Welcome to I Am Your Target Demographic and today we’re looking at the characters of
the BPRD, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.
I’m going to briefly explain the characters enough so you can get the gist, but I’m
not going to cover major story arcs, in case you’re interested and don’t want those
moments spoiled.
I’m also only covering what are called the Enhanced Talent Agents, those with special
abilities, or a few agents that have been gifted some sort of extraordinary weapon or
ability that makes them unique.
These characters we’re talking about are often associated with the character Hellboy,
so let’s begin by talking about him.
Hellboy arrived on Earth in 1944, when Rasputin tried summoning horrible forces from other
dimensions, a twisted plan to assist Hitler and the Third Reich.
Hellboy was just a baby then, given the name Hellboy by the American soldiers that discovered him.
His discovery fueled the creation of the BPRD and Hellboy himself was raised by scientist
Trevor Bruttenholm, taught to fight against other evil creatures, constantly fighting
his own destiny to be a weapon of destruction.
He tries to use his gifts to fight evil, including many relics and talismans and his stone right
hand, created as a key to apocalypse though he uses it to stand a chance against mighty beasts.
Hellboy was featured in two films played by Ron Perlman and one film (so far) played by David Harbour.
One of Hellboy’s best friends in the BPRD is Abraham Sapien, or Abe Sapien.
Discovered in a tank of water, the BPRD wasn’t sure what to make of Abe and did experiments
on him, until Hellboy forced them to release him.
He’s an aquatic creature, aging at a slower rate than normal humans and able to regenerate
most wounds he’s ever received.
His origin and what made him is a mystery that’s slowly revealed over the course of the books.
Abe was voiced in one film by David Hyde Pierce, and then in the second film he was voiced
by the actual actor in the suit, Doug Jones.
The third character in the most iconic trio of BPRD agents is Liz Sherman.
At age 11, she discovered she had the ability to create flames, accidentally destroying
an entire city block and killing 32 people, including her parents and brother.
She was then raised by the BPRD and trained to control her powers.
The pyrokinesis seems to be tied to her life force, as her powers are removed multiple
times and it actually causes her physical body to weaken and potentially expire.
In two of the Hellboy films, she is played by Selma Blair and Liz was turned into a romantic
interest for Hellboy, where the comics portrayed her simply as a friend.
Hellboy’s romantic interest in the comics is primarily a woman named Alice Monaghan.
I’m including her here because it looks like Alice is getting the opposite treatment
from Liz, and looks to be turned into a fellow member of the BPRD in the 2019 film.
Alice’s origin revolves around fairies in Ireland, being first kidnapped by fairies
as a baby, then eventually befriending them and winding up becoming a caretaker of their
world, gifted with some ethereal powers.
This looks very different from what we see in the 2019 Hellboy, with her character played
by Sasha Lane.
Let’s get back to some BPRD agents.
Fenix Espejo is a young woman who can detect danger before it happens.
She was homeless when we first met her and she used her powers to protect the helpless
and to avoid some cataclysmic events, until she was eventually found by the BPRD.
She was trained there by an older psychic, Panya.
Panya is a mummy, an ancient Egyptian figure that was mummified and yet reawakened when
someone was unraveling her bandages.
She discovered that she was a powerful psychic, able to control others and even speak through
them, while many miles away.
We have another psychic to discuss, where things turned out very differently.
Johann Kraus doesn’t have a body.
See, he learned to leave his body and travel the world in an ectoplasmic form.
While he was doing this, his actual physical body was caught in an explosion and he now
had no physical form.
He went to the BPRD with this problem and they developed a suit for him to inhabit.
Since he has no body, his psychic abilities are even stronger than most, as he’s able
to communicate with spirits and even grant them temporary physical forms, so that ghosts
can speak to normal humans.
His biggest weakness is reliance on the suit, worrying that without it, he would eventually
dissipate altogether.
He was helped by another psychic in the BPRD, Izar Hoffman, who appears very little in the
comics but is referenced as being a high-ranking psychic often out on assignment, but he was
the one able to discern Johann’s existence as a spirit and to help create his containment suit.
In Hellboy: The Golden Army, Johann is voiced by Seth McFarlene.
Let’s talk about the former Marine, Captain Ben Daimio, a Vietnamese man who served in
the U.S. military for many years, eventually sent on a mission where he collided with a
cult, worshipping an ancient jaguar spirit that slashed his face and actually killed
him, though he rose back to life, now the host to this jaguar spirit that can take over
his body and transform him into a massive beast, relatively indestructible except for
magic weapons and some other supernatural beasts.
It’s risky to unleash the jaguar spirit, as it often has much more violent tendencies
that Daimio might want.
Daimio is played in the 2019 Hellboy by Daniel Dae Kim.
Another member of the team that’s fairly unique, is Roger.
Roger is what’s called a homunculus.
If you’re familiar with the concept of golems, inanimate creatures brought to life, such
as stone or ice, then a homunculus is a being brought to life involving actual human tissue
and other (often disgusting) means.
Roger’s body was discovered in a Romanian lab, brought to life by the spark of Liz’s pyrokinesis.
He eventually went on to join the BPRD and even earned a promotion to lead teams into the field.
There’s a former BPRD agent named Sidney Leach who had the unique ability to detect
and manipulate metal.
He did not appear in many comics before he eventually retired from the BPRD.
In the intro, I said I was focusing on enhanced agents but there’s one human agent that
I wanted to include here with a wild story.
Ted Howards was a normal agent whose team encountered a sword called the Hyperborean blade.
Hyperborean in this instance means a race of people living in the far north, the snowy
tundras near the north pole, and are considered in this mythology to be the first people created.
When Ted touches this sword, it shoots his mind back into a prehistoric warrior named
Gall Dennar, whose tribe wielded this sword.
Eventually he’s awakened by Johann and he now wields the sword as a weapon in modern day.
Lastly, we have a human character that appears to show up in the 2019 Hellboy and is worth
a little discussion.
Lobster Johnson.
In the comics, Lobster Johnson is a vigilante in the 30s, fighting the Nazis and imprinting
a lobster claw logo onto them.
He’s advertised as a fictional character, a serialized hero for the radio and magazines,
but in truth he really existed to fight crime.
I don’t believe he ever served in the BPRD, because it wasn’t really in existence yet,
but he still fought the supernatural.
After he was killed, he even continued fighting evil as a ghost, able to turn into a physical
manifestation and continue to shoot and brand his enemies.
He appears in the 2019 Hellboy played by Thomas Haden Church.
Hopefully you found this interesting.
If I happened to miss some characters, just chime in on the comments and share why you
like those folks.
I’ve also included some links in the description to a preferred reading order of Hellboy and
BPRD issues.
Just in case you’re interested in getting started!
Make sure to subscribe for more stuff like this and thank you for watching!