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Brigham Asman

Writing 1010

Erin Rogers

12/2/2018

A Change in Hell

As many people may know, comic books and superhero movies are kind of the buzz as

of the past 6 to 8 years. Marvel and DC are currently the kings of the of the movie industry and

the comic industry and rightfully so. Funny characters, lots of character development in the

origin movies, a decent plot, and wonderful acting. But sometimes marvel doesn’t stick to the

hero’s actual origin story and alters it for a smoother running film adaptation. And technically,

Marvel has a Nazi punching superhero, but he’s not from hell. Enter Dark Horse comics writer

Mike Mignola with the idea for a monster who’s known for monster slaying, Nazi socking man

from hell: HellBoy. Hellboy has both comic book adaptations, as written by Mike Mignola. And a

couple of his own movies, as directed by Guillermo Del Toro. However, the character for Hellboy

differs greatly when compared to his comic books and his film adaptations, and he is likely to

change some more for the new movie coming out in 2019. The way that he differs in the comics

to the movie is just by the way he acts, how he interacts with other characters, and the way that

he takes on his foes.

There was once a group of Nazis who tried to take over the world by overrunning earth

with hells army, but they were intercepted by the Allied forces. But something did come out of

that portal, and was cared for by Christian Professor Trevor Bruttenholm who named the demon

child Hellboy. A very fitting name indeed. But this child would grow up fighting monsters,

demons, Nazis, the living dead, and so many more. And he did all of it with pleasure. In the

comic books, Hellboy is a demon who would punch a nazi and dance with the dead just for fun.
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He is a tall, very well built red guy with grounded down horns who has been blessed with the

“Right hand of doom”. His hand is basically a rock with appendages that he uses to bash his

foes heads in with. Hellboy could be considered one of those characters who is a hero, not a

monster. Though in the comics, he is depicted to be a monster in the reality that he his in, so

he’s forced into hiding and can only take care people and the world at night and everyone who

works with him has to be quiet about it. The only reasons he is depicted as a monster by the

people is because of his physical features and the fact that there might be some minor to major

destruction and damage to the area of which a fight occurs, but in what the people don’t see, is

that he is just a big softy. In the comic books, when he is back at home, he has a room full of

tvs, and kittens. How is that relevant? Well, would a monster take in cats off the streets and care

for them and have a caretaker for those cats? Probably not. In the comics, if he’s mid fight and

there are innocent bystanders, he focuses on getting them out first while distracting his

opponent while everyone else escapes safely. If there is any other innocent living being in the

arena, then he is going to help them get out, just to forsake his true name and show people that

he isn’t what they all think he is.

Everyone knows that film adaptations of books are never as good as the actual books,

and unfortunately, it’s the same way with some comics, such as Hellboy. The Guillermo Del

Toro film adaptation of Hellboy was a decent movie, and the second Hellboy; Hellboy and the

Golden Army, was just awful.When compared to the comic books, the first movie was definitely

close enough to being an origin story for a series of movies that would taint Hellboy’s name.

Seeing as some movie adaptations completely mess up the origin, Venom, take a look at

yourself. The way that the first Hellboy movie introduced Hellboy was on an island, nazis

making a portal, and introduced and killed off Grigori Rasputin (a recurring character in the

franchise) and then they found Hellboy. Thats a decent origin story. But what they changed
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about him were some of his biggest attributes. They made him a PG-13 character when he is a

very R rated character. He is not vulgar and doesn’t use the big swears. Those larger more

aggressive words add quite a bit to his character, like just how fed up he is with Samael “The

Ancient One”. Enter scene: Hellboy and his team need to investigate an alarm that is potentially

paranormal and what he finds is an ancient being who is similar to that of a hydra, but cannot be

killed easily. So he fires a few rounds into him and when he thinks it’s all said and done, Abe

Sapien (blue fish guy) tells him that he resurrects. And this is one of the first times we expect

him to slip up and say something really bad, but he just turns around, sighs, and says “Oh crap”.

Another thing that they changed about his character is how he interacts with the dead or

monsters in general. In the comics, he would dance with the dead, slay anything that got in his

way, and use his right hand of doom for the smallest tasks. But in the movie, he depends on his

firearms and his knowledge, not his hands. Moving on to the second movie, the character is

portrayed in a semi serious sense, but not as serious as he should be. In the comics, he is

portrayed as a monster with a very dry sense of humor, but in the second movie, the writers and

producers tried too hard to make him funny. Some of the action scenes in the movies also

seemed really badly done with a very clunky fighting style between all characters and not just

Hellboy, as he’s stated, he works alone. But they also tried throwing in poorly timed jokes while

the foe is stunned, opening up “Red” to a hit that brings him down in seconds. This is best seen

in the fight in the underground monster black market when Hellboy and friends are looking for

the leader of the Golden Army, but get stopped because of a minor miscommunication with a

random monster. They hash it out for a second, and when it seems like Hellboy has won the

fight, he gets a right hook and is brought to the ground instantly. All because of a poorly timed

joke. The writers clearly wanted the movie to be funny in a sense, but Hellboy is dead serious in

a fight.
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Now as people may have heard at this point, there is a Hellboy 3 coming out as a reboot

in the first quarter of 2019. According to IMDb and other movie articles, this Hellboy reboot is

going to be going back to Hellboy’s original roots. People were expecting this seeing as Mike

Mignola is the lead writer for the movie, he also wrote the original comics. Hellboy will be played

by Stranger Things David Harbour and will be produced by Neil Marshall, best known for the tv

series Hannibal and West World. With these three people on the set of Hellboy to resurrect the

forgotten character, like Samael, it is safe to say that Hellboy will be himself in the movie as he

is in the comics. Reasons being: original writer, passionate actor, and decent director. Mike

Mignola definitely won’t want to taint his most popular characters name in a movie that he wrote,

and he will likely have the character as close to the comics as he can. David Harbour is known

to put all that he’s got into his roles and really take on their personas, the thing with Hellboy, is

that he is very similar to Officer Hopp in Stranger Things. He is not a happy man, he has a very

dry sense of humor, he is all about business, and he doesn't smile. Just with those two people

alone practically make the movie a good movie. So coming back to how the character will

change again, judging just by the speculated rating of the movie, R, he will definitely change

from how he was in the previous movies. He won’t stick in poorly timed jokes, he will be all

business, and he will be vulgar. So just out of those descriptions, its safe to say that the

character Hellboy will likely return to his original roots.

Hellboy is a well known “monster” in the comic and cinematic world, even though he is a

good guy who fights for the well being of the people. In the comic books, he seemed to be more

focused on getting the job done and dealing with the consequences later. He also had a very

dry sense of humor and was much more serious. As compared to the movies, he wasn’t too

different in the first movie except for the way he handles his adversaries. But In Hellboy 2: The

Golden Army, thats where they made the made the most changes to kind of act as character
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development, but it only wounded the character. In the upcoming film, it is speculated that he

will be going back to his comic book roots with how he acts, fights, and handles everything else

outside of monsters and nazis. So give some love and credit to Mike Mignola for making one of

the coolest superheros who the people only see as a monster.