Comic-Con Flashback: Why Hellboy Rules

Maybe it's because city folk have seen it all, but when Sammael breaks open the door and climbs onto a moving subway car, nobody seems that scared. Sure, you have to act a little surprised, but is a creature from another dimension rampaging through a moving train really that much crazier than a guy who licks his shoes?

Hellboy is just about myths and storytelling as it is superheroics and battles, so it seems appropriate that Hellboy would take down his first Sammael using the electrical power of the legendary third rail. Does it really send a zillion gigawhoozits through a person's body, therefore frying them into pile of ash or is it all an urban myth? No one is man enough to find out -- except Hellboy, who reminds the slobbering beast that he's fireproof.

At the heart of Hellboy is the love story behind the occasionally ostentatious Hellboy and his disturbed sweetheart Liz. They're the perfect match: Liz can manifest great flames of fire from her body and Hellboy's the only person resistant enough to handle it. Unfortunately, Liz has burned too many people in the past, forcing her to check into a hospital.

Pancaked with ten tons of make-up, Perlman conjures up some honest to goodness feelings alongside actress Selma Blair and it's really the reason we give a damn about anything in the movie.

If you couldn't extrapolate how much it must suck to have the uncontrollable power of manifesting fire from your body, Del Toro gives us a glimpse of young Liz growing up with her mutant ability. Good thing the tormenting never got to Carrie-level, or some of these young ones would have faced early cremation.