My 15 favourite Hellboy covers (So far): Before Seeds of Destruction Edition

On By somegeektoldme@gmail.comIn Comics

The World Destroyer. The Right Hand of Doom. The Beast of the Apocalypse. Anung un Rama. Hellboy has been called many things over the years, as well as being an outstanding arse-kicker. Supporters of New Zealand’s 5th least favourite website will undoubtedly know that I’m a fan of Hellboy. I’ve seen all five movies (three live-action and two animated), and I even have The Right Hand of Doom money box on my set of drawers, minus the money.

One of these days, I’m going to write about my love for the character and his world, but not today. In saying that, as a fully-fledged geek, I’ve been reading and collecting Hellboy comics since Adam was a cowboy. Because of this useless fact, I thought it would be a wonderfully terrible idea to discuss my favourite Hellboy comic book covers.

I feel stupid for admitting this, but I’m not a huge fan of variant comic book covers; however, there is an exception. If there is a variant cover drawn by Hellboy’s creator Mike Mignola, then you can bet your bingo money that I’m going to choose that one. I meant, come on, it’s a Hellboy cover drawn by Mike Mignola, you can’t ignore it!

For a lot of geeks like myself, our introduction to Hellboy was through his first mini-series, Seed of Destruction. And just like with the Legends Star Wars Universe, the timeline was divided into BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and ABY (After the Battle of Yavin), with Hellboy being somewhat similar.

For me, Hellboy comics can be divided into five groups:

  • 1.) Before Seed of Destruction: Detailing Hellboy’s adventures from his discovery in 1944, to Seed of Destruction in 1994.
  • 2.) After Seed of Destruction: Detailing Hellboy’s adventures after the Seed of Destruction mini-series, from 1994 onwards.
  • 3.) Out of continuity: These comics deal with stories about Hellboy involving crossovers with many out-of-company characters, as well as the Hellboy: Weird Tales series.
  • 4.) Spin offs: Characters that have been involved with Hellboy, are given comics to flesh out their stories like B.P.R.D., Rise of the Black Flame, Koshchei the Deathless, Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder, Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon, Frankenstein Underground, Sledgehammer 44, and The Visitor: How & Why He Stayed.
  • 5.) Collected Editions/Trade Paperbacks: Sometimes when Hellboy comics are collected into a trade or an anthology edition, they include some Hellboy short stories that are only found in those editions; you can’t find them anywhere else.

The comic book covers I’m going to be focusing on will be in the first group, because I’m a geek. Now there are some key points I would like to establish before I do this.

  • Obviously Mike Mignola is going to feature on this list as a cover artist, but not all entries will be drawn by him.
  • I’m only looking at comic book covers and not the actual issues themselves, because that is another list for another day.
  • I’m not looking at the covers of collected editions or trades, only single issues.
  • The comics are listed according to when they occurred in Hellboy’s timeline; not when they were published or how awesome they are.

I’ve chosen these covers as my favourites in the Before Seed of Destruction era for a lot of different reasons that include their colour, symbolism, character poses, shadowing, and of course, just how amazing Hellboy looks!

One more thing before we start, 14 of the 15 comics I selected have Hellboy on the cover; with only one that doesn’t. This is because the cover is gorgeous, so I decided to swipe right.

With all of the entries, I’ve included the title, the year it was published, the cover artists (artist and colourist), and also what year the comic was set in Hellboy’s history. Ok, without a drum roll, let’s do this!

B.P.R.D. 1946 #1, 2008, Mike Mignola and Nick Filardi (1946)

Hellboy: The Midnight Circus HC (one-shot), 2013, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1948)

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. 1953 #1: The Phantom Hand and Kelpie, 2015, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1953)

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. 1953 #2: The Witch Tree and Rawhead & Bloody Bones, 2015, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1953)

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. 1954 #1: Ghost Moon, 2017, Brian Churilla and Dave Stewart (1953)

Dark Horse Presents #151, Vol 1, 2000, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1954)

Hellboy in Mexico (one-shot), 2010, Richard Corben and Dave Stewart (1956)

Dark Horse Presents #31, Vol 2, 2013, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1956)

Hellboy: The Crooked Man #3, 2008, Richard Corben and Dave Stewart (1958)

Hellboy: The Corpse and the Iron Shoes (one-shot), 1996, Mike Mignola and James Sinclair (1959 & 1961)

Hellboy: Long Night at Goloski Station (one-shot), 2019, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1967)

Hellboy: Krampusnacht (one-shot), 2017, Mike Mignola and Adams Hughes (1975)

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D: Her Fatal Hour and The Sending (one-shot), 2020, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1979)

Hellboy: The Bones of Giants #4, 2022, Matt Smith and Chris O’Halloran (1988)

Hellboy: Makoma (or A Tale Told by a Mummy in the New York City Explorers’ Club on August 16, 1993) #1, 2006, Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart (1993)

Do you agree with my choices or have I missed out on some of your favourite Hellboy comics from the Before Seed of Destruction era? As always, please let me know. At a later time, which is very inconvenient for me, I’ll look at some other Hellboy covers from the other groups. Awesome.

Well, that’s it for another week. Thanks once again for reading, following, and subscribing to Some Geek Told Me. Don’t forget to walk your dog, read a banned book, call for a ceasefire in Palestine, look after yourself, and I’ll see you next week.