In this episode, a week ahead of the April 12 debut of the Hellboy movie, Curt and Kevin awaken ancient spirits to explore the origin of everyone's favorite wisecracking monster-hunter in 1994's Hellboy: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola and John Byrne, published by Dark Horse Comics!

During World War II, the Russian psychic Rasputin conjures an otherdimensional being to help the Nazi war effort, resulting in the appearance of a young demon boy among Allied forces. Nearly 50 years later, that demon, now named Hellboy, is a paranormal investigator looking into the strange death of the man who raised him, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm. The case leads Hellboy (along with colleagues Abe Sapien and Liz Sherman) to a crumbling English manor where he faces hideous frog-men and the tentacled abomination known as the Sadu-Hem!

Can our hell-spawned hero stop the mad monk from freeing the demonic Ogdru Jahad and unleashing apocalypse upon the world? And can he scale the mountains of madness to reach that graveyard smash known as … The Comics Canon?

Things Discussed in This Episode:

• The Right Hand of Doom
• Hellboy and Robotman: Separated at Birth?
• "Sadu Hem is a big dud!"
• Ron Perlman's performance and the Guillermo del Toro Hellboy movies
• The Case of Charles Dexter Ward podcast
• P. Lovecraft adaptations
• Mathilda: The Forces of Evil vs. The Third Grade
• Monkeyman and O'Brien

Join us in two weeks as we celebrate the 1000th issue of Detective Comics with a look at two early Batman stories—his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 (1939) and the first appearance of the Joker in Batman #1 (1940)!

Until then, don't forget our snazzy Comics Canon merchandise and the King Krackle digital brushes from our friends at Category 4!

Last but not least, please be so kind as to rate us on iTunes, send us an email, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook, and we may read your comments in an upcoming episode. And as always, thanks for listening!