Comic Vs. Movie: Hellboy

New Debut series

Greetings my loyalist,

There’s this thing I’ve been wanting to do in video format, but again, I struggle with videos for a variety of reasons. That’s not to say it will never be a video, but for now, I’ll be doing it via this lovely substack post! What is this thing you’re dying to know? Well just look at the title.

I am wanting to do a series called Comic vs. Movie where I deliberate my brief opinions on popular pop culture media (UHG!) with the comic format against the movie counterpart.

So without further adieu, Hellboy.

The Comic

Hellboy is a comic by Mike Mignola about a demon accidentally brought to our world at a young age during WWII. He is then adopted and grows into a middle aged man demon answering the call for all that is top secret paranormal.

There’s a bit more in between but all you need to know is that he was destined as a the destroyer of earth. Anung Un Rama. But from his upbringing, he collided with his destiny in a long contested journey.

As a comic, there is a lot to love. Obviously, much like a novel, there is a lot more story that can be covered with ink and paper, unlike a two hour movie. So you get a much greater understanding of how Hellboy feels knowing his destiny. Everything feels much more genuine and natural. The humor, the action, and the characters. Mingola also has a fantastic aesthetic with his work, and I mean this in a couple of different ways. The dynamic simplicity of his page lay outs and composition to name a few. Definitely rule breaking to some, but charmingly broken characters set nicely on the mostly gothic, black, and textured backgrounds. Mignola did a great job cementing his style, because there’s really nothing like it.

So because you have a better sense of the world, it becomes much more apparent how Hellboy sees and carries himself. You see him facing his destiny with clinking bottles, side quests, rising rivalries, and disparate relationships. He was never entirely focused on a love interest unlike the movie counterparts. He cracked jokes, but the humor in Hellboy came from his situations and other characters rather than winking quips. Hellboy would drop one liners, but also ask questions, and in many cases have some sense of empathy for his enemy because they were often just like him, just not running from their foretold paths; That is if they didn’t come out swinging. So you had to read with some anticipation that he was going to face his destiny, and that it was not pleasant. Still, if he had a gun, good, if not, great. The big iron on his fist was all he needed and he was going to face those that threatened a world he had come to call home.

Another interesting thing is he never cursed. Hellboy often said “crap,” and “oh jeeze”. Maybe an “ass” or “bitch” got out every now and then. Still, it was just not present. Now I don’t know if this was for publishing reasons or restrictions, but as a person that went into the movies first and comics later, I just imagined he had a big potty mouth for canon! Though, he doesn’t, and I think that’s important. This little bit is like an unspoken rejection of his demonic ego. I don’t think it’s ever pointed out, and all the better for it. But he wants to be as least like his outward portrayal as possible, even his words. The omission was rejection.

Now I understand there are probably many different variations of Hellboy in the comic book world, but I am only going off the main storyline by Mignola here. This is his character with a completed story and vision of Hellboy, so I find that to be closest to heart for this discussion. So maybe there are cursing, big barrel gun loving versions of Hellboy, but they’re not relevant to this article.

The Movie(s)

So how do I think the comics held up to the movies? Well let me first say there are three movie versions of Hellboy out at the time of writing this. The Del Toro movies (2004 - 2008), the Niel Marshall movie (2019), and the Brian Taylor movie (2024). So i’m going to go from most recent to the earliest release, because I have very little to say about the recent adaptations.

2024 Hellboy: The Crooked Man

So, starting with the 2024 Brian Taylor movie starring Jack Kesy. I have to say, I lost interest in this movie about a third of the way in and never picked it back up. So the review on this one would be scant and incomplete, but there are several reasons I never bothered to finish it. For one, the effects were atrocious. I mean they were revoltingly bad. Anytime I was close to getting into the moment, a terrible effect would take me right out and it just goes to show how frequent it is. It’s one thing to not get the spider right, but it’s another to completely jack up the train! Like that should be so unnoticeable and mundanely apart of the setting, but it isn’t. It’s CGI at Karaoke night Another thing was this portrayal of Hellboy. I watched this shortly after reading a few of the comics, and I just could not route my brain to think this was even Hellboy. In the comic he smokes a lot, but oh my god, it was every cut it seemed like Jack was firing up another cigarette and eating it. As mentioned earlier, it felt like they really wanted to make this feel grittier, I mean it was shot with horror in mind, so they amped up the cursing. You already read what I mentioned about the cursing, but it now felt cartoonish-ly forced, and I can’t fathom that Mr.Taylor had ever read a Hellboy issue in his life before making this movie. Alright, so that was a bit more than I expected to write.

2019 Hellboy

Alright, 2019, the Niel Marshall Hellboy comes out starring David Harbour. Keep in mind at this point I had never read the comic. For whatever reason, I went into this one thinking it was supposed to reflect the comics more accurately than the Del Toro’s version. I’m really unsure where I got this notion. Perhaps it was rhetoric I was hearing from others, but that was far from the truth. Yes, there were settings, characters, and stories that were reflected from the books, but it was very haphazardly put together. Some more of the obvious flaws being the very harsh special effects, the forced swearing, and strange writing decisions with too much going on. But the most egregious was inserted campy-ness. Hellboy has some things in it that are certainly campy and strange, but it was befitting of a comic book world and didn’t feel shoehorned. This movie really makes Hellboy feel so un-serious. Like yes, Hellboy never really feels threatened by his oppositions, but it’s more like he’s testing the villains if they can kill him, a destined prophecy, not because they don’t pose a real danger. However, all the real danger in this movie is overshadowed by what seems utterly goofy.

Now, I want to talk a little more about this version of Hellboy specifically. This came out as Stranger Things was amidst a peak. David Harbour was beloved, and honestly quite a fitting actor for someone like Hellboy. All things considered, he made a great Hellboy. He’s a good actor, and not a far cry from Ron. However, the writing, the make-up, and everything surrounding this version of Hellboy was so strangely chosen and bad, David’s performance couldn’t recover what happened to the character. Not to mention, every movie iteration is bound by the 2004 release, and that version of Hellboy. So let’s get into it.

2004 Hellboy and 2008 Hellboy: The Golden Army

The Gold Standard. The pinnacle. 2004 Del Toro’s Hellboy was released with high praise from most. This movie was a fantastic watch for those super hero enthralled kids and adults. Just an instant classic. I figure this is due to one reason: it was made with Hellboy lovers and movie goers in mind. This movie blended the best of both worlds. It was dark, cool, funny, and digestible while staying true to the comics as best it could. So let me get into what it did right.

As I mentioned earlier, Mignola’s style is very significant to Hellboy. The pages and panels were composed with swaths of black areas. Well, in Hellboy 2004, that’s exactly what they achieved. And maybe it just aligned with that Batman and era style of filming, but it was a match made in heaven. Very well composed shots with dark areas and single mood colors. And something you notice while reading Hellboy is that he stands out in every single shot. Hellboy’s red would not be cloaked and mixed with other hues, and the movie did this to great affect as well. There was also a blend of CGI and practical effects, and they hold up fairly well, much better than the proceeding two anyway.

Most of all, Ron Pearlman’s Hellboy is almost spot on. He’s got the voice and line delivery, the jaw, the build, and the experience. Ron did a phenomenal job as Hellboy. There’s just a couple of things about his Hellboy that I don’t find to be the comic book portrayal. I want to clarify, this is not a bad thing. You have to understand that movies are just a different medium, and they require different methods. At any rate, Ron’s Hellboy had too much charisma, I think. He was a bit quippy and less dour than what you find in the pages. His internal conflict felt lost because of this. Another couple of smaller issues I had and this is less of a Ron problem and more of a studio problem, but the comics don’t say anything about Hellboy loving cats nor do they emphasize his love of big firepower. Maybe he got a bigger gun for being a bigger beast, but he often lost his weapons during fights. And again maybe the movie wanted to hasten some resonance with him as a character. (Note: I don’t think he hated cats, right, but he didn’t have a secret cat hive. Not one that I remember. The cat thing was also dropped pretty fast.) This does not subtract from Ron’s Hellboy, though. He really did have a Hellboy soul.

As for the second movie, Hellboy: The Golden Army, it stepped much further into the surreal and a little campy. It did still feel like the same Hellboy and a continuation. It has been a long time sense I watched this movie, but my 13 year old brain still thinks of it fondly. I won’t speak on it too much, but I really enjoyed those fists colliding with the cave troll that I think was supposed to be a Gruagach stand-in.

Final Thoughts

I want everyone to go out and get a Mike Mignola Hellboy ominibus. There’s just nothing like it. The great thing is, the main story is just four omnibus chapters that end. As for the movies, there’s no question the 2004 Hellboy is the best version, and, frankly, I don’t think there will be another one that will dethrone it.

So thank you so much for reading.
And let me know in these comments what you think of Hellboy; comic, movies, or otherwise.