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

Published between 2007 and 2011, the trilogy of miniseries that form the top three slots in this list are the comics cited by Marshall and writer Andrew Cosby as the direct sources for their movie. They also represent the climactic point of the first twenty-or-so years of Hellboy storytelling and arguably creator Mike Mignola's best work.

Darkness Calls sees Hellboy returning to England where the country's witches seek to make him their king after the death of the ancient goddess of witches Hecate. When Hellboy refuses the title, he is instead summoned away to "the thrice-tenth kingdom", a mythical land of snow ruled over by his old enemy: Russian witch the Baba Yaga.

We know from the trailer that Baba Yaga and her iconic chicken leg house (both parts of real folklore) will be making an appearance in the movie at some point, whether or not it otherwise sticks closely to the plot of Darkness Calls.

Meanwhile, in the comic while Hellboy escapes the thrice-tenth kingdom, back in England the witches still require a new ruler. That's when Gruagach appears to tell them who they should choose, before travelling down to a deep underground pit to bring up a box containing the dismembered parts of the most powerful of ancient dark witches: Nimue, the Blood Queen.

Played by Milla Jovovich, Nimue is the main villain of the movie (whose working title was Hellboy: Rise Of The Blood Queen), so expect that some version of the question of who'll be the next ruler of the witches will be an inciting incident here.