10 Amazing Hellboy Spin-Offs Mignola Fans Must Read

10. Sledgehammer 44

Despite his wartime origins and plethora of Nazi villains, there are actually very few stories from Hellboy's universe set amidst the cauldron of Second World War conflict.

The one exception, however, is the short run of the Hellboy universe's version of Iron Man: a mechanical armoured suit powered by an arcane mystical energy source and possessed by the soul of a dead GI.

Sledgehammer 44 was actually a spin-off of a spin-off. The original Lobster Johnson solo comic, The Iron Prometheus, had introduced the prototype Vril Energy Suit. This iron armour harnessed the ancient power of Vril, the Sacred Fire which once powered the ancient Hyperborean civilisation.

Vril, an invention of Victorian hollow earth sci-fi novel The Coming Race and therefore a concept long predating Mignola, was also the inspiration for the name of Bovril, salty meat paste fact fans!.

In Sledgehammer 44 the VES is revived in 1944 as Project Epimetheus (AKA "Sledgehammer") and dropped into conflict in post-D-Day France.

There have only been two Sledgehammer 44 stories, both gathered together in a single trade paperback, so it's a quick, action-packed read. The second - Lightning War - pitches the possessed energy suit against fiery-skulled Nazi supervillain the Black Flame (a regular character across all the spin-offs) for a lightning filled battle atop an experimental aircraft. It's for anyone after a combat comic filtered through the Hellboy lens.