A well-meaning Cambion (or half-Demon) 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 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).
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.
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".
[3] 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.
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.
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.
Hecate swallows Hellboy and reveals to him his ultimate purpose as destroyer of worlds, but he returns to his own reality after he denounces his supposed destiny.
While the third sister returns to her father's grave, the Bog Roosh explains her plan to completely destroy Hellboy, thereby preventing the apocalypse.
Managing to defeat Baba Yaga's champion Koshchei the Deathless, Hellboy returns to his reality and is led to Bromhead after he became monstrous and in agony from his attempt to take Hecate's powers for his own.
He fights alongside his original companions, Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien, against the rising Sadu Hem and a small group of demons seeking to conquer Earth.
On the surface, the Sadu Hem reign for a short time before the Osiris Club use Hellboy's severed Right Hand of Doom to summon the Ogdru Jahad to Earth and kill it.
Finally, he sees Liz Sherman, somehow still alive, and instructs her to unleash the full brunt of her pyrokinetic abilities, burning down the world.
In the film version, it is stated that Hellboy is immune to all forms of fire and burns, including Liz Sherman's flames, and electrocution.
Curiously in certain instances, the spilling of Hellboy's blood causes lilies to sprout - a supernatural indicator of his true good nature.
This unique property comes into play even at the culmination of Ragnarok, where Hecate spills Hellboy's blood onto the incinerated Earth to breathe life back into it.
The lifespan of a demon (or half-demon, as Hellboy's mother was human) is left undefined within the comics and seems to range from decades to many thousands of years.
In addition to his natural physical abilities, Hellboy keeps a variety of items in his utility belt and jacket that can be used against various supernatural forces.
He frequently carries an oversized revolver, which in the Guillermo del Toro films was named "The Samaritan", and whose construction incorporates iron that had been used to forge a church bell.
Hellboy's lack of formal combat training and education is compensated for by his decades of experience as a paranormal investigator, though encounters with unfamiliar threats have often forced him to resort to improvisation and using his wits.
The comic books themselves never mention how the Right Hand of Doom would actually perform these tasks; they only explain this is the case and someone or something intends to do it, with or without Hellboy's consent.
Hellboy originated in 1991 with a drawing Mike Mignola did for a Great Salt Lake Comic-Con promotional pamphlet of a demon with the name "Hell Boy" written on his belt.
[6] Much like other American comic book superheroes, such as Batman, Wolverine, Iron Man, Daredevil, and Spawn, Hellboy is constantly tormented by the knowledge of his past.
[20] Hellboy travels to an American ghost town, where he encounters a mangy mutt that transforms into Anubis, the Ancient Egyptian god of mummification.
[23] In the story Hellboy battles with the disembodied head of Nazi scientist Herman von Klempt and his puppet henchman Brutus the Gorilla to rescue a captive girl from the doctor's transference of nutrient fluids process.