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.).

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.

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.

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.

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.

He frequently carries an oversized revolver, which in the Guillermo del Toro films was named the "Good 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.

The film was directed and co-written by Guillermo del Toro and stars Ron Perlman as Hellboy (the favorite of both del Toro and Mignola for the role), Selma Blair as Liz Sherman, Rupert Evans as FBI Special Agent John Myers (a character created for the film), John Hurt as Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, Doug Jones as Abe Sapien (voiced by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce), Karel Roden as Grigori Rasputin, and Jeffrey Tambor as FBI Senior Special Agent Tom Manning.

The film depicts Hellboy as living at the BPRD with a dozen cats and limited access to the outside world, and considered an urban legend by the general populace.

A sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, was shot in Budapest by Guillermo del Toro and released in 2008, with Perlman and Blair returning.

In the sequel, Hellboy would live his normal life as a father for his two newborn twins with Liz Sherman, but also has to face an extremely powerful enemy who wishes to rule and bring the darkness upon Earth.

However, in July 2019, Perlman said that he would still love to finish the trilogy with del Toro, ignoring the reboot and that he thought it could happen if financing could be found.

[34][35][36] In 2022, Marshall decried the film, calling it the "worst profession experience" of his life due to creative control being taken from him by the producers and that the script was not salvageable, concluding that "there's nothing of me in that movie.

Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Selma Blair (Liz Sherman), Doug Jones (Abe Sapien) and John Hurt (Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm) have all voiced their respective characters.

Christopher Golden has written several novels about the character, the first two of which, The Lost Army and The Bones of Giants, are part of the official Hellboy story canon.

He is brought to the Injustice universe by Brainiac who decides to add him to his collection as he is fascinated by Hellboy's human-like mind and personality despite being a demon.