Please note, this column contains spoilers for those that have not yet read up to and including B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Lake of Fire.
In the beginning, the Watchers were sent to guard the world from Ereshigal, the darkness, during the slow emergence of life from the newborn oceans. But the watchers grew impatient. One day, the watcher spirit known as Anum reached up to take the fire from the heavens, and with it fashioned out of the mud the Dragon, the seven who are one, the Ogdru Jahad. The watchers gathered around the Ogdru Jahad and set their seals on them, naming them Amon-Jahad, Adad-Jahad, Namrat-Jahad, Irra-Jahad, Nunn-Jahad, Belili-Jahad, and Nergal-Jahad. When this was done, Anum breathed fire into the creatures, but they remained lifeless husks.
For a long time the Ogdru Hem remained sleeping or adrift while the first race of man, the Hyperboreans, ruled. Then Hecate came and corrupted the Hyperboreans, setting in motion events that would ultimately destroy the Hyperborean capital of Gorinium. The Temple of King Thoth, which had been profaned by Hecate, was made into the Temple of the Ogdru Jahad, and through the blood of slaughtered priests, the Ogdru spirit Sadu-Hem was reborn into a new body. Then it waited.
That’s not to say they were altogether gone. There have been isolated incidents when an Ogdru spirit has managed to crawl its way back into the world or to speak to humans of rare sensitivity. On two occasions Hellboy has come across Ogdru spirits that were using ectoplasm to try to regain human form, once in 1965 in the French Abbey of La Noe, another in 1979 involving the medium Mr Tod. These were frail creatures though, nothing compared to what an Ogdru Hem should be…
Continued belowThis is the Ogdru Hem that was meant to begin the end of the world. It had slept under Polarian ice in the Temple of the Ogdru Jahad since the fall of Gorinium, waiting. In 1945, there came a monk, a man with the sensitivity to not only hear the Ogdru spirits, but the voice of the Dragon itself. Grigori Rasputin had created the Ragna Rok engine with the help of the Nazis and had brought into the world the key to shatter the prison of the Ogdru Jahad, but his time to act was not yet upon him. He sat at the foot of the statue-like Sadu-Hem, and for forty-eight years he meditated, communing with the Dragon.
In 1993 he was found by the Cavendish expedition, of which Professor Bruttenholm was a member. Upon touching Rasputin, the monk saw Bruttenholm’s mind and recognised what Hellboy was. Sadu-Hem awoke and turned the Professor’s companions into frog monsters. Professor Bruttenholm, however, was left human so that he could be used to draw out Hellboy.
In 1939 the Nazi’s launched a rocket into space. It’s sole occupant was a corpse specially prepared as a vessel for an Ogdru spirit. When the space capsule returned in 2001, it released a gas that turned people into frog monsters. Even wearing a gas mask afforded little protection. It merely preserved the human mind during the transformation.
Like the Ogdru spirits Hellboy had encountered in 1965 and 1979, the Conqueror Worm used ectoplasm to create its body, only it was at a far more advanced stage and far beyond Hellboy’s ability to beat into submission. And it only grew stronger as the Conqueror Worm feasted on the frog monsters it created.
Hellboy knew of only one way to defeat it, to use a device given to him by an alien. This would have worked if a Nazi robot body hadn’t managed to smash it. At that point it looked like the world was doomed, and it would have been except for a homunculus called Roger.
In 2004, ten years after the incident at Cavendish Hall, the B.P.R.D. found something during one of their routine investigations, a tiny fungus. It was taken to a lab in New Jersey where in a mere six weeks it was allowed to grow. The lab was visited by a Professor Irwin Derby, who upon seeing the fungus, shot the professor showing him around and began hammering on the glass containing the fungus. He was shot by security, smashing the glass and freeing the fungus, which then began to work its way into his corpse. By the time the B.P.R.D. arrived, the fungus and Professor Derby’s corpse had escaped underground, and the security guards had been turned into frog monsters.Continued below
Back at B.P.R.D. headquarters in Connecticut, Professor O’Donnell declared that the fungus was Sadu-Hem returned. Fortunately Professor Irwin left one rather big clue as to his current whereabouts: a month ago he had become a member of an organisation calling itself “The New Temple of Mysteries” based in Crab Point, Michigan, and began writing them sizeable checks.
Just like the New Jersey lab, when the B.P.R.D. arrived the town was deserted. The local church had been converted into “The New Temple of Mysteries” where a priest and the Sadu-Hem fungus-man were turning people into frog monsters.
History repeated itself when Liz Sherman unleashed her fire to destroy Sad-Hem’s body, but it escaped into the graveyard outside the church, raising a small army of corpses, which again she dispatched with her fire. Despite the B.P.R.D.’s efforts to round up the frog monsters, many of them escaped, beginning a plague that the Bureau would spent several years fighting against.
In 2005 Hellboy washed up on the shore of an island off the coast of Portugal after spending more than two years floating unconscious in the ocean. While there he found a tower surrounded by a golden liquid (actually blood), from which emerged Urgo-Hem and, after a short battle, killed Hellboy. Urgo-Hem had been reborn centuries earlier in 1525 when a priest, the living record of the true history of the world, was killed by members of the Spanish Inquisition. Like Sadu-Hem had been reborn from his priests’ blood in the Temple of the Ogdru Jahad in Gorinium, so was Urgo-Hem reborn from this priest’s golden blood.
So, back to 2005, the priest that had died all those years ago began to remake himself from Hellboy’s blood, becoming everything that Hellboy had once been. With the aid of an African witch doctor, Hellboy was restored to some sort of life, and set about having a rematch with Urgo-Hem. Urgo-Hem, though very large, was still weak at this point, only existing because of the blood of one man, and so it could be killed as a man could be killed. By fighting smart, Hellboy defeated Urgo-Hem and in the process restored himself to full life, returning the Ogdru Jahad priest to death.
Katha-Hem
Conventional weapons had no effect on Katha-Hem. In the two days it was active it levelled Lincoln and several surrounding cities in Nebraska and had the US government ready to use nuclear weapons. It was finally destroyed by Liz using a Hyperborean artifact that amplified her fire, striking as blue lightning, and destroying Katha-Hem in a single hit. Liz collapsed afterwards and the device fell into a crevasse and was never recovered. The flaming-head creatures that Katha-Hem created were likewise killed by branches of the lightning bolt, but the frog monsters escaped underground.
The corpse of Katha-Hem was bombed and buried in the crater of destruction underneath the rubble of the cities it had destroyed. Over seventeen hundred people had been killed in a single city alone. I don’t recall the books gave a final death toll. This was the first time the Bureau had come up against a fully-formed Ogdru Hem, and although they defeated it, they didn’t come out of it feeling very victorious.
In B.P.R.D.: The Warning eight Hyperborean war machines emerged in Munich, Germany, and began destroying everything in sight. These machines were strong, not Katha-Hem strong, but there were eight of them.Continued below
The true purpose of the war machines was revealed in B.P.R.D.: King of Fear when Abe and his companions witnessed a war machine with far more advanced changes opening up to release an Ogdru Hem. They were incubators for the frog inside. These war machines, along with the last of the frog monsters and everything else in Hollow Earth, were destroyed by Liz releasing all the flame she could muster.
Hell on Earth
In B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Seattle Carla Giarocco and her team (including Agent Vaughn) managed to kill another monster. The story wasn’t really about the monster so much as it was about the spirit of humanity, but they did succeed in killing it. It seems likely then that this was not a fully formed Ogdru Hem, but rather an Ogdru spirit that had recently been able to muster together a body. This was happening all over the world at this point.
Russia in particular had a severe problem. In the abandoned city of Rampayedik, zombies had begun to appear in neighbouring towns collecting construction equipment. The Russian Special Sciences Service sent teams to investigate, but all were lost. Finally they sent Commander Nicholas Verlacz of the Esoteric Teachings Division, supposedly the best psychic since the last Czar. No sooner had Commander Verlacz been sent in when he was possessed. This was no usual possession though, and exorcism was of no use. He had been possessed by an Ogdru spirit.
Continued belowCults worshipping the Ogdru Hem were starting to appear all over the globe. In Atlanta, the Reverend Nedin claimed that the hell being unleashed on Earth was the wrath of God as punishment for our sins. Months later he had changed his tune, opened up a new church, the First Church of the Living Earth, and began claiming that the Salton Sea monster was God. He changed from a Christian to a man adamant that the Christian Bible was not his book, that the stories in that book, even if they really happened, were irrelevant. He now believed in the future, not in Heaven or Hell, but in a future in this world.
Other people have undergone changes in this new world without losing their minds. In Seattle the Institute of Biomedical Research was working with the B.P.R.D. to investigate people that began to change after the Ogdru Hem was killed there. This illness showed characteristics of both viral and bacterial infection. Abe Sapien came across this in the small town of Grayrock, in San Juan County, Colorado after he escaped from B.P.R.D. headquarters. Many people had had parts of their body changed, but their local minister wanted them to rejoice in their deformity. When the town turned on this minister and hung him, he transformed into Ghennu-Hem. Just like Sadu-Hem and Urgo-Hem before him, Ghennu-Hem was reborn through the death of his priest (though Abe made sure it was a very short life).
There are new monsters emerging all the time, like the crab-spider people in Georgia that lure people to them with songs sung in beautiful voices, only glimpsed in a single panel. And next year there will certainly be more monsters, such as these “cricket” guys…
The Return of the Black Flame
Things kicked into high gear in The Return of the Master. The Black Flame’s return awoke numerous Ogdru Hem sleeping in the earth, two in New York, one just on the edge of the dead zone around New York, one in Chicago, one in Scotland, two in Russia… and probably many more. I want to emphasise, these ones were woken from the earth. They are fully formed, just like Katha-Hem, just like the Salton Sea monster (who, by the way, laid some eggs and then disappeared. No one knows where it is). These ones can’t be killed by conventional means, although the Russians seem to be able to at least wound them (as seen in the finale of The Return of the Master and again in A Cold Day in Hell).
The only know way to hurt destroy these Ogdru Hem is Vril, like the flame Liz Sherman uses, or the lightning Sledgehammer used back in the Second World War. But… are they really destroyed?
The Watchers fought the Ogdru Hem for ten thousand years and they never killed a single one. They got roughly a third of them to sleep in the ground, and destroyed the bodies of the other two thirds. So when Liz burnt Sadu-Hem’s body, did she kill its spirit too? If the Watchers couldn’t, it seems unlikely. Could it be that every single Ogdru Hem the B.P.R.D. has killed is not really dead at all, merely weakened and disembodied? Could it be that some day a raving Ogdru Hem priest will be cut down and from that priest’s body Katha-Hem will emerge? And if these creatures grow inside the heart of their priests, what is festering inside Reverend Nedin, the head of the Salton Sea monster’s church?
The world has indeed gone to hell. There’s so many monsters and disasters out there it’s difficult to keep track of it all. Which brings me to your Christmas gift…
Extra Credit:The Writers’ Map
The writers have trouble keeping track of this stuff too, which is why Scott Allie has a map in his office keeping track of all the various horrors they have unfolding. And they’d like to share this map with you, the readers (You should definitely click that link). This map marks key locations, disasters, monsters, Ogdru Hem, and even the journeys of certain characters, like Abe Sapien.
The map has been divided into three layers. You’ll find it easiest to navigate if you only have one layer active at a time. Just tick or untick the box next to the layer name. This map is the one the writers use for their own records, so it will be regularly updated. You can return to it and see as more disasters are added, track the Salton Sea monster as it moves… and occasionally, you may even find an Easter egg or two. Speaking of which, if you look in Gallup, New Mexico you’ll see some Hammerheads are active there… I wonder what they’re up to? And in Santa Fe, there’s an Ogdru Hem you can look forward to meeting in B.P.R.D. next year. Every now and then you may find a little teaser has appeared on the map.
Have fun exploring it.
And that’s the last Hell Notes for 2013. Sections of this article replied heavily on Hellboy: The Companion, so I owe thanks to Stephen Weiner, Jason Hall, Victoria Blake, and Mike Mignola.
Merry Christmas from the team here at Mignolaversity! You are going to love what we’ve got in store for you next year.