Hellboy vol. 1: Seeds of Destruction.

It is no surprise that I love Hellboy comics. I reviewed some of the latest titles and now I want to write about Hellboy from the very beginning and complete the profiles of the whole series. So I start with the first one, from 1994.

Seed of destruction is the first story and the one that almost ends it all. We can see a prologue that presents Hellboy as a demon child brought to earth by Grigori Rasputin, who is working for the Nazis. But a miscalculation made that Hellboy manifested in the allied camp. There, professor Bruttenholm, takes care of the boy and raises him as a man and as a competent member of the B.P.R.D. the agency related to act against paranormal treats.

In a normal case, Hellboy is in the crime scene were the frog-beasts kills his “step-father”. With the help of Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien (my favourite character in the series) team with Hellboy and travel to Cavendish Hall were the frog-beings could be hidden.

Here we can see all the influences Mignola tried to add to his masterpiece. First, pulp adventure. Our hero is the regular Pulp Hero. Then H. P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror takes the place of an ancient menace to human-kind. Add the spice of urban legends, like Rasputin magic powers, Nazis toying with the unknown, humans possessed by frog-monsters (well, that is not an Urban legend) and, voila, we have a Hellboy adventure. Well, of course, there is more.

Here it is another classic that everybody loves: writer Herman Melville and his Captain Ahab, Ishmael and Elijah, hidden under the name of Elihu Cavendish. He is the hero that directed the hand of Abe at the end of the story.

Hellboy faces Rasputin alone. Liz is under the magician’s power and Abe is possessed by Elihu. We can see a Lovecraft-like forgotten god that is the herald of the seven monsters (all of their names end in Jahad) that are imprisoned and that Hellboy only could free them. That’s the reason of our heroe’s existence. And he doesn’t like it.

After a fight that he almost looses, Hellboy harms Rasputin, his frog-men and Abe impales the magician with Elihu’s harpoon. Liz then wakes up and set to flames Rasputin. The menace is over (at least at the moment), but Hellboy has no opportunity to learn why is he here.

Read more about Hellboy and Seed of Destruction in this fine links:
Official Hellboy webpage.

Wikipedia entry.

Seed of Destruction as could be read in Wikipedia.

Dark Horse Profiles of Seed of Destruction, number one, number two and number three. Plus profile of the first issue.