Comic-Con Flashback: Why Hellboy Rules

Like Superman catching a plane by its wing or Batman holding on for dear life to a dangling victim, Hellboy puts his fiercest strength on display when he takes Sammael's tongue by his Right Hand of Doom and swings the monster with all his might. it's especially impressive, as there is a ton of sh*t to break on a subway platform.

Til the middle of the film, Kroenen is simply Rasputin's right-hand assassin, a silent killer who specializes in slicing down his opponents with two sharp blades. That was during World War II.

Then we see Kroenen alive and in fighting condition in present day and realize there's more than meets the eye to the masked henchman. Turns out, behind the mask he's one seriously effed up dude, who requires a few clockwork cranks to get him back up to speed, even after a brutal showdown with Hellboy.

What makes Hellboy so fascinating is that, in some ways, he's a villain at heart. Rasputin's diabolical plan is to force Hellboy to open a gate to another dimension, as he's the only being on Earth with the ability to do so. When he does, crazy Cthulu monsters will escape in to your world and turn our happy-go-lucky existence into a living hell.

Rasputin lays out the plan before ending Bruttenholm's life, and it opens the floodgates for Del Toro to run amok in a world that he's fascinated by: the stories of H.P Lovecraft. This is probably the closest we'll get to his At the Mountains of Madness movie.

It's hard to understand what a great actor brings to his roles until you see him in a bit part.

John Hurt, the guy who brought frickin' Elephant Man to life, doesn't give a rat's ass that he's in a movie called Hellboy -- he still delivers 100%. Hurt gives ample depth to Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm before his life is cut short by Rasputin, turning his funeral scene into another poignant moment in this character-driven comic book flick.