Hellboy Novels and Anthologies In Order
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Paranormal investigator Hellboy, created by writer-artist Mike Mignola, got his start in the comics. A half-demon summoned as a baby by Nazis, he was taken by Allied Forces and raised by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, founder of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD). Hellboy and the BPRD protect the world from dark forces that are found in folklore, pulp fiction, and other horror stories. They’ve been adapted several times for the screen, including three live action movies, two animated films, and three video games.
Hellboy has also starred in a number of prose adventures, including novels and collections of short stories. See the complete list of fiction starring Hellboy below…
“There are a few things that set Hellboy and his world apart in the comics world. First, the Hellboy universe is a single canon, so just one world in which all of the comics are set. We’ve done some prose that isn’t considered canon, in the same way that Hellboy stories in film and games aren’t canon either, but in the comics, it is all part of the one official story. This is wonderful, because everything fits together in one world with no alternate universe versions of events or characters, and there have been no reboots. It can be tricky to keep track of it all! It all needs to match up at the end of the day because our readers will notice.” Source
Updated October 2021
Hellboy: The Lost Army (1997)
Christopher Golden
In 525 B.C., the Persian king Cambyses sent fifty thousand soldiers across the conquered Egyptian desert to take an oasis city not far from where the Libyan border stands today. According to Greek history, a hurricane-force sandstorm struck near the end of their six-hundred-mile trek. The army—all fifty thousand men—vanished without a single trace.
Fast forward to 1986. A British archaeological team, sent to the edge of the Great Sand Sea to exhume evidence of the incident, has also gone missing. So the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense is sending the world's greatest paranormal investigator, Hellboy, to find the missing Brits and to discover what became of The Lost Army.
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Hellboy: Odd Jobs (1999)
Edited by Christopher Golden
Following the success of the 1996 illustrated novel Hellboy: The Lost Army, Dark Horse commissioned writer Christopher Golden to gather some of the brightest creative lights in horror and mystery fiction—Brian Hodge, Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy A. Collins, Greg Rucka, Chet Williamson, legendary horror/humor cartoonist Gahan Wilson, and many more—to produce a prose anthology of Hellboy short stories, presenting original tales of the world’s—and Hell’s—greatest paranormal investigator. Illustrated by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.
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Hellboy: The Bones of Giants (2001)
Christopher Golden
On the frozen shores of Sweden, lightning strikes from a clear sky. The skeleton of a huge man is revealed, its fingers clutched around the handle of an iron hammer.
No one who comes to see this marvel from Norse mythology can lift it—no one but Hellboy, who lifts the hammer just in time for lightning to strike again, welding it to his hand and leading him towards a bizarre series of visions and encounters.
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Hellboy: Odder Jobs (2004)
Edited by Christopher Golden
Mike Mignola’s award-winning series Hellboy has earned fans all over the world, among them some of the most respected horror, fantasy, and mystery novelists in the field, and some of Hollywood’s most talented writers and directors.
Now a who’s who list of these writers are drawn together to tell their own tales of Hellboy, to play with the characters and worlds Mignola has created.
Christopher Golden (author of the Hellboy novels The Lost Army and The Bones of Giants) has brought together a stellar array of talents including filmmakers Frank Darabont and Hellboy movie director Guillermo del Toro, and novelists Charles de Lint, Graham Joyce, and Sharyn McCrumb, as well as many others.
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Hellboy: On Earth as it is in Hell (2005)
Brian Hodge
Angels have attacked the Vatican, destroying an entire floor of the building's precious library. That’s a new one, even for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. The BPRD dispatches Hellboy and his amphibious colleague, Abe Sapien, to investigate.
When they arrive on the scene, they discover that thousands of documents from all eras of history have been destroyed—except for one, saved from the holy fire by an obsessive scholar. It will lead Hellboy down a terrifying trail to ancient gods, vengeful demons, and a hidden world made of the purest evil...
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Hellboy: Unnatural Selection (2006)
Tim Lebbon
A dragon is seen perching on the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio de Janeiro…
A werewolf stalks the streets of Baltimore…
A griffin slaughters a herd of horses in Madrid…
Weird sightings of cryptozoological and mythological creatures abound around the globe. Sometimes the creatures simply appear and then vanish again, content merely to put in an appearance. Other times they make themselves known to entire cities, and leave their mark. Damaged buildings. Scars on the landscape. The occasional death. Then suddenly, the death toll escalates.
One by one Hellboy and his friends at the BPRD are dispatched to avert disaster. Hellboy encounters a dragon in Brazil. Abe Sapien tackles a giant alligator in Venice. Liz Sherman faces off against a phoenix in the Mediterranean. But in dawning horror they realize it's all a distraction - heralding nothing so much as an event of apocalyptic proportions . . .
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Hellboy: The God Machine (2006)
Thomas E. Sniegoski
Religious artifacts from every faith are disappearing without a trace. The identity of the perpetrator is a complete mystery until Hellboy and Liz Sherman—acting on an unlikely tip from a ghost—foil a museum heist attempted by crude, robotic constructs inhabited by human spirits.
One of these freed human spirits offers to help Hellboy track down those who imprisoned him: a fanatical order of psychics obsessed with creating a new messiah, one that will bring about a new stage of evolution for mankind—whether mankind is willing or not. Now only Hellboy and his colleagues stand between a vulnerable humanity and an evil, vengeful god....
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Hellboy: The Dragon Pool (2007)
Christopher Golden
When his ex-girlfriend Anastasia Bransfield, an archaeologist working in the remote Himalayas, stumbles upon a site purported to be the legendary “Dragon King Pool,” the ancient dwelling of an evil dragon to whom local villagers would sacrifice a child each year, Hellboy heads for the excavation when the site is plagued by unearthly creatures, sabotage, and the disappearance of the young daughter of a dig leader.
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Hellboy: Emerald Hell (2008)
Tom Piccirilli
Hellboy comes to the crossroads in Enigma, Georgia, a small town best by strange occurrences. Sent to keep an eye on Sarah Nail, a young girl hiding from the curse of her family, Hellboy becomes entangled in the blood debt of evil mystical preacher, Brother Jester.
Stuck between human malice and the mysteries of the occult, Hellboy comes up against an intrigue of ghosts, demon trees, talking bullfrogs, and a race of lost mutant children.
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Hellboy: Oddest Jobs (2008)
Edited by Christopher Golden
And you thought Hell was weird! Long-time contributor to the Hellboy mythos Christopher Golden brings together a crew of luminaries including Bram Stoker Award winners Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep) and China Mieville (King Rat), cross-genre sensation Barbara Hambly (The Windrose Chronicles), celebrated mystery writer Ken Bruen (The Dramatist), bestselling science fiction and fantasy novelist Tad Williams (Otherland), and a bevy of other skilled storytellers eager to spin a tale or two about the world’s greatest paranormal detective and pay homage to Mike Mignola’s Hellboy!
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Hellboy: The All-Seeing Eye (2008)
Mark Morris
Hellboy has his hands full. While the supernatural is on a rampage in London, a series of brutal “Torso Murders” turns up at various sites around the city. All of the corpses are headless, limbless, and drained of their blood.
Called in to investigate the killings, B.P.R.D. agents Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman discover a wellspring of black magic under the London streets. They also find a sack of heads. Hellboy descends into the dark underworld of London, encountering demons who prophesy the coming of plague and the opening of an eye to the otherworld, bringing forth death and destruction upon the land.
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Hellboy: The Fire Wolves (2009)
Tim Lebbon
Hellboy is called to Amalfi, Italy, by Franca, a young member of the Esposito family. She fears that a dark curse on her family is about to claim her cousin as its next victim. Hellboy makes his way to their large home, and he encounters a flaming demon—a fire wolf—which he successfully fights off.
Hellboy and Franca make their way to Pompeii, where Franca remembers seeing an image of the fire wolf whilst on an archaeological dig. Hellboy unearths the shriveled corpse of a demon hunter who was buried during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius, and it tells him of the fire-demon that escaped the grip of the volcano leading to that devastating eruption.
Attacked again by the fire wolf, Hellboy and Franca have to make their way back to Amalfi to confront Adamo Esposito, the family elder. But already the volcano is rumbling again, and an eruption even more devastating than that historical catastrophe looks very, very close!
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Lobster Johnson: The Satan Factory (2009)
Thomas E. Sniegoski
Ripped from the pages of Hellboy! Where greed and the occult walk hand-in-hand, where mobsters and monsters prowl the streets, none escape the justice of Lobster Johnson!
In the years before World War II, Jonas Chapel was a respected physician, until his appetite for vice got the best of him and he found himself on the run from one of New York’s most powerful mob bosses. On the lam in Mexico, Chapel stumbles across a powerful witch and a cursed skeleton—and the power to transform men into monsters.
Now, he’s back in New York, selling his creations to the highest bidder. Only one man, backed by his team of trusted sidekicks, stands in his way. But will the Lobster’s resolve be enough to shut down Chapel’s twisted Satan Factory—before New York itself is consumed?
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Hellboy: The Ice Wolves (2009)
Mark Chadbourn
In Cancun, Mexico, police investigate a slaughter at a wedding ceremony. In Dublin, Ireland, the clientele of a backstreet pub are found dead. In Kyoto, Japan, the bullet train pulls into the station with blood-spattered windows. It is the time of the Black Sun. Across the world, the wolves are calling to each other. Locked in bodies that had no idea they were there, they rise from the depths of the unconscious and turn towards America! For Hellboy, it's a race against time to prevent a devastating wave of primal savagery washing across the land. And so he is drawn to Boston's Beacon Hill and the Grant Mansion, believed to be the most haunted house in New England, where the truth may lie buried.
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Hellboy: An Assortment of Horrors (2017)
Edited by Christopher Golden
Fifteen of the biggest names in weird literature come together to pay tribute to Hellboy and the characters of Mike Mignola’s award-winning line of books! Assembled by Joe Golem and Baltimore co-writer Christopher Golden and featuring illustrations by Mignola and Chris Priestley, the anthology boasts fifteen original stories by the best in horror, fantasy, and science fiction, including Seanan McGuire (October Daye series), Chelsea Cain (Heartsick), Jonathan Maberry (Joe Ledger series), and more! The new writer of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D., iZombie co-creator Chris Roberson, pitches in as well, and Chris Priestley (Tales of Terror) provides a story and an illustration!
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More from Monster Complex
Christopher Golden Q&A: “The character I hate the most, weirdly, is not one of the villains...”
Mignola on Hellboy in Love: “I loved the idea of Hellboy just trying to have a relationship.”
Monster Mash: 13 Movies Where Frankenstein Meets Dracula Meets The Wolf Man
HEADLESS HORSEMAN comics anthology from Dark Horse for Halloween
Zombie Q&A—Jonathan Maberry: “Zombie Stories Are Not About Zombies”
Flashback: Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)—“the best horror movie you never saw”
Military Monsters ‘Creature Commandos’ returning in new TV show, new comic book
Further reading online
Mignolaversity: Christopher Golden and Matt Smith discuss “Hellboy: The Bones of Giants” (Multiversity Comics)
Fanbase Press Interviews Christopher Golden and Matt Smith on ‘Hellboy in Love’ (Fanbase Press)
Christopher Golden on Hellboy and his Assortment of Horrors (Cemetery Dance)
Christopher Golden talks expanding the ‘Hellboy’ universe with new audiobooks (AIPT)
GVN Talking Comics Interview: Writer Christopher Golden (Geek Vibes Nation)
Interview: Christopher Golden on Mike Mignola and Hellboy (Nightmare Magazine)
Mike Mignola And Christopher Golden Join Forces For 'Hellboy in Love' (Forbes)
Flashback Interview: 'Joe Golem' Writer Christopher Golden (Conskipper)
'Hellboy' Creator On The Film That Made Him Love Monsters (Dread Central)
Hellboy's creator is ignoring Hollywood to do something unexpected (Inverse)
HELLBOY Interview With Mike Mignola About The Movie And Comics (ComicBookMovie.com)
25 Years of Hellboy: Mike Mignola Interview (Previews World)
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