As part of my revisiting the Hellboy universe, I am taking another look at Lobster Johnson, the hero-pulp-inspired character that came to prominence in the main Hellboy and the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense comics (published by Dark Horse), before getting his own stories set in the 1930s.
At present, we still don’t know too much about him. What is his origin? Or his real name? We never see him other than when he’s The Lobster. Oh, and that’s something else we learn early on. He’s really “The Lobster,” not “Lobster Johnson.” That was a name stuck on him by those making Mexican wrestling movies after he died.
What we know is he wears a leather outfit that includes a leather helmet and goggles that may be some kind of night-vision goggles. He carries smoke grenades and a .45 automatic, and has a device in one of his gloves to burn his symbol, the lobster’s claw, on the men he kills or encounters.
His first appearance was in a short story called “The Killer Inside My Head” and is set in the late 1930s, when he started working with the government and had one assistant.
When he shows up in the Hellboy storyline, he is a ghost. He appears as such in the Hellboy mini-series/graphic novel Conqueror Worm and helps Hellboy and Roger the Homunculus defeat the evil in Hunte Castle, which was where Lobster Johnson was killed leading a group of U.S. soldiers to stop the Nazi space program in 1939. For several more storylines in the B.P.R.D. series, he appears as a very powerful ghost. Soon we would get stories of him set in the 1930s and learn more of his history. But not all of it.
At present, we have gotten six collections of mini-series and one-off stories.
In the first collection, The Iron Prometheus, we meet for the first time the “Sledgehammer” Vril armour, the Fu Manchu-like villain Memnan Saa (which we’ll meet again in the B.P.R.D. series and learn more about him and his origins), and The Lobster’s group of associates, almost all of whom will die. This one is set in 1937.
As what we see in the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comics occur after that story, the followup works are set before this story, and start moving forward in time.
The next volume, The Burning Hand, is set in 1932. Here we have The Lobster and his men in the middle of a gangland war early in his career. We get to see his first headquarters, which is invaded and destroyed. We meet for the first time crime boss Arnie Wald and the strange Peter Lorre-like Mr. Isog. And he brings in the original Black Flame!
The third volume, Satan Smells a Rat, is actually a collection of shorter pieces. We get The Lobster stopping the Nazis from spreading a deadly gas via a zeppelin. In another, he stops a crazy rich man from experimenting on bums in an attempt to walk again. I am still puzzled about the importance of one man in that story. In a 1933 story, The Lobster goes up against the Crimson Lotus!
In the next volume, Get The Lobster, set in 1934, we have Wald and Mr. Isog return. The Lobster and his men are now setup in their new underground headquarters we first saw in Iron Prometheus. And we see attempts at learning the origin of The Lobster, going back to a pirate named El Bogavante, which means “The Lobster” and who has a birthmark that looks like a lobster’s claw. And Mr. Isog finds the mummified hand of that pirate! The Lobster and his associates are trying to stop a crime wave while also contending with people being mind-controlled, a gorilla with mechanical arms, and a man with one as well.
The fifth volume, The Pirate’s Ghost, gives us two shorter series, both set in 1936. One, “Metal Monsters of Midtown,” has a mad-man who has built giant robots based on Hyperborean tech. The other, “The Pirate’s Ghost,” continues the investigation of that pirate Lobster, and his ghost seems to appear. And what about Ward and Mr. Isog? You’ll have to read and find out.
The last volume, A Chain Forged in Life, is another collection of short pieces, including a return encounter with the Crimson Lotus.
I had hoped for more stories. I’d love to understand the connection between The Lobster and the pirate. Is he an ancestor? And we never learn who The Lobster really is, or what drove him to become The Lobster. At one level, it’s nice he’s mysterious, but I’d also like to know.
In addition to the collections, there is also a novel, The Satan Factory, published in 2009. I would love to see more prose works with him.
Also, in the latest Hellboy movie, The Lobster appears in the scene when the baby Hellboy is summoned, taking the place of the Torch of Library character from the original story. This makes some sense, as the Torch was a Captain America-like character created by John Byrne. But he acted a little too cocky for my tastes. He also appears in a post-credit scene as a ghost. He’s played by Thomas Haden Church.
But I wish we could see some more of his adventures.
