Recently watched Hellboy (the movie) and not having ever been up on the comic book character I found myself a bit lost in the movie as to what all he could do (or mroe to the point what things should worry him and what he was prepared for).
For instance:
Hellboy is talking to Agent Meyers and sayd something like, “You know what can kill me don’tcha?” Agent Meyers looks at Liz Sherman walking away but no other mention is made of it and no clear answer given. From this I infer Hellboy is near invulnerable but has some Achille’s Heel that is undisclosed.
On the flip-side he does not seem invulnerable as he get cut fighting the hell hound and nearly faints later from supposed blood loss. That would make him seem rather vulnerable.
Hellboy says he is fire proof yet burns his fingers touching his glowing horns which are hot from the friction of a subway train running over him. So, immune to fire but it causes him pain?
Rasputin towards the end of the movie tells Hellboy he has no concept of his true power implying Hellboy can do a LOT more than what we ever see. Anyone know what that is?
So far all I have is Hellboy is very strong but not Incredible Hulk strong.
Fairly durable.
Fire proof but fire hurts him (then again thinking on it he lights a cigar with burning fingers and that does not seem to bother him…must be a movie mistake).
Besides being a key to let evil in the world what else is his right-hand good for?
The BPRD has been trying to figure out what his hand’s made of since 1945, and has failed; they can’t scratch it with lasers or diamond drills.
Hellboy’s hide is tough, but hardly invulnerable; gunfire can penetrate his skin, as can edged weapons (in Wake The Devil, he spends a considerable portion of the book wandering around with a dagger stuck in his back).
Mostly, his “toughness” seems to manifest itself best in his ability to recover from injury. Nearly every book he’s in has him plummeting from a height and getting knocked stupid, only to recover a short time later and head back into the breach. He’s been beat up and clawed up and shot up any number of times, and goes down fighting… only to recover a short time later. Perhaps he regenerates damage very quickly.
Strengthwise, he’s much more powerful than the average human being, but far from mega-strong; dropping buildings on him seems to incapacitate him, pretty much, although he’s powerful enough to swing humans (and human-sized monsters) around like rag dolls. The trick he did in the movie, of flipping a taxicab end over end, was probably the most impressive strength stunt he’s ever done – and he’s never managed anything like that in the books.
But still un-answered to me is what can kill him? How far do his powers of recuperation extend? What about the line in the movie where he says, “you know what can kill me don’tcha?” This implied to me that he has an Achille’s Heel that will really do him in but then I know it is a movie and they may have taken “artistic license” beyond what the history of the character would suggest.
I mean…is killing his body not really death for him (i.e. his spirit survives)? Can he recover ala Wolverine from seemingly deadly damage (i.e. he is dead in a technical sense but then bounces back)?
The thing Hellboy is talking about that will “kill” him in in reference to his strong feelings for Liz. If she died, he couldn’t live with himself. Not a physical death, an emotional one.
As already answered, this is a reference to his feelings for Liz, not his superpowers.
He’s very tough, but not invulnerable or immortal. At least, so far as he knows: he’s never been hurt badly enough to kill him, although he has been hurt badly enough to kill an ordinary human and been able to shake it off.
I think “fire resistant” is more to the point. He singes his hands on his glowing horns, but not worse than a normal person would if they were clumsy with a cigarette lighter. Those horns were red-hot: a normal person would likely have gotten second or third degree burns from touching them.
They show us in the movie exactly what he’s talking about, in the vision he has of himself in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with massive horns and a crown of fire: he’s supposed to destroy the world and rule over its ashes. What powers he has that would allow him to do this are unclear, but it’s strongly implied that they are part and parcel of him playing the role of Beast of Argmageddon, a role he has no interest in.
Pretty much, yeah. Keep in mind that, in this world, there isn’t a Superman or a Thor or any X-Men, so those powers put him pretty close to the top of the heap of superpowered characters in his world.
It’s indestructable and very heavy, so he can hit things a lot harder with that hand than with the other. Besides that, it serves no purpose other than to unlock the doors to hell.
Hellboy is also an expert and practiced occultist.
In his belt and coat he carries many mystical talismans, which are supposed to stave off evil (of course, they don’t seem to work, but we have to ask ourselves, what would Hellboy run into if he wasn’t wearing them?).
He carries several greandes and a custom pistol given to him by Liberty’s Torch, a WWII-era superhero. Hellboy is a lousy shot, but things he does hit with that monster usually stay down.