Anung un Rama, Hellboy's true name, was summoned to Earth as an infant by Nazi occultists during World War II. Raised by the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), he grew up to be their premier investigator. Gruff, red-skinned, with an enlarged right hand, and with his horns shorn off, he doesn't exactly behave as one would expect a demon to. This is partly due to him constantly being engaged in a war against his own nature and prophesied destiny.

Ultimately, it is characterization that makes this book great, and the book has a great central character in Hellboy. Part of the dark wit of the book lies with Hellboy being cast from the everyman mold. As demons go, he's a regular blue-collar one. Even when he's cavorting with the rest of the BPRD, there is a pervading sense of loneliness to him. With his various mysteries to investigate, it may not always be clear what's going on, but that only adds to the vague sense of unease about the book.

Steeped in religious symbols and tradition, the true horror of the book lies in the (often supernatural) battle between good and evil, with the reality of Christ and the devil taken as a given. Another spiritual connection lies in the continual theme of Hellboy challenging his destiny. As many of us find ourselves, he's lost and at a crossroads in his life. He knows who he is and what he was created to be (his "Right Hand of Doom" is the catalyst meant to bring about Armageddon), the inverse of the situation we find ourselves in (as we too often don't know who we are, as image-bearers of God or what we were created to do). Knowing his true self, his true identity, he rejects it and decides that being human sounds like a better calling and purpose in life; and that trying to save the world as a mission sounded a lot better than leading the Apocalypse.

In Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, the BPRD travel between the surface world and the unseen magical one, where creatures of fantasy become corporeal as an elven prince seeks to unleash an army of creatures. The prince's story runs parallel to that of Hellboy: a person of two worlds seeking to fight against his heritage, yet with a role to play in the greater battle between good and evil. In the prince, Hellboy finds a reflection, one that can reveal much about the choices he needs to make in life.

As a huge fan of the Hellboy comic and as a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro, it's a no-brainer that I'll be in attendance when the sequel is released.