Hellboy

6'9". 350 lbs.

Black hair, red skin, golden eyes, stone hand.

LIKES: The look of Liz in the golden light of dusk. The look of Liz in the morning. The look of Liz from a distance. The look of Liz nearby. Her voice, her smell, her clothes, her skin... having her fall asleep in his shoulder, well, you get the idea. He looks up to Professor Broom but feels like James Dean in EAST OF EDEN. He adores beer, pizza, chili, nachos, pumping iron, a good cigar, a bad cigar, traveling, cats, candy -especially Baby Ruth- old UPA cartoons, old fleischer cartoons, Polaro id photos -Liz taught him that- Zippo's -he collects them- Ding-Dongs and Twinkies, cookies and milk, greasy burgers and hot dogs, shaving his horns. He is easily amused by flatulence -thinks DUMB AND DUMBER is a masterpiece- and loves to bawl with B&W movies -especially Chaplin's CITY LIGHTS and BRIEF ENCOUNTER. Beating the crap out of monsters. Getting his coat fixed and ready. His big, bad gun "The Samaritan," its bullets. Bruce Willis. Tom Waits, Nick Cave, The Pixar movies -thinks that MONSTERS Inc is a better name for the BPRD -Abe takes offence- and watching TOY STORY 1 and 2 with Liz makes for a perfect afternoon. Loves the 3 Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton.

DISLIKES: Vegetables -especially beets- oysters, jalapeno peppers, salads, Yanni, Charlotte Church, People Magazine, The Enquirer, Photographers, Abe burping -those damn eggs are nasty- or getting sanctimonious. Thinking of his origin, learning about it. People staring at his forehe ad. Being locked for more than 4 months without an "outing." Being called a demon.

BIOGRAPHY: To understand Hellboy one has to know a bit about his family. His real family, that is.

His Mother was born 1681. Her name was Catherine Tanner-Tremaine and was born in East Bromwich, England. A rich heiress to a Tobacco merchant, she studied harpsichord and singing and was adept at most feminine arts. Her parents died when she turned 19 and for the longest time, she lived alone in her palatial home, reading and painting.

Immersed in German literature, she dreamt of spirits and magic. Cautiously, she acquired texts and memoirs from her London Bookseller and eventually came to own an important collection of magic artifacts and lore -including Dr. John Dee's fabled magical box- and displayed them in her private library/study. She summoned a high-ranking Demon and willingly found intimacy with him. This was both the highest and the most terrifying mom ent in her life.

She was a changed woman, her soul had probed darkness and its acrid aftertaste made the rest of her life a road of repentance. But Sin has its own ways of staying and in spite of her charity and her pious Marriage to a minister and the edification of many a church and chapel, she died out of grace. By her feet lied her two human children: a nun and a pastor.

She confessed her transgressions and cried bitterly. She begged them to save her soul for it would be claimed by her Dark paramour.

But just as she exhaled her last breath, her lover reclaimed her body, slaughtering her earthly children so swiftly that a gust of wind shuddered all the windows in Tremaine Manor.

Their souls joined, he wooed her and promised that -in his eyes- she would always look young and that within her still lied her unborn spiritual son, waiting to incarnate and fall to earth.

And she lied dormant, like an insect in amber until her child was summoned forth by Grigory Effimovich Rasputin one fateful Autumn night in '44.

The details of Hellboy's birth have been properly consigned in BPRD archive and so has his eventual transfer to a New Mexico army base by Professor Trevor Broom.

It was Broom's finding of the child that prompted him to stay permanently in the United States, accepting from President Roosevelt the charge of Director of Operations at the head of the BPRD.

Hellboy grew fast and was incredibly inquisitive. He had the most vivacious eyes and showed interest in most mechanical things -frequently smashing them to pieces with his stone glove.

Under the supervision of General Norton Rycker daily tests were arranged and frequent biopsies were done to obtain tissue samples. Hellboy showed incredible resistance to pain, but cried bitterly every time. A sample of the stone in his glove required the use of a high-tension diamond drill bit and provided less than a square millimeter of material before exploding into a shower of sparks and debris.

Professor Broom taught Hellboy the language. First they communicated with signs, then a few sounds and finally with words. The child also had a great affinity with animals, and for a while, he could "talk" to the base dog mascot (an ability that he would lose over the years) and considered it a more evolved species than humans. Perhaps because of this, Hellboy wasn't "Potty-trained" until his later childhood years.

In a private session Broom was asked by the president to conceal Hellboy's existence from the rest of the world and bowed to provide funding for a larger BPRD building.

In spite of the secrecy, now and then Hellboy was introduced to many a celebrity. Einstein flew to new Mexico in order to spend an afternoon with the creature and found him delightful and bright. Hellboy compared hairstyles between Broom and Einstein and expressed his predilection for the latter. In 1946 he threw a rock at Babe Ruth's head and -in a most impolite manner- kept calling Clark Gable "Sewer breath".

Photos were shown to Josef Stalin that depicted HELLBOY as a USA secret weapon. Stal in liked his color but believed him a hoax. 1n 1949, Hellboy met the Soviet Dictator, who kept pinching him in the cheek and fondling his horns. Hellboy started shaving them shortly thereafter. In 1951 he was released into Professor Broom's full-time custody and moved into the BPRD headquarters - back then in Boston, Massachusetts.

The early 50's proved particularly active for the Bureau as Adolf Hitler waged his secret war with the USA from South America. Hellboy proved his enormous talent as an agent in the field and beating a Cybernetic Hitler with his own mechanical leg may prove to be one of his greatest triumphs. At the end of the decade, the BPRD moved into its new headquarters. The building that presently houses the Bureau was created in the 1940's and was intended by the federal government as one of their COLD WAR strategic bunker-shelter to lodge all branches of Government.

Hellboy's room used to be the building's safe and is ensconced by the rock of a cliff and a concrete and steel armature.

Broom kept Hellboy's origins nebulous to his "son" until 1959, when they had a "heart-to-heart" in view of Broom's first bout with cancer.

Hellboy was so upset that he decided never to probe into that subject again. His dreams were inevitably assaulted by apocalyptic scenarios every now and then, and a chip was placed on his shoulder: Every time he punched an alien creature he exorcised his own "otherness." He is incredibly sensitive about being "stared upon" or "photographed," except by Liz.

Through the Years Hellboy remained the sole non-human component of the BPRD until 1978 when Abe Sapien joined the ranks of the organization. Hellboy and Abe started their friendship on the wrong foot. Abe was everything Hellboy was not: introspective, laconic, an avid reader (Hellboy always favored old issues of 'POPULAR MECHANICS and a dozen Silver Age comic books like SUGAR AND SPIKE and LITTLE LUL'') and an extremely private guy. Hellboy was jealous of Broom's attention towards Abe and the Fishman's propensity to take offense every time Hellboy would bestow a new nickname upon him.

In 1988 Liz Sherman joined the BPRD and Hellboy fell in love at first sight. From that moment on, Hellboy, the invulnerable, knew the meaning of pain.