Hellboy: Rise Of The Blood Queen - 8 Things It Must Do Differently From Del Toro's Films

7. The Character's Origins

Hellboy Origin mike mignola
Dark Horse

Though Hellboy is nowhere near as iconic or indeed as popular as the likes of Batman and Spider-Man, it's not difficult to imagine that audiences are familiar with his origin. The first film was a reasonable box office success after all, but, even then, the character's origins don't need to be explicitly retold. The whole apocalyptic prophecy thing is, of course, an integral element of Hellboy, but we should be able to manage without a flashback to his Second World War Nazi-induced birth.

The Queen of Blood - a British witch called Nimue - is a big figure in Hellboy mythology, but what's particularly interesting is that she didn't make an appearance until the series' final years, during a story-arc that saw the character reclaim his Arthurian roots and take his place as the rightful King of Britain (it's honestly even better than it sounds). While it remains to be seen if Rise of the Blood Queen will follow Mignola's twist on Arthurian legend, it would make for an interesting reevaluation of the character's origins, and avoid repeating a story audiences are already at least fairly familiar with.

The great thing about Hellboy is that he's the perfect character to just jump into. The fact he's so dry means that even the most absurd and indeed horrific situation can be invested in. An origin story, in this instance, is surplus to requirements.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.