#26 Hellboy - What if Satan's son were a paranormal investigator?

He's a demon in a trenchcoat. A 10-foot tall, brick red humanoid with sawed-off horns and a granite fist. He works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) alongside Abe Sapien the fish man, Roger the homunculus and Johann Krauss, the man with the bubble head. He does battle with Nazis, the ghost of Rasputin and unnameable tentacled gods from the far side of Pluto. Artist and writer Mike Mignola's spare, blocky style perfectly suits the X-Files meets H.P. Lovecraft by way of Raiders of The Lost Ark vibe of this hugely entertaining comic.

Thanks, in part, to the sucess of Sam Raimi's Spiderman flick, Hellboy joins the legions of superheros due to make the pulp-to-projection transition in the near future. Lucky for us, director Guillermo del Toro, a longtime fan, is committed to making Hellboy's big-screen debut the best that it can be.

Take a look at The Corpse, my favorite short Hellboy story to get the feel of the series, then snag Hellboy: The Seed of Destruction to see where it all started.