Hellboy may be a hero to a great many people, not least all the many enhanced agents that have followed after him, but there's only one person that the big red guy himself hero worships: 30s vigilante The Lobster. This goggle wearing icon waged war on mobsters, leaving them burnt with his claw mark, before becoming a government agent to fight Nazis during the 40s. In the course of these adventures, The Lobster came up against villains like Memnan Saa, Herman von Klempt and The Black Flame, before continuing on as a ghost that shows up at just the right moments to help our heroes. The Lobster's own spinoff series "Lobster Johnson" is a brilliant slice of 1930s pulp gangbusting adventure that seems ripped straight from the Golden Age of comics and film serials. Best of all, though, is the way in which this reflects The Lobster's meta-fictional trajectory as a pulp hero in universe, picking up the surname "Johnson" along the way. Hellboy's initial enthusiasm for Lobster Johnson begins as a child enjoying the pulp magazine stories fictionalising his adventures and later enjoys the Mexican "lucha libre" monster films in which Lobster Johnson was a wrestling star. The pleasing culmination of all of this is an in story rumour of Guillermo del Toro as a fan of the Mexican series wanting to make a big budget remake!
