Hellboy: 10 Comics You Should Read Before Seeing The New Movie

Lobster Johnson's own 1930s-set spinoff comic not only offers an enjoyable slice of period-appropriate pulp fiction and a more developed insight into a character long-since dead in the main continuity - it also helps to establish or give backstories to supernatural characters with important roles in the main continuity.

In this case, this two-issue miniseries, set early in the Lobster's vigilante career in 1933 and published in 2013, provides the earliest appearance in continuity for the character of the Crimson Lotus (first mentioned in the aforementioned B.P.R.D.: The Dead), a Japanese witch, assassin, spy and war criminal, noted for her army of minion monkeys in Noh theatre masks.

The Crimson Lotus is worth remembering in the context of the cast of characters in the new movie as she is the one character in the comics that ties together the Lobster and Ben Daimio. Real name Yumiko Daimio, the Crimson Lotus was Ben's grandmother and, in The Dead, we see one of her "Noh monkies" preserved in a jar at the new B.P.R.D. headquarters. Later the preserved dead monkey talks to Daimio too.

How much of this backstory will be given to movie-Daimio isn't entirely clear. With everything going on in the film, adding the Crimson Lotus into the mix as well feels like overload. But this story is still useful in understanding where both he and the Lobster come from.