Question for those who've seen Hellboy.

[dewinged]

Okay. Haven't seen the movie yet. I mean, the commercials looked kinda neat, in that 'I want to go see an action film' sort of way. But, do I have to know the comics to understand what's going on in the film? Know of Hellboy, never read any of the books.

Comments

[razorsedge74.livejournal.com]

I just this past week read (and really enjoyed) the first trade. You probably wouldn't because you're not a fan of Mike Mignola, though Hellboy's director apparently is. I found the book I read rather charming and goofy. I'll probably get a couple more eventually.

Anyway, what you need to know is Hellboy's basic origin. During the latter days of WWII, the Nazis tried a mystical experiment on English soil. The plan went wrong. A group of American and British soldiers, experts, and a single superhero (the Torch of Liberty) were at the spot of an abandoned, haunted church where a portal opened up and a demonic-looking little boy appeared. The soldiers, and one of the scientists on sight, Prof. Broom (pronounced that way, spelled a different way), dubbed the creature "Hellboy" and the nickname stuck.

Broom raised Hellboy as his own. The creature looks like a demon and has a mysterious stone hand that gives him superstrength and cannot be injured in any way. No one is sure, especially Hellboy, where it came from.

Hellboy works for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, a secret part of the U.S. Government that protects the world from supernatural horrors. Among his co-workers there are Abe Sapien, a fish man and scientist, and Hellboy's love interest, the pyrokentic Liz Sheridan. There they battle Lovecraftian type horrors, and those damn Nazis who keep coming back.

Oh, and wizard who conjured Hellboy and later wants him back was Rasputin.

[gamerguy.livejournal.com]

As I understand, not at all. You'll want to pick up the comics, because they are cool, though...

[edg.livejournal.com]

Not whatsoever. As the earlier poster mentioned, Guillermo del Toro is obviously a huge fan of the comics, but he's also made the film to be perfectly understandable to newcomers as well.

That said, there are in-jokes and references that only readers of the comics are going to understand, but in all honesty, that's perfectly natural. And if it gets more people reading the comics, well, that can't possibly be bad.

[razorsedge74.livejournal.com]

Saw the movie. You can see it and have no worries. Like any decent superhero movie, there's enough info for the unitiated who've never read the book to follow what's going on.