Although the public believes that the Lobster was only the hero of pulp serials and comics, he was a real man who faced gangsters as well as paranormal threats.

This behavior was similar to the Marvel UK comic book character Night Raven, the Phantom and the pulp magazine hero The Spider.

One of his unsuccessful missions involved the escape of a Nazi criminal in Colorado who destroyed a train full of scientists bound for the Manhattan Project, resulting in the death of his sidekick.

[4] The Lobster's final mission was an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the Nazis from launching a space capsule at Hunte Castle, Austria, on 20 March 1939.

Arriving seconds too late to stop the launch itself, he managed to force the roof of Hunte Castle closed, but the capsule burst through regardless.

Director Tom Manning (in The Conqueror Worm), Lobster Johnson was a fictional character created in the pulp magazines and made briefly popular in a couple of movies such as The Phantom Jungle (Republic, 1945), in which he was portrayed by Vic Williams.

: The Black Goddess trade paperback, in which he recounts childhood memories of seeing "the cut-up and dubbed version of the Mexican Lobster Johnson films!"

The Lobster was instrumental in helping them defeat Rasputin, the Conqueror Worm and Hermann von Klempt, completing in death the mission he had failed to do in life.

[11] When the BPRD finally traced Saa to his base somewhere on the Stanovoy Ridge, the Lobster again took possession of Johann's form in the closing moments of the denouement in an attempt to defeat his old nemesis.

Guillermo del Toro planned to feature Johnson in Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but was cut due to Mike Mignola's wish to remain true to the character's origin.

Del Toro has stated that Johnson would have appeared in the unproduced Hellboy III and expressed interest in casting Bruce Campbell in the role.