A seemingly quite insignificant adversary at first, renegade fairy the Gruagach of Lough Leane is so filled with bitterness and a desire for vengeance against the big red guy that he sets in motion the chain of events that brings Hellboy's whole story to a grand and bloody climax. It's this petty small scale villainy precipitating the grand destruction that he doesn't quite comprehend that makes Gruagach an intriguing character. Introduced as a character who was once a powerful shapeshifting warrior, now much more limited in his abilities, Gruagach first appears as the changeling child the fairies seek to swap for the infant Alice Monaghan. In the ensuing battle with Hellboy, Gruagach was first devoured by and then possessed a monstrous boar-like creature called Grom that he had set loose on our hero, and as a result, he remained trapped in this form for the rest of the story. From then on he is pushed on only by a desire to see the fairy folk go out in a blaze of glory and take Hellboy down with them. A petty antagonist, but a hugely dangerous one nonetheless.
14. Liz Sherman
One of the original stars of the Hellboy universe, firestarter Elizabeth Sherman must now be about 50 years old as the comic progresses in real time. While she's only appeared a tiny amount in the last few years (just enough to reassure readers that she's still alive), Liz remains one of the classic Hellboy characters. Probably the most human of all the BPRD's enhanced ability agents, the weight of her powers' destructive abilities has always been a greater burden to her than for some of the others. It's this extensive psychological damage that makes Liz an interesting character. Even before the story began twenty years ago, she had quit and rejoined the B.P.R.D. multiple times after causing the deaths of an entire city block, including her own family, as a child. In the course of the story, Liz is possessed by both Rasputin and Memnan Saa, who control her huge power through her, bringing even more mental anguish. While the comics version of Liz does not have the same romantic interest in Hellboy, their relationship in which he acts as a protective older brother is nevertheless sweetly developed.
