Welcome back to Horror 101, a series of articles where we explain horror legends and their lore. For beginners, the confused, or just those who need a refresher, these articles are for you.

When editor James Michael said we had free reign here at Horror Press this month, I knew that an article idea I’ve had on the back burner since my very first days writing here had to finally be realized. And thanks to Hellboy: The Crooked Man getting a widespread streaming release on Hulu, there’s no better time to talk about him.

If you’ve been paying attention to my articles, you know I’m a big fan of horror comics, and weird superhero stuff. And when it comes to perfect horror comics, no one even holds a candle in terms of success to Hellboy and the Mignolaverse. Created by writer, artist, and all-around media luminary Mike Mignola, the character of Hellboy has become a household name. A half-devil who fights against demonic forces and makes friends with monsters and misfits across the globe, most people know who he is without even picking up a single issue thanks to Guillermo Del Toro’s whimsical and action-packed movies Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

But I think that’s a shame, because every horror fan should try to read at least one Hellboy comic. I think a good chunk of you will find you don’t just like Hellboy in passing, you love the character. He’s charming, fun, tragic, deeply human in a way that is hard not to sympathize with, and philosophically fascinating. So today, intrepid Horror Press Reader, here is a crash course on getting into Hellboy comics. Beginning with some of the lore to pull you in and then handing you a reading order so you can start your Hellboy journey.

So, let’s dive through the Abyss, into the depths of Pandemonium, to ask where it all starts.

Spoilers ahead for Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Hellboy in Hell, and plenty of other series.

WHAT ARE THE OGDRU JAHAD?

Like all good stories, it all really begins with a severed hand. And that iconic, rocky red fist of Hellboy’s is the Right Hand of Doom. To get into what it is, we have to go back to the origin of all things.

Watcher spirits were among the first beings on Earth, primordial titans sent to shepherd the planet by God. But one of them, Anum, attempted in his folly to give life to a creature of his own design using power he stole from his maker. What resulted was a great seven-headed dragon known as the Ogdru Jahad; seven chaos gods in one, the beasts were filled with darkness itself.

It began to populate the Earth with its offspring by the night it brought with it, flooding Earth with titanic eldritch horrors known as the Ogdru Hem. Not only were the Ogdru Hem prolific, many of them began creating their own offspring; the most common of which were “The Frogs”, amphibian monsters that spread by infecting living beings. 

WHAT IS THE RIGHT HAND OF DOOM?

The horrified Watchers tried to kill and imprison as many Ogdru Hem as they could, while Anum sealed away the Ogdru Jahad. In the ensuing battle between the Watchers and Anum, Anum’s arm was severed, and he was killed. An angered God then sent the Watchers who made the monsters and killed Anum into the abyss; The Ogdru Jahad were trapped in a massive crystalline prison in outer space, while the Ogdru Hem were stripped of physical form or imprisoned under the earth. God’s remaining loyal Watchers became the first humans, the Hyperboreans.

As for Anum’s arm…that became the Right Hand of Doom. Because it was Anum’s hand that made the Ogdru Jahad, they could only be freed by that same hand. The limb calcified into its large, rocky shape, and soon stood as an artifact heralding a time when the Ogdru Jahad would escape.

WHO IS HELLBOY?

After the Watchers who killed Anum were sent into the abyss, more Watchers were made to serve Hyperborean humans as their guardians and servants—angels. These angels fell, and in a very Paradise Lost way, were reunited with their brothers in an actual physical realm within the Abyss, which came to be Hell.

Not just an infinite, purely metaphysical hell, but a sprawling domain out of time with defined boundaries and territories; its borders are impassable mountains and infinitely tall forests. These territories were divided up by the watchers turned demons into sorts of feudal kingdoms, resulting in the royal system of Dukes, Marquis, Princes, and Kings of Hell who oversaw armies hoping to one day escape and reign on Earth again.

Rewinding to the severed limb of Anum, it found its way into the possession of a demon named Azzael, a duke of Hell. Azzael, understanding how immensely powerful a hand that created chaos gods was, decided he would use the limb to shatter the boundary between Earth and Hell, allowing him to take control of both realms. But to do so, he had to graft it onto his favorite child: Anung Un Rama, the half-demon half-human we know as Hellboy.

When the other lords of Hell realized Azzael’s victory was at hand (pun very intended), they brought the hammer down on him and attempted to kill both him and Hellboy. Azzael cut off Hellboy’s arm, replaced it with the Right Hand of Doom, and banished Hellboy, hoping he’d return one day to free his father and conquer Earth and Hell.

WHY IS GREGORI RASPUTIN IN THE HELLBOY COMICS?

As Azzael created his minion in Hellboy, the Ogdru Jahad then made their own disciple to achieve their goals. They chose to empower the sorcerer and actual Russian historical figure Gregori Rasputin.

In the Hellboy universe, Rasputin wasn’t just an everyday mystic who kept getting up after failed murders; he had made a deal with the mythological Baba Yaga to grant him a measure of immortality. Touched by death and darkness, the Jahad gave him a new mission: retrieve the Right Hand of Doom to unlock his dark gods’ prison and bring about the apocalypse.

Rasputin, now truly undying and twice as nasty, allied himself with a contingent of occultist Nazis to gain the resources and manpower to summon Hellboy. Thrown through time and space by his father and pulled to Earth by Rasputin’s Project Ragna Rok machines, Hellboy landed on an island in Scotland in December of 1944 in a fiery explosion.

WHAT IS THE B.P.R.D.?

He was rescued from the clutches of Rasputin by his adoptive father, Trevor Bruttenholm, a paranormal investigator hired by President Roosevelt to stop the Nazis from acquiring occult artifacts and taking over the world. After this incident, Bruttenholm, now acutely aware of Hellboy’s summoning and the danger his power posed, formed the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development.

The B.P.R.D. entered a decades-long war against the fascist monsters who were now trying to use literal monsters to take over. This meant stopping vampires, werewolves, demons, ghosts, and homunculi (and of course, punching lots of Nazis, which is a thing the Hellboy comics love to do and something you love to see).

Soon after, the B.P.R.D. began training Hellboy to fight the supernatural battles normal field agents couldn’t, arming him with occult knowledge and pairing him with other “monstrous” assets like Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien. All the while, Hellboy is haunted by a myriad of dark visions and darker portents: of an apocalypse yet to come, where he embraces his demonic half fully, and razes the world in fire and blood. Can he fight against the inexorable path of prophecy, or will he become the monster everyone wants him to be?

And more importantly, will he ever get that paprika chicken he wanted so badly?

WHO ARE THE HEROES OF THE HELLBOY COMICS?

Of course, we have our more well-known supporting cast that have made cinematic appearances. At the front of the roster are Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien, best friends in the B.P.R.D. brought together by traumatic pasts and their own inconvenient supernatural abilities. And who could forget the lovable Johann Kraus, with his ectoplasm form bound to a mechanical suit from Hellboy II: The Golden Army?

(And if you watched the really terrible Hellboy (2019), you know about Alice and Benjamin Daimio! You remember him right? The werejaguar? I promise he’s cooler in the comics.)

Whereas the origins of their powers are handwaved in the movies, the comics do a lot to develop the mysterious source of many of these characters’ abilities. Eventually, we learn Liz’s pyrokinesis comes from channeling a primal force of energy— Vril, the energy of creation, older than fire itself, and what Anum used to make the Ogdru Jahad. Abe, on the other hand, is an amphibious member of the species icthyo sapien, whose origins are tied to a bizarre cult called the Oannes Society, preparing humanity for the apocalypse through the use of super science.

But there’s also a host of other lovable characters roaming the B.P.R.D. that never made it to the films. Roger the Homunculus, one of Hellboy’s earliest allies, was originally an enemy woken from his slumber when Liz’s powers accidentally went into him and woke him up. Occult scholar Kate Corrigan gives the brunt of the exposition in the comics on the monster of the week Hellboy is fighting but also has a pretty fun rapport with Horn-Head himself.

Maybe the two most underrated protagonists of the comics, however, are my personal favorites: Panya, a still living mummy whose sweet old lady persona covers the fact she has more esoteric knowledge than she’s letting on, and Agent Ted Howards, a standard B.P.R.D. field agent who picks up an ancient Hyperborean sword which grants him the memories and powers of a prehistoric king (in a very blatant nod to Conan the Barbarian and his author, Robert E. Howard).

WHO ARE THE VILLAINS OF THE HELLBOY COMICS?

Of course, there’s the big dog of the Hellboy universe, Hellboy’s conjurer and archrival Rasputin. The mad sorcerer and most powerful scion of the Ogdru Jahad, as seen in the first Hellboy movie, is a pivotal character throughout the comics from beginning to end. But did you know his cohorts are much different in the comics? Ruprecht Kroenen, for instance, is not a mute clockwork ninja assassin who dies in combat, but rather an undead foppish SS officer whose commitment to Rasputin fluctuates throughout the series.

He’s also got a bromance going on with a man named Herman von Klempt, a disembodied head in a jar who uses cyborg gorillas as his servants.

As a matter of fact, Ilsa, Kroenen, and most of Rasputin’s cohorts are taken out of a cryogenic freeze by a group absent in the films, The Zinco Corporation. The CEO of Zinco, Landis Pope, is eventually rewarded for his cooperation with Rasputin by being transformed into a living being of shadow and fire known as The Black Flame. Though Rasputin is touched by the power of Ogdru Jahad and serves them, Pope was bathed in it completely; exposure to the totality of their power doesn’t just make him incredibly strong, it changes his mind irrevocably.

I should also mention my two favorite villains here as I did with my favorite heroes: Hecate, and Koshchei the Deathless. Hecate, the goddess of witches, is maybe the most mysterious antagonist of all the comics, and the payoff for her encounters with Hellboy throughout the series is perfect. Koshchei is a villain who was only barely teased at the ending of the abysmal 2019 Hellboy reboot film, but in the comics serves as a recurring antagonist and is incredibly hype even as a minor player.

He even got his own Koshchei in Hell miniseries, which is a follow-up to Hellboy in Hell! It slaps!

HOW DO I START READING HELLBOY COMICS?

Okay, now that I’ve got you hooked on all these awesome characters and lore, you might want to know how to start reading these comics. Is it easy?

Easier than you’d think, but harder than you’d hope. And that’s okay.

If you want the whole story of Hellboy, the B.P.R.D., and the apocalyptic finale all of those ominous visions the comics give us, you have to read a LOT of non-Hellboy titles. The grand overarching story of Hellboy is contained principally in 7 different series. And as much as I love the Hellboy comics, reading them blind is like traversing an Overlook-sized hedge maze. They jump around in characters and time often. Sometimes, minor characters from short stories or side series cause significant reverberations through the main Hellboy comics.

But the thing is, the struggle is worth it. And thanks to the thousands of dedicated Hellboy fans who congregate to dissect, discuss, and reminisce on the comics regularly, the path through has been made easier. So, this is my best attempt at making it even more digestible for you! Please note that the following is a heavily chopped and reordered version of the best reading order around, the 2023 Mignolaversity reading order written by the incomparable Mark Tweedale. He’s a prominent figure in the Hellboy fan community who illuminates the weaving and wacky timeline of the comics, and I’m endlessly grateful to him for doing so. This edited version is just the order I find the most approachable.

So, consider this the Official Horror Press Hellboy Reading Order!

We’re approaching this in trade paperback format, which means collections of issues reprinted and bound in big books, no single issue hunting out here. Omnibus Volumes are the key to not going crazy.

First, you’re going to read Hellboy Omnibus Volumes 1 & 2, and then Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories Volumes 1 & 2. After this, read B.P.R.D. Omnibus Volumes 1 through 4. This is the beginning of everything, the quintessential Hellboy, and it contains the entire Plague of Frogs story cycle, which is the beginning of the end as everything gets progressively worse and froggier for our intrepid heroes.

Then, read Hellboy Omnibus Volumes 3 & 4. With Volume 4 comes the end of Hellboy-specific comics for a while as Big Red takes a backseat, with much of the focus shifting to the supporting cast dealing with an unfolding apocalypse on Earth (hence, B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth). Fans of Liz Sherman and Johann Kraus from the movies are going to have an amazing time reading all of the BPRD stuff!

And then will probably cry really hard!

As an intermission of sorts, read B.P.R.D.: Being Human. It develops a lot of the characters in flashbacks, and after Hellboy in Hell will probably comfort you, given Being Human is one of the last times we see the whole B.P.R.D. crew not completely suffering.

Next you’ll read, in this exact order:
Abe Sapien: The Drowning and Other Stories
B.P.R.D. Omnibus Volumes 5, 6, & 7
Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible Volume 1
B.P.R.D: Omnibus Volume 8
Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible Volume 2
and B.P.R.D.: Omnibus Volume 9.

I know the above seems needlessly complicated at a glance, but I was genuinely lost the first time reading the final issues of B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know because I had skipped out on all of the Abe Sapien content, making the very final pages of the entire series very confusing!

Speaking of which, finally, watch all of these series come together and meet their grisly, fiery, explosive end times finale with B.P.R.D. Omnibus Volume 10, which collects B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know, the final Hellboy and B.P.R.D. series.

Then, optionally, as an epilogue to the entire series, you can read the following three in order: reread Hellboy in Mexico from The Complete Short Stories, then read Frankenstein: Underground and Frankenstein: New World. Once all of this is done…you’re free! You can read any and all of the remaining short stories and miniseries. Hellboy: Weird Tales, Young Hellboy, Giant Robot Hellboy, Sir Edward Grey Witchfinder, Sledgehammer 44, Lobster Johnson, the world is your oyster!

I highly recommend you check out Hellboy in Love, it’s a sweet miniseries for that big red gorilla. And if you like Panya, be sure to check out Panya: The Mummy’s Curse!

WHAT? THAT’S LIKE A MILLION COMICS, I CAN’T AFFORD THAT!

Look, Hellboy comics aren’t free, and if you were to collect all of them at once, it would be very expensive. But the series has so much content you can be reading it for years. You don’t have to purchase it all at once, and because of how popular these comics are, chances of it going out of print are incredibly low.

On top of that, physical copies often go on sale for as low as half off—at the time of writing this, Hellboy Omnibus Edition Volumes 1-4 are on sale in a box set for 55 dollars on Amazon. That’s about a dollar an issue. It’s a steal. This is of course ignoring digital copies, which are even cheaper most of the time, but I’m a physical comics purist so I have to tell you about the cold, hard trade paperbacks.

That being said, if you still just want the essence of Hellboy, the core heart of those comics, you can stick to reading Hellboy Omnibus Edition Volumes 1-4, and The Complete Short Stories collections. It has a bit of a happier ending if you close out with Hellboy in Hell, but I think you’ll be doing yourself a major disservice by not reading through the True Ending route.

And if you just want to read one comic, Seed of Destruction is great. There’s a reason it made so many fans: it’s a solid piece of art, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find better stories.

Whatever path you take in your Hellboy comics journey, I wish you good luck. Happy reading, horror fans!