As part of my revisiting the larger Hellboy universe, I am now going to revisit the various BPRD series with more details on the stories themselves.
I thought I would do them based on their internal chronology, so will start with the BPRD series set in the late 1940s, then move to the Hellboy and the BPRD volumes, though I’ll have to follow up with new volumes in that series as its still on-going, then the original BPRD series before moving on to the BPRD: Hell on Earth series and then the final BPRD: The Devil You Know series.
So the BPRD is the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, a fictional organization founded by the United States and United Kingdom governments, charged with researching the occult, paranormal, and supernatural, and defending against their dangers. It was established in 1945 by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm to combat various occult threats uncovered in operations against Nazi Germany, which lead to their presence at the summoning of Hellboy, whom Bruttenholm took in as a sort of foster son. BPRD had ties to the U.S. military, so at first it was based in New Mexico before getting a custom-built facility in Fairfield, Conn., in 1947.
In its early years, many of its agents were military or ex-military types before they broaden their pool of agents. They would have several with psychic abilities, and later we would see more “enhanced” agents like Hellboy (who joined in 1952): Liz Sherman (a pyrokinetic), Abe Sapien, Roger the Homunculus, and Johann Krauss.
BPRD is a private organization that receives funding from several major governments, though we learn later the Russians have their own equivalent group. Much later in the series BPRD would be taken over by the U.N. as it led the fight against the rising threat from the Ogdru Jahad and associated creatures.
As someone who read H.P. Lovecraft‘s works and others, I see a theme in the back of some of those works: the Great Old Ones, et al, want to “break through” and take over the world. And so there is the element of people on their own trying to push back. So why not a more concerted effort by a government or quasi-government agency? This is kind of the basis for the Delta Green role-playing game. And thus the purpose of the BPRD in the Hellboy Universe.
The first volumes we will look at are B.P.R.D. 1946, 1947, and 1948. The original plans were to do three more, taking things up to 1951, as in 1952 Hellboy joined and this starts the Hellboy and the BPRD volumes. But for whatever reason this didn’t happen. These three volumes were part of the original series of BPRD volumes, the first two being numbered #9 and #13, and the last unnumbered. The three were later reprinted in an omnibus edition. As Hellboy was a kid at the time, he only appeared as a background character.
In 1946, Professor Bruttenholm is in post-war Berlin trying to deal with one of the Nazi’s projects: Project Vampir Sturm — which is what you might think it’s about. They were experimenting with vampires to create a vampire army. Not smart. The Professor also deal with the Russians, and that led him to first meeting Varvara, who appears to be a little girl, and heads the Russian’s equivalent to the BPRD, the Special Sciences Service. Varvara appears several times in the series and becomes more important in the later stories as her agency teams up with the BPRD. You’ll get a hint of what she really is, but it will be much later before we learn more about her and her importance in things.
As there really aren’t any BPRD agents, the Professor is given a squad of U.S. soldiers to help him out. Not all make it. Oh, and Von Klempt and one of his Kreigaffen show up, too.
In 1947, a group of captured SS officers are found horribly murdered, apparently the work of vampires. In 1946, one vampire, Baron Konig, swore vengeance for what the Nazis had done in Project Vampir Sturm. The professor assembles a team of four veteran soldiers as a team to go investigate things: Jacob Stegner, Simon Anders, Frank Russell, and Gabriel Ruiz. But things don’t go well.
You see vampires had decided to hide themselves, and weren’t happy when they learn what Konig had done. Anders got waylaid by them. And the other three soldiers were ambushed by vampires, with only Stegner to getting away. He rescued Anders. We also met the exorcist, Ota Benga, who has a connection with a later exorcist in the BPRD series, Ashley Strode. This also explains why vampires will be largely absent in the coming years.
In 1948, at a secret government project, Project Enkelados, in the Utah desert, deals with atomic power and the space program. Something had been “brought over” that causes several deaths — several somethings. Stegner and Anders, along with other BPRD agents fight against these things. Stegner and Anders were the only ones to survive, while the Professor was trying to figure out what caused this and put a stop to it. And some of the things that came out of this one will come back in a future volume or two of the Hellboy and BPRD series.
As I said, we should have gotten more. What we did get was a volume on vampires, collected as BPRD: Vampire. The first edition was marked as #1, so they may have planned more, but it never happened. There is a second edition that I think dropped the “#1” and added an additional short story. I have no idea if we’ll get more. It’s set in 1948 following the 1948 volume and deals with Agent Anders and vampires, or his attempt at taking revenge on them. But things are not always so simple. And it’s not fully concluded.
I’m still hoping we might get more. Until then, I’ll next be moving to Hellboy and the BPRD volumes. As there are so many, I’ll probably do at least two postings, and as they are continuing with them, will have to do a follow-up article later on.
