on December 23, 1944, likely guided there by the ghosts of his mother's other children. Proving not to be a devil, in the traditional sense, but a devil-like creature, the child was dubbed "Hellboy" by Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm. Taken by the United States Armed Forces to an Air Force base in New Mexico, Hellboy is raised by Professor Bruttenholm in a normal Catholic home environment, and the United States Army where he is introduced to the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), a private organization dedicated to combating occult threats. Due to the success of his first mission in 1952, Hellboy is granted "honorary human" status by the United Nations and becomes a member of the BPRD as the "world's greatest paranormal investigator". As such, Hellboy interacts regularly with humans, primarily law enforcement officials, the military, Catholic clergy, and various "scholars of the weird", most of whom are not presented as overtly reacting to his strange appearance. During one of his early missions he rescued a young girl named Alice Monaghan, who had been replaced by fairies with a changeling named Gruagach. He also went to Russia and shot out the eye of the witch Baba Yaga. Gruagach and Baba Yaga both held lifelong grudges against Hellboy over these incidents. As an adult, having matured physically within the years yet aging slowly mentally with a teenage mind, Hellboy becomes the primary agent for the BPRD, alongside other human and quasi-human agents that include Kate Corrigan, a professor of folklore at New York University; Abe Sapien, an amphibian humanoid (Ichthyo sapiens); and Liz Sherman, a young pyrokinetic. Things change dramatically for Hellboy during the events of Seed of Destruction when he searches for Professor Bruttenholm after he disappears during an expedition in the Arctic. He finds his adopted father only to witness his death at the hands of a Lovecraftian frog monster. The search takes Hellboy, Abe, and Liz to the Cavendish Hall mansion, which is a trap established by Rasputin to lure Hellboy into an embrace of his own "destiny", with the assistance of Sadu-Hem; one of the 369 spawn of the Ogdru Jahad. Controlled by the spirit of one of the ancestral Cavendish men, Abe impales Rasputin. Liz's firestorm then incinerates Rasputin's body alongside Sadu-Hem's and destroys Cavendish Hall. Soon after, during a visit to Bromwich Church, Hellboy gets a glimpse of his conception 300+ years ago and learns he has two human half-siblings; a nun and a priest whose spirits haunt the church after their deaths, attempting to stop Azzael from claiming Sarah. During the events of Hellboy: Wake the Devil, Hellboy, ostensibly content to return to his life of ignorance, is set back on his journey of self-discovery when a mission for the B.P.R.D leads him to Romania to investigate the theft of an ancient box containing the corpse of Vladimir Giurescu, a Napoleonic officer who was, in fact, a vampire before he was "killed" on the order of a fearful Adolf Hitler. The culprit of the theft is revealed to be Ilsa Haupstein, one of the surviving members of Project Ragna Rok, who was revived from suspended animation and then aided in Giurescu's resurrection. Finding Castle Giurescu after splitting up with the other search groups, Hellboy learns that the source of Giurescu's rebirth is the ancient goddess Hecate. Though Hellboy destroys Hecate's original body by forcing her into the sunlight, he faces her again after Rasputin unintentionally provides her with Ilsa's iron-maid.... Discover the Bruce Barker popular books. 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