10 Amazing Hellboy Spin-Offs Mignola Fans Must Read

It is debatable whether the B.P.R.D. title can really count as a "spin-off" as in reality this is where the bulk of the Hellboy universe's main monthly storytelling has taken place for years.

At the same time comics appearing under the title hero's name have only appeared at increasingly long intervals. So really B.P.R.D. is to all intents and purposes the main Hellboy universe title and anything with Hellboy's name in the title is itself kind of the spin-off.

Nevertheless, in its early issues B.P.R.D. did present itself as a spin-off covering the continuing adventures of the supporting cast once Hellboy left the Bureau at the end of the Conqueror Worm story. Gradually, it found its feet during the Plague Of Frogs story arc and managed to establish its own apocalyptic Lovecraftian sci-fi stakes separate from the more demons, witches and fairy-focused stories in its parent comic.

The Scorched Earth Trilogy (The Warning, Black Goddess and King Of Fear) came at the climax of the Frogs arc and can reasonably be said to be the point at which B.P.R.D. stopped being a spin-off and became unquestionably the central ongoing plot thread of the Mignolaverse.

In this trilogy events came to a head between the B.P.R.D., the army of frog monsters and the sorcerer Memnan Saa, with consequences that unleash a literal Hell On Earth that will come to dominate the background of every Mignolaverse comic set afterwards.

If you read nothing else in the Hellboy universe, you need at the very least to keep up with B.P.R.D.