So by now, I'm sure that you've all rushed out to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army and become enamored with Guillermo Del Toro's imagery (if not his writing). But you may have left the theater wondering, what's the story with Hellboy anyway? That's where we come in. Under the jump, a brief history of Hellboy in comics and the real world.

Depending on who you listen to - us or the "real" world - Hellboy is either a demon summoned to Earth by Nazis towards the end of World War II, or the creation of comic artist Mike Mignola, drawing upon the twin influences of H.P. Lovecraft and Jack Kirby. Either way, when he first appeared in a special preview comic published for 1993's San Diego Comic-Con (co-written at the time by X-Men and Fantastic Four artist John Byrne; Byrne also co-wrote the first series, 1994's Seed of Destruction, before leaving the character to Mignola), he was already fighting demons and working for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), a covert agency (but, unlike the movie version, not a Government agency) keeping the world safe from all manner of beasts and monsters most people don't know about.

The various Hellboy mini-series - Seed of Destruction, Wake The Devil, The Right Hand of Doom (a title taken from a Robert E. Howard story, and just one of the stories centering on the prophecies about Hellboy's role in the end of the world), Box of Evil and Conqueror Worm - were successful enough for Mignola to spin other comics off exploring the Hellboy Universe without its eponymous hero; to date, there have been BPRD, Abe Sapien and Lobster Johnston series, each of which became more important when Mignola decided to switch up Hellboy's status quo in 2002.

Concerned that Hellboy's personal mythology - that, as "Anung un Rama," he was destined to be responsible for an oncoming apocalypse whether a willing participant or otherwise (explained at the climax from the first movie, which pulls plot points from the first three mini-series) - was overwhelming both the character and the stories, Mignola finished Conqueror Worm by having Hellboy resign from BPRD and try to find out more about his origins - something that, according to Mignola, will bring him back to his creative origins:

Hellboy is going in a radically different direction... [T]he character of Hellboy is changing so radically now that—well, I shouldn’t say that his character is changing so much—in that, he’s becoming more involved in the folklore world and because he is in that folklore world, he has less to do, day in and day out, with human affairs all the time. He’s pretty much slipping off the face of the Earth... Hellboy doesn’t really know that much more about ‘where he’s from’ but I think the big change is that he’s stopped the denial; he’s no longer denying what he is—his head isn’t in the sand anymore. He’s not really actively pursuing questions like ‘where do I come from’ but he’s more open to seeing what’s going to happen. Darkness Calls starts Hellboy onto a path where he is literally walking to a crossroads and kind of standing their saying, “Okay, which way do I go?” Once he puts himself in that position—forces kind of take over and he begins this whole new cycle of his life which will go through English and Russian folklore; it’s going to be unlike anything I’ve done in Hellboy so far.

Around this time, Mignola also made the decision to stop drawing the Hellboy series - something done as much through necessity as choice, to hear him describe the reasons:

I’ve gotten slower as I’ve gotten older. I’ve gotten a lot more obsessive about my design—I ran into a lot of trouble with the last two mini-series because I had become so obsessive and I was re-drawing pages; plus, with all the things going on, trying to run the other comics, dealing with the films and stuff like that—it became very clear that I wouldn’t be able to do a Hellboy story of any length and I wanted to do this gigantic arc of a Hellboy story.

It became a question of “do I do this with another artist” or “is this story just never going to get told”—it literally never would’ve gotten done. There was no way I could do a story this size and I didn’t want to compromise; I didn’t want to do a smaller story. I wanted to do this story the way it needed to be done.

The new "regular" artist for the character (Other artists will come and go as needed; Richard Corben and P. Craig Russell have both worked on the character since Mignola left the artist chair) is Englishman Duncan Fegredo (whose earlier work includes the wonderful Enigma for DC Comics), who was relatively happy to be asked:

So Scott [Allie, Hellboy editor] called, said “…Hellboy” and I freaked out a little… quite a lot actually.

Fegredo's first series was Darkness Calls, the start of Mignola's English/Russian folklore sequence which is expected to last four series and answer, once and for all, what Hellboy's place on Earth really is. Possibly.

Me, I think it's enough just to be a giant red joe with a massive right hand, big gun and pretty good sense of humor about all of this stuff.

Mignola’s dark, flat style, which Alan Moore has called "German expressionism meets Jack Kirby," gains its unique power from the use of shadow to define space in each panel. Through these varying shades of darkness color reaches the viewer as if from the bottom of a well. The contrast or frame created by the shadow his use of color unexpectedly rich and deep. What should be murky is sharp. What should be opaque instead illuminates. The flatness is itself deceptive, in that Mignola manages a kind of layering effect that renders both the characters and their actions three-dimensional. All of these effects ran counter—and still to some extent run counter—to traditional wisdom in creating comics.

If Hellboy has become iconic since then it is in part because of this unique quality to the art and in part because Mignola’s imagination in the storylines has been a match for his artistic talent. While the stories work as adventures, and Hellboy himself entertains with his wisecracks, Mignola often mines very strange territory indeed—mixing myths of world creation and destruction with more localized stories of witches and demons into the fabric of a modern world. Using such varied material has allowed him to refine and add nuance to his art.

Now that Hellboy has reached the big screen, Mignola has teamed up with another great visual stylist: Guillermo del Toro, whose vision in movies like Pan’s Labyrinth brings another great tradition—Mexican surrealism—into Hellboy’s world. The result is a unique hybrid vision from two highly imaginative creators.

With Hellboy 2 opening in theaters, we talked briefly to a hyper-busy Mignola about his work...

What science fiction and science fiction artists have influenced your work?
The writing of H.P. Lovecraft and Michael Moorcock...the art of Frank Frazetta and Jack Kirby were my biggest and earliest influences.

What’s your relationship to technology and the modern world? Are there elements you try to put into your work?
I am able to send and get email. I do not love technology. My stories are very low tech...in the entire run of Hellboy I think I've only drawn three cars and none of them were moving!

What projects have been most personal to you, and what are you most proud of?
The Amazing Screw-On Head and the short story The Magician and the Snake.

What are you currently working on?
I'm writing 2 different Hellboy series, The Crooked Man for Richard Corben and The Wild Hunt for Duncan Fregredo and I am writing and drawing In The Chapel of Moloch. I'm also co-ploting the BPRD comics and a few other things!

Many thanks to Mignola and Dark Horse Comics for letting io9 to run a gallery with this feature.

http://www.hellboy.com/

I guess we should start with the only comic featuring the 70-year-old Man of Steel, huh? That would be Superman: Last Son, a hardcover collection of the much-delayed storyline that brought Richard Donner to comics - he co-writes the book alongside Geoff Johns - as well as returned General Zod and the Phantom Zone to current DC continuity. I could tell you more about the story, like the fact that Superman adopts a son, but I know that all you'll really care about is that there's a special 3-D section midway through the book. That Phantom Zone is trippy, man.

Elsewhere in the DC line this week, Superman's oldest rival Captain Marvel gets a new series, with the first issue of kid-targeted Billy Batson And The Magic of Shazam. Less friendly for little tykes, the Dark Knight tie-ins start properly with the first issue of The Joker's Asylum, which makes Heath Ledger's alter-ego into your host as he narrates stories about the other inmates over at Arkham Asylum. Or maybe you want even darker still, with Hellblazer: The Fear Machine collecting some of the earliest stories of magician, former punk and all-round bastard John Constantine from the 1980s, when it was cool to turn yuppies into demons.

More nostalgia comes in the form of the imported Doctor Who: The World Shapers, which brings together the little-seen mid-80s run of Grant Morrison on the British Who comic. On the one hand, yes, it's the Colin Baker Doctor, but on the other, rare Morrison... It's a tough one. Equally tough is Star Trek: Mirror Images, a new mini-series that explores one of the greatest Star Trek concepts ever, the Mirror Universe. IDW's Trek comics have been somewhat hit and miss, so the potential for disappointment here is, sadly, great. But it is the Mirror Universe. I mean, goateed Spock...what could go wrong?

If you're looking for things that will make you much less conflicted, I can heartily recommend the following three books: Boom!'s Station is a murder mystery set on the international space station right as things start to go wrong and it looks like everyone might end up dead. If you liked Greg Rucka's Whiteout, chances are you'll enjoy it. Mike Mignola gets slightly ahead of the movie curve this week with a new Hellboy series, The Crooked Man, illustrated by comics legend Richard Corben. So expect the same great writing and slightly off-putting stumpy figures (I kid because... well, because I can, really. But you'll know what I mean when you pick it up).

Pick of the week, however, is easily Buffy The Vampire Slayer #16, which sees Joss Whedon return as writer, as well as the return of his futuristic slayer, Fray. For everyone who hasn't read the Fray series and wonders why this is a big deal, all I have to say is this: Imagine Faith, but from the far future, and with an even worse attitude. I foresee carnage and futuristic cursing that you can get away with in comics, as well as quite a few battles over that weird scythe that both of them think they own.

As is the case every single week, you can see the complete list of everything hitting comic stores this week here, and find out where your local comic book store is by clicking here. Do it because Clark Kent would want you to.

Written by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola from a story by Mignola and Golden Army director Guillermo Del Toro, the animated six-minute short comes in advance of the movie's July 11th release date. And if you're wondering where the young Hellboy came from, you can always see his origin story.

Hellboy II Animated Comic [Apple.com via /Film]

To find out who wins this fight watch the rest of the clip at Latino Review.

[Latino Review and Mania]

Though Mignola has drawn a million fight scenes for his most famous creation, Hellboy, I think some of his greatest fights can be found elsewhere. I love this action-packed cover Mignola drew for a Lobster Johnson comic because it contains all the most important ingredients of an awesome smackdown: a skeleton, a robot, a disembodied brain, and a scorpion. Really, it doesn't get better than that.

Mignola is also the creator of another brilliantly-named hero, the Amazing Screw-On Head, a robot head who fights giant monsters for President Lincoln in the nineteenth century. The comic, which won an Eisner Award, was made into an animated short featuring the voices of Paul Giamatti (as the Screw-On Head) and David Hyde Pierce (his arch-nemesis Emperor Zombie). Here you can see a great fight from the animated version of the comic book, right after Emperor Zombie raises a monster and the Screw-On Head fights it. Luckily, the Screw-On Head's sidekick Mr. Groin is there to help!

OK, the picture below isn't of a fight, but it demonstrates one of the reasons why Mignola is so great at composing fights. It's a picture of H.P. Lovecraft, his face defined by darkness rather than features. The backgrounds are complicated, murky, and evocative. And then there's the crowning glory, the tentacle snaking out of old H.P.'s pants. That is Mignola all over: a swirl of hyperbolic darkness, punctuated by a carefully-placed joke.

And no celebration of fight scenes would be complete without this great cover that Mignola drew back in 1990, for an Aliens vs. Predator comic book. Teeth! Stabbing! Darkness! Oh, yeah.

Cancel The Ten-Foot, Three-Headed Dog

Much to the dismay of director Del Toro, a few creatures had to be dropped from Hellboy 2 including the ten-foot, three-headed bull dog. "I liked it because he was going to be in the back ground licking himself," said Del Toro. He added that the troll market scene in the new Hellboy 2 will be jam-packed with creatures. So never fear, your scary monster quota will be met. But still Del Toro promised he would post an image of the dog online in the next few weeks.