Poster art for Hellboy and his signature Right Hand of Doom (fair use)

(12) MIKE MIGNOLA –

HELLBOY (DARK HORSE 1993 – PRESENT)

Dark Horse comic series Hellboy has been popularized by the Guillermo de Toro films (less so by its latest reboot, of which we won’t speak)

But then, what’s not to love about a comic series in which the hero is the literal Beast of the Apocalypse? (Or Anung Um Rama – “upon his brow is set a crown of flame”). Of course, he’s one of the good guys – and humanity’s best hope against hell and other eldritch abominations – because of his human upbringing. His backstory is that he was summoned as an infant demon in the last days of the Second World War to turn the tide of that war in Project Ragna Rok by Nazi occultists, led by none other than Grigori Rasputin – the mad monk turned eldritch abomination himself. I can’t help but feel Rasputin cheated his Nazi patrons if they expected victory for their war, as Rasputin was apparently playing the apocalyptic long game. Fortunately, Rasputin and his Nazi occultists are opposed by the Americans and their nascent Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development, who disrupt the ritual and raise Hellboy as one of their own – as he grows into his full-blown demonic appearance, with horns (which he files down for appearance), hooves, tail and red skin.

Again, what’s not to love about this comic series? Nazi occultists? Rasputin? Secret occult history? Demons and Lovecraftian eldritch abominations, most notably the apocalyptic Ogdru Jahad? And as I said, a series with the Beast of the Apocalypse as hero, fighting his own apocalyptic destiny – embodied in his Right Hand of Doom, the key to the abyss…?