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B.P.R.D. - Bureau For Paranormal Research And Defense The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (the B.P.R.D. or BPRD) is a fictional organization in the comic book work of Mike Mignola, charged with protecting America and the world from the occult, paranormal and supernatural. It maintains the services of several supernatural persons, including Hellboy. The BPRD originally appeared in the Hellboy comics but has also been featured in many stories under the BPRD title.
The BPRD was founded in late 1944 by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm to combat various occult threats uncovered in operations against Nazi Germany. It initially had strong links to the USAAF (United States Army Air Forces) and was based at a military airbase in New Mexico, but later relocated to a custom built facility in Fairfield, Connecticut. It maintains strong links to various branches of the United States Armed Forces to this day. It is a private organization that receives funding from several major governments (mostly the United States and United Kingdom, although other countries like Canada, Japan, France, and Italy have been mentioned).
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| Hellboy is a creature summoned (or perhaps born) in the final months of World War II by Grigori Rasputin, on Tarmagant Island, a small isle just off the coast of Scotland, having been commissioned by the Nazis to change the tide of war ("Project Ragna Rok"). |
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He appeared in a fireball in a ruined church in East Bromwich, England, on December 23, 1944. Hellboy proved not to be a devil, but a little devil-like creature with red skin, horns, a tail, and a large stone right hand — hence the name given by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm.
Taken by the U.S. forces to an Air Force base somewhere in New Mexico, Hellboy was raised by the United States Army and by the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD), a U.S. government agency dedicated to combating occult threats.
As an adult, Hellboy became the primary agent for the BPRD alongside several other human and quasi-human agents. It must be pointed out that up to 2007, Hellboy has only appeared once in all of the several BPRD mini-series and that is in the fourth issue of The Universal Machine and this was only a flashback as told by Abe Sapien.
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| Abe Sapien was found in a water-filled tube in a Washington, D.C. hospital. He got his name from a piece of paper attached to the tube, dated the day of Abraham Lincoln's assassination: (April 14, 1865).
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Abe quickly entered the ranks of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.), along with the demon Hellboy and the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman.
Abe was formerly Langdon Everett Caul, a powerful businessman involved with a strange cult. Caul's transformation into Abe occurred after he retrieved a strange jellyfish-like deity from an underwater ruin called Num-Yabisc. At a clandestine meeting, witnessed by Abe in spirit form, Caul and other gentlemen perform an arcane ritual that ends with the creature's release. Abe's spirit merges with his former self and the two become the modern Abe Sapien. His associates in the past place him into the water casket, where he rests for decades.
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| Liz Sherman - born in Kansas City, Kansas, on April 15, 1962, Liz was a normal child until her pyrokinetic abilities began to manifest themselves around her eleventh birthday. The eruption took the lives of her family and destroyed an entire city block. |
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She was taken in by the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense where she learned to control her power to some degree. She was often teamed with Hellboy and Abe Sapien. Her childhood trauma left her bitter and she has often left the B.P.R.D.
Liz has recently returned from the Agartha Temple in the Ural Mountains, where she spent time with a society of monks learning to control her pyrokinesis. She is currently back with the B.P.R.D. and doing her best to accept the changes that have been made to the team.
As a result of her time amongst the monks, Liz has complete control over fire; she can produce small hand-sized flames to light her way in darkness, or she can erupt in a furious explosion of fire to destroy anything around her. She can also manipulate fire into shapes and designs. Recently, her powers were greatly magnified by a mysterious object.
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| Roger, the Homunculus - Roger was discovered in 1996 in a medieval alchemist's lab beneath the ruins of Czege Castle, Romania by BPRD agents Liz Sherman, Bud Waller, and Sidney Leach during the Wake the Devil affair. |
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Waller explained that a homunculus is created from blood and herbs, stewed in a jar, and then incubated in horse manure. Although lifeless upon discovery, the as-yet nameless Roger was activated when Liz touched the socket on his chest. Roger sprang to life in a violent rage, killed Waller, and fled the castle.
During the invasion of America by frog monsters (creatures encountered in Hellboy: Seed of Destruction) Roger proved to be very effective in wiping them out. Eventually, he was promoted to a leadership role and led his own squadron of agents. However, his new-found cockiness proved to be his undoing. Surprised by the villainous Black Flame, who was leading the frog monsters, Roger and his team were blown to pieces.
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| Johann Kraus, the ectoplasmic spirit - with psychic abilities who maintains a tangible form via a containment suit. Without the suit, his body would eventually dissipate and he would be lost forever. |
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In early 2003, an exceptionally gifted psychic medium named Johann Kraus was hosting a séance for a small group. While he was partially on the ethereal plane, the Chengdou disaster struck. No one knows the specifics, but it involved an ancient terra cotta statuette in the care of the Chinese government. The result was essentially a psychic Chernobyl. Everyone within a hundred miles of the disaster itself had their souls "consumed", reducing them to mindless husks. On the ethereal plane, however, the disaster was much greater; everyone not physically in their body within three thousand miles of the incident was instantly incinerated.
The only survivor was Kraus, and some would argue that he died as well. His ectoplasmic form survived when his body was incinerated, and knowing he would soon dissipate without a physical body, he sought out the best paranormal minds on the planet for help-the B.P.R.D..
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