Books & Comics
Hellboy Comics 101: A Guide to Mike Mignola’s Horror Universe
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.
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!
You’re reading this article on the Internet. Which means you’ve been on the Internet at least once in the past five years. Which means you know that Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling is an unrepentant, festering transphobe. What started as potentially out-of-context liked tweets has become an extremely in-context catastrophe. The situation escalated into a more and more sinister string of anti-trans screeds and monetary donations to anti-trans causes.
The Harry Potter Revival and Its Challenges
This has unfortunately coincided with the return of all things Harry Potter. Because, whatever the woman’s strengths are as a novel writer, they did not transfer over into the Fantastic Beasts screenplays. Thus, Warner Bros. has bailed on that franchise and is busy resurrecting the original novels for a prestige series. One that couldn’t possibly last the seven seasons (or reportedly 10 years), it would need to tell the story fully.
Avoiding Support for Rowling’s Causes
And, listen. I’m a millennial who grew up on the Potter books and, to a slightly lesser extent, the movies. I get how important they are to a lot of us. They’re an inextricable part of our cultural DNA. It’s OK to feel that way, and it’s even OK to re-engage with those texts. You probably already own them, or know a friend who does. Cracking one open and even enjoying it isn’t a bad thing, and it isn’t putting money in Rowling’s pocket. Money that she would almost certainly give to some organization run by bigots even more heinous than herself.
But you know what would put money in her pocket? Watching that godforsaken HBO show, for one thing. Buying those new illustrated editions, for another. Or listening to those full-cast audiobooks that Michelle Gomez had to issue a statement semi-apologizing for joining.
5 Harry Potter Alternatives for Guilt-Free Reading
It’ll become increasingly difficult to resist the temptation to check out some new cultural artifact strip-mining the Harry Potter canon. However, the moral imperative to protect and affirm our trans siblings is much more important than that temptation. To that end, I have compiled a list. Here are five books/series to scratch that Potter itch without the accompanying Rowling guilt. They’re not ranked by quality, but by how many ways they feel like a suitable replacement for the series. Find the full reading list at the end of the article!
#5 The Sunbearer Duology by Aiden Thomas (2020)
These two novels by trans author Aiden Thomas are only lowest on the list because of their vibe. They draw just as much inspiration from The Hunger Games as they do Percy Jackson & The Olympians. But Percy Jackson was always a readalike for Harry Potter, no matter how much Rick Riordan protests. So there is still a good amount of Potter DNA entwined with this queer adventure duology inspired by Mexican mythology.
These books follow teenage semidioses (for those not familiar with Spanish, “demigods”) participating in a high-stakes competition. High-stakes as in the loser gets sacrificed to the god Sol. It’s got tried-and-true young adult themes of questioning authority, coming of age, and finding love both giddy and marvelously inconvenient.
#4 The Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud (2003-2006)
This trilogy is probably my personal favorite fantasy series that I read as a kid. The story is told from the perspectives of multiple characters, but primarily the sarcastic djinni Bartimaeus. He imbues the trilogy with a sense of fun, even though it covers dark topics including terrorism, propaganda, and authoritarianism. It’s a text about the seduction and danger of politics and power, and it wields those themes extraordinarily well. Like all the best books for youngsters, it doesn’t talk down to them, but it’s not a grim slog either.
However, because of the story being told from the perspective of an ancient demon, it doesn’t necessarily have Potter vibes. That said, it does follow a young boy’s magical education and the hard lessons he learns as he matures. Stroud also builds the foundation of his magical world from real folklore, just like Rowling.
#3 Wizard’s Hall by Jane Yolen (1991)
Wizard’s Hall is in fact such a readalike for Harry Potter that many fans accused Rowling of ripping it off. Jane Yolen and I both disagree with those accusations (Rowling was much more interested in ripping off Tolkien). However, the similarities between the texts should feel like a warm bath to recovering Potter fans.
We’re talking a young man attending a school for wizards. We’re talking said schooling existing in the shadow of a dark sorcerer’s reign of terror. We’re talking school administrators expecting students to battle evils far outside their power. Yolen also provides a compelling and warmly domestic magic system, where names—particularly the names of plants—hold untold power.
#2 The Simon Snow Series by Rainbow Rowell (2015-2021)
Now, this series was literally designed to be a Harry Potter readalike. Simon Snow was born as the Drarry-style fanfiction written by the lead character of Rowell’s 2015 novel Fangirl. However, the three Simon Snow novels are not necessarily meant to be the exact fanfiction written by the character. That said, the first installment does follow the burgeoning love between two antagonistic male students at a magic school. Rowell knows what her readers want.
Does she know how to deliver it, though? Yes and no. Frankly, I wouldn’t recommend this trilogy to fans of romance-forward stories, because I think that angle is weirdly underserved. However, Simon Snow presents a lovely world that does more than just sand the serial numbers off of Hogwarts. Rowell has invented her own linguistics-based magic system, and it is fabulous. It is an unfettered delight to get to go on adventures in this world. The fact that these adventures are viewed through the lens of off-model Potter characters makes it all the better. It’s a perfect nicotine patch for those hooked on Rowling.
#1 Pendragon by D. J. MacHale (2002-2009)
The 10 Pendragon novels have fewer superficial connections to Harry Potter than Simon Snow or Wizard’s Hall. There’s no school of magic, for one thing. Nor is there a “dragons and folklore” vibe in the background. However, this young adult sci-fi fantasy epic is undeniably going to serve Potter fans well. I mean, come on. It follows a young man living a seemingly normal life who learns that he is part of a secret world. The stories mature as the character does, as the stakes get higher and higher. And he has two friends, one male, one female, who help him on his quest. It’ll get the job done, trust me.
This franchise is also the one that switches up its own vibe the most, to its benefit. You see, Bobby Pendragon’s a Traveler, one of the rare few with the power to access other worlds and times. This allows MacHale to present Bobby with an astonishingly wide variety of settings. He draws inspiration from everything. From Tarzan to Tron, from Waterworld to Dune, from George R. R. Martin to Al Capone, Pendragon’s got it all.
Runners-Up: Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde (2002), Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (2004), Spell Bound by F. T. Lukens (2023), The Montague Siblings Series by Mackenzi Lee (2017-2021), Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas (2020)
Other Runners-Up That Are Sci-Fi, So They Were Never Seriously Considered, Even Though They’re Great: The Supernaturalist by Eoin Colfer (2004), The Gone Series by Michael Grant (2008-2013), The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer (2021)
Full Reading List
The Sunbearer Duology by Aiden Thomas
The Sunbearer Trials (2022)
Celestial Monsters (2024)
The Bartimaeus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud
The Amulet of Samarkand (2003)
The Golem’s Eye (2004)
Ptolemy’s Gate (2005)
The Ring of Solomon (2010) – an inessential, but charming, prequel
Wizard’s Hall by Jane Yolen (1991)
The Simon Snow Series by Rainbow Rowell
Carry On (2015)
Wayward Son (2019)
Any Way the Wind Blows (2021)
Pendragon by D. J. MacHale
The Merchant of Death (2001)
The Lost City of Faar (2001)
The Never War (2002)
The Reality Bug (2002)
Black Water (2003)
The Rivers of Zadaa (2005)
The Quillan Games (2006)
The Pilgrims of Rayne (2007)
Raven Rise (2008)
The Soldiers of Halla (2009)
Congrats! If you’re reading this, you’re likely one of the people who saw Superman recently. And that is its own reward. You may have even contributed to its blockbuster opening weekend that raked in $122 million in sales. You’re also, like me, probably itching for the next project in James Gunn’s burgeoning cinematic DC Universe. I imagine this isn’t an article you were expecting to pop up here on Horror Press, but stick with me!
There is still a large slate of DC projects on the horizon, ranging from another season of the wildly popular animated series Creature Commandos, to an even more hotly anticipated Clayface film. Directed by James Watkins and penned by Mike Flanagan, James Gunn himself has said that 2026’s Clayface is going to be a rated-R body horror film so impressive that it would blow his work on Slither out of the water.
So, in the spirit of Clayface getting a horror villain glow up, I’d like to discuss other characters that deserve the horror treatment from DC. Because, with a catalogue rich in characters that can be just as frightening as they are colorful, there’s too much genre film potential here to ignore.
Parasite: A Life Stealing Monster Could Call Back to James Gunn’s Slither
As soon as my friend and I left our screening of Superman, a conversation about what villains we’d like to see in the sequel sprang up. Would we get a regular from Supe’s roster, like Braniac or Zod? Or a deep cut like Silver Banshee or Atomic Skull?
There is one potential antagonist I consider the creepiest of his villains: Parasite. A Superman rogue known for his ability to drain the life and powers out of any living being, most will remember him from Superman: The Animated Series. Or, if you’re like my friend, his particularly freaky portrayal by Adam Baldwin in Young Justice.
It was the talk of Parasite that reminded me of the villain in Gunn’s most iconic horror film, Slither. Michael Rooker’s role as Grant Grant, a leech of an abusive husband whose exposure to alien worms turns him into a much more literal leech, was perfectly nasty inside and out. So why not give Parasite that kind of makeover, and give us the most sadistic version of the character yet?
All I ask is for a rude, “Richard Brake in 31”-type to play him, and some Lifeforce style horror where he sucks the energy out of people until they’re withered husks. Combine that with gruesome full-body makeup to replicate his iconic chemical burned purple skin, and you’ve got gold.
Kryb: The Perfect Green Lantern Villain to Spread Fear Across the Cosmos
I have to give Geoff Johns his credit. The Lantern Corps mega-arc that he weaved into his Green Lantern run throughout the late 2000s was pure genius. I suspect with the upcoming Lanterns series on HBO, we’ll probably be meeting quite a few of his iconic characters from those comics. Atrocitus of the Red Lanterns, Larfleeze of the Orange, Saint Walker of the Blue, they’re all on the table.
But one Lantern Corps has fallen far out of the spotlight. That’s their tried-and-true nemeses: the original “Lanterns but a different color”, The Sinestro Corps. These Yellow Lanterns are supposed to be all about fear, but most writers and artists have lost sight of actually making them terrifying. If the upcoming HBO show Lanterns really does end up evoking the vibes of True Detective as its showrunners have teased, I think they should lean into that inspiration.
The one member that deserves a live action horror portrayal more than any other in this vein is Kryb. An alien witch who steals the children of her victims and keeps them in an organic cage growing out of her back, she feeds off their fear and cries for help. It doesn’t hurt that she already looks like a nightmare creature Javier Botet would portray.
Personally, I would love a massive, grotesque animatronic for Kryb blended with CGI (ala Smile 2’s Entity). She’s a fun route to take when it comes to striking fear in the hearts of Green Lanterns—and the audience.
Scarecrow: I’m Begging For Someone To Please Make Him Frightening Again
I know, I know, obvious pick. “The guy who has fear powers could be scary? How’d you come up with that one?”. But if you’re a Batman comics fan, you know that since around the time of Scott Snyder’s industry defining run on Batman, Scarecrow has been mostly relegated to a bit player on Gotham’s stage. This regrettably happens even in the storylines that should focus on him. I would even argue that his fear gas has become more iconic than he is, but it’s time to change that.
I point towards the platonic ideal of Scarecrows as a way to get him back on track: Jeffrey Combs in season 4 of Batman: The Animated Series. What I wouldn’t give to see Combs voice the character again as he terrorizes Arkham Asylum’s patients and tortures them with their worst fears. Especially with the decayed “hanged man” look that DCAU visionary Bruce Timm penned him in during season 4!
Whether it’s an animated film or a live action, a creative like Scott Derrickson is my pick to handle the character. I want to see a dark director’s vision as Dr. Johnathan Crane drives his “patients” completely mad and makes their nightmares feel real.
Etrigan the Demon: Jack Kirby’s Horror Fantasy Creation Needs an A24 Slant
If you know me in real life, I want to thank you now for letting me rave about how much I love Jack Kirby all the time. Of all his creations, one is so Kirby-esque and so perfect for an overhaul that I knew he had to be on this list from the jump: Etrigan, AKA The Demon.
Etrigan is usually an antihero in the vein of Venom, bound to his unwilling human host Jason Blood. But his stories could be taken in any number of directions, including ones before he was trapped in Blood by Merlin. (Yes, the wizard Merlin, that one.) Obviously, the direction that appeals to me most is making this hulking demon genuinely scary.
Now, a yellow demon that tends to rhyme when he speaks… I admit, on face value, it’s a hard sell. But this is the genre of Wishmaster, people, it’s the genre of Phantasm and Demon Knight! Reviewed that last one by the way, read it here.
There is a long legacy of somewhat silly horror villains who still manage to be thoroughly entertaining and even intimidating. What I would love to see is some bleak fantasy horror set dressing to accompany Etrigan; heavy inspirations from The Green Knight and The VVitch seem like a wise angle to take. It would be great to see Etrigan become a looming force that haunts its enemies as they try and find a way out, only to see death coming closer and closer.
Killer Croc: A Gotham Legend Is a Candyman-esque Villain in Waiting
In the modern vernacular, Killer Croc is a jobber. Which is a shame, because there is a lot of potential for his story that gets squandered when he’s just here to punch and be punched. While his rare mutation gave him all the powers that could have made him a hero, it also gave him the monstrous appearance of a crocodile-human hybrid. He is a character damned from birth. And ultimately, he’s a reflection of Gotham’s social inequity that condemns its citizens’ lives to the gutter.
Outcast and scorned, he became a fixture of Gotham, a boogeyman living in the sewers, and a name everyone in the city fears. In a meta-context, Croc has bounced around from series to series, mainly serving as a big man for any member of the Bat Family to knock down. And that’s fine, I guess, but he could be so much better.
My favorite Killer Croc story comes from J.H. Williams legendary (and criminally cut short) Batwoman run. In it, Croc becomes a minion of Medusa, who uses her mythological magic to make him grow larger and more monstrous the more he’s feared. A horror film with an emphasis on Croc becoming a Candyman-esque legend in Gotham over the years is what I’d like to see. Watching him grow in power as an urban legend over the years, and focusing on the kind of people who would worship and feed him new victims. The chance to actually dissect Killer Croc and make him a complicated monster screams of high potential to bring people to theaters.
Anton Arcane: A Rotten Re-Animator for All Seasons
One of the biggest casualties of the former DC Cinematic Universe’s mismanagement was the superhero horror show Swamp Thing. Due to disagreements between DC and Warner Media, and a snafu involving a promised $40 million tax rebate for shooting in North Carolina, the show was soft cancelled before it was even out of production. It was then hard cancelled a day before its second episode premiered.
Numerous fans called to save the series, but none of the requests to #SaveTheSwampThing were successful. Still, they proved there is still a serious desire to see a horror-oriented Swamp Thing property, if not on streaming than on the big screen.
As much as I love the fully practical work-up they did with actor Kevin Durand for his character Jason Woodrue, there’s one villain I really need to see in live action: Anton Arcane. Whereas Swamp Thing is a “monster” with more humanity than he can sometimes handle, Arcane is the opposite. A human monster with a knack for necromancy, consumed with a desire for corrupting power and immortality. Arcane has persisted as Swamp Thing’s archnemesis for decades for a reason.
Played in the vein of Herbert West, Arcane could be an iconic horror villain in his own right. That doesn’t even account for his Un-Men, undead flesh golems that would feel right at home in Carpenter’s The Thing. The creepy, deformed, and mismatched servants of Arcane provide plenty of opportunities for us to watch undead monstrosities do his dirty work.
Professor Pyg: A Batman Slasher with His Own Iconic Minions
Matt Reeve’s The Batman really set the standard for The Riddler going forward: less demented gameshow host, more John Doe from Seven. Speculation on sequels has shown that there’s a strong desire to see Batman’s more horror themed villains. Enter Professor Pyg.
If you played the videogame Batman: Arkham Knight, you already know him. A scientist of dubious academic standing, this surgeon has permanently fallen to madness. Wearing a chubby cheeked pig mask in and out of his experiments, he was a mainstay of Grant Morrison’s seminal run on Batman and Robin in 2009. Greasy, gag-inducing, and all around off-putting with his scalpels and saws, Pyg is basically already a slasher villain.
But it’s those experiments which serve the most obvious reason as to why we need to see him. He’s best known for creating the Dollotrons, something the game toned down: in the comics, he captures men and women alike and grafts babydoll-esque flesh masks onto their faces to turn them into bubble-headed and brainwashed psychotics.
The Penguin miniseries on HBO was a fun character study of an incredibly messed up character with Oz Cobb. It proved introspection on how these rogues get made can be captivating. But beyond the partially stable villains, I would love to see more of the parts of Gotham that are deeper in the shadows than ever, following the Riddler’s attack. That means showing us the monsters like Pyg that wash up out of the outer darkness when it was flooded. The ones who are too far gone for any sort of normal life.
Animal Man: The Body Horror Superhero We’ve Been Waiting For
My final proposal here is probably the most likely one we’ll get with James Gunn’s new DCU. Knowing the comic book characters Gunn is a fan of, I would not be surprised at all if we got an Animal Man show or movie at some point. He even commented in a recent interview with Seth Meyers that whoever he casts to play Animal Man has to be downright great.
If and when we do get the right actor, we’ll likely get something I and a lot of other horror comics fans have been clamoring for: a true, live action body horror superhero. I am of course talking about an adaptation of the New 52 miniseries, Animal Man: The Hunt. This loose requel to Animal Man, a series made famous by Grant Morrison back in the late 80s and early 90s, was arguably the best project to come out of the New 52 rebrand.
It was chock full of incredible and sometimes revolting art by comics luminary Travel Foreman, who painstakingly penned each panel in his unmistakable (and very bloody) style. The series made for an incredibly interesting dive into the mythos of where the titular hero gets his powers from, courtesy of modern comics legend Jeff Lemire.
When it comes down to who does it, I’d love Alex Garland to take a crack at adapting The Hunt. His work in Annihilation more than proves he can do justice to the trippy narrative. Whether its dealing with eldritch abominations from The Rot, the dimension of flesh and blood that is The Red, or the bone-snapping, gut-rending transformations Animal Man has to go through as he fights to save the life of his daughter Maxine, I trust him to deliver.
Or am I really just waiting and hoping for another moment like the bear scene from Annihilation? If I was, could you blame me?
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