Hell Notes: The Special Sciences Service

This Hell Notes I wanted to take a look at the other Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

Please note, this column contains spoilers for those that have not yet read up to and including B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: A Cold Day in Hell.

Everyone reading Hell on Earth knows about the Special Sciences Service, though few seem to know its name. “The Russian B.P.R.D.” is the term I’ve seen thrown around the most. While both the B.P.R.D. and S.S.S. investigate the paranormal, they are very different organisations.

S.S.S. personnel are usually recruited from the Main Intelligence Directorate, and in many cases there are bribes involved. Very few willingly to choose to join the S.S.S.. This doesn’t stop their agents from being dedicated to their work though. Most S.S.S. soldiers will lay down his or her life without hesitation.

Like the B.P.R.D., the S.S.S. was founded in the wake of World War II, however they had significantly more support from their government. During the clean up in Berlin 1946, the B.P.R.D. sent Professor Trevor Bruttenholm and Doctor Howard Eaton. The S.S.S. sent a small army, and with it they got a great deal more from Berlin than the B.P.R.D. did.

Varvara

This likely had much to do with the director of the S.S.S., the Head of Arcane Studies and Esoteric Teachings for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Varvara. Though she appears to be a young girl with blonde hair and a fondness for vodka, there is much more to Varvara than meets the eye.

In 1709, Peter the Great summoned a demon trinity to aid him in battle. After the battle, each demon claimed their payment from him, except for the third, which was supposed to take his soul. This demon witnessed great poetry in the world on the field of battle, so she forewent her payment and chose to stay. Over the centuries, the demon wore many faces and bore many names, and in time came to dream as humanity dreams. Varvara is her latest face.

There is no doubt Varvara is a monster. She treats the people around her like insects and she delights in torturing them. The guise of a child suits her well, for just like a child she is wilful and shows little restraint, seeking only what amuses her. She delights in interrogations, though the subjects rarely survive the process.

Varvara neither hides her delight or disgust. If she’s happy, she will sing and dance, if she’s upset, she’ll pout and probably kill something. But just as she saw something in the human world that made her want to stay, there is an element of the human world in her. Varvara may be petty, willing to let soldiers die simply because they said mean things about her, but she is also fiercely loyal. Early on she takes a liking to the Professor because he is “a seeker” and he stirs up trouble. When his seeking gets him in trouble, Varvara is quick to defend him.

Varvara’s word is her bond. In B.P.R.D.: 1946 she pinky swore, as human children do, that if she found any information regarding Hellboy, she would see that Professor Bruttenholm gets it. All the documentation the B.P.R.D. has on Project Ragnarok came from her.

From 1946 to 1948, Varvara visited Professor Bruttenholm periodically to see how he was going. She delighted in his troubles, twisting the knife as it were when he had a difficult choice to make. Yet there also seemed to be some concern for him in her. She offered to console him in B.P.R.D.: 1948, and though the Professor turned her down, I cannot help but feel she was genuine in this moment.

Her petulant, dangerous side is always just below the surface though. She is quick to remind him not to be so human, not to be boring. His ethical sensitivity is silly. “Right and wrong is for children’s stories.” There is a hint of threat in this. When Varvara tires of someone, things usually go poorly, though perhaps Trevor Bruttenholm is the exception. At the end of B.P.R.D.: 1948 he ceases to indulge Varvara in her games. Varvara warns him not to ignore her, but Trevor takes no heed of her advice. And yet Varvara doesn’t release all her childish rage on him as she would with others. Trevor is simply left alone. This moment may well have been the last time the two ever spoke.

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Whatever the case, it is clear that whatever poetry Varvara saw in the world that made her want to stay all those centuries ago, it has changed her. She is a monster, but there is also a shred of humanity in there too.

Iosif Nichayko

Iosif is a living example of how far Varvara’s twisted games can distort a person. He was first introduced in The Abyssal Plain in 1948 as a newly married man with a dream of living out his life as a farmer with his wife, Polina. All he needed was money to make his dream reality, so he gave up being a mechanic and joined the S.S.S. where he could earn three times as much.

Varvara took one of Iosif’s chief virtues, that he was loyal, a man of his word with a strong sense of duty, and turned it against him. With thinly veiled threats, she convinced him not to return home for his wife’s birthday, but to instead supervise the transfer of a mystical object known as Melchiorre’s burgonet. Varvara sang and danced while he was helpless.

Before he left, Iosif told his wife that this would be his last mission. But he never did come home. On the way to Tórshavn, his submarine was damaged, and the crew drowned.

In 1984, nearly forty years later, Iosif was discovered as a zombie in the flooded submarine, still guarding Melchiorre’s burgonet. He was taken back to S.S.S. headquarters and locked in the basement levels. Over time he started to speak again. He became smarter than he ever was in life, and far more ambitious.

In modern day, Iosif’s ambitions have made him the director of the S.S.S. while Varvara has been locked away in his office. Their roles are now reversed now. She is the helpless one, and now he sings as he places a glass of her much-loved vodka just outside her reach. He delights in torturing and teasing her just as she delighted in torturing and teasing him.

The way Iosif runs the S.S.S. is unconventional. He is two-faced, telling half-truths and outright lies, but perhaps these a necessity in his position. In B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Russia it is difficult to argue with the results of his duplicitous nature. He oils the cogs of bureaucracy and gets things done fast at a time when every second counts. People may get hurt and even killed in the process, but he gets the job done with astounding efficiency.

This is at the heart of both Iosif and the S.S.S., the ambiguity of their nature.

At the end of Russia, Iosif and several S.S.S. soldiers track down a group of scientists that have been contaminated with Ogdru spirits and slaughter them. There is no doubt this is something that needs to be done, yet the attitude in which Iosif does it is concerning. He delights in the way he has circumvented their operation, and as their corpses burn, he looks at the sky and remarks on what a beautiful day it is.

Despite this, Iosif has a persuasive personality. He is able to talk Johann into fighting an Odgru Hem alone. Though Kate was initially very unimpressed with the S.S.S.’s attitude and methods, given time he is able to change her mind by giving the B.P.R.D. full access to the S.S.S.’s files. In a few months time, she is expounding the virtues of the B.P.R.D.’s relationship with the S.S.S., and regularly cooperating on missions with Iosif. His rescue of Carla Giarocco and her team in Scotland immediately wins her loyalty as demonstrated in B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: A Cold Day in Hell.

But what is his end goal? In B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Return of the Master it is clear his goals are in conflict with those of the Russian government. Certainly his are more globally minded, but are they for good of the world or for him?

Lazar

I’ve got a lot of questions about this guy, and very little in the way of answers. He first showed up in Russia as one of the duplicitous scientists in the S.S.S., though unlike the others, he manages to avoid being killed by Iosif thanks to his car breaking down on the way to a secret meeting.

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Shortly after he forms a cult around himself in the Scottish Highlands, his followers calling him the messiah. He is able to inspire devotion in them to the point that they will willingly die so that he may gain strength.

But what is he? In The Return of the Master he is able to summon the dead from Vigrid Field (where Hellboy met his end in Hellboy: The Storm and the Fury) and call them into battle against the B.P.R.D., and he has a strange serpent-like creature at his disposal (I’ve no idea what it is). We were meant to think that perhaps he was Rasputin returned, but this was a plot device and deliberate misdirection.

We do know that he was once loyal to Varvara for whatever reason, as were the other scientists Iosif killed, though after he became infected with the Ogdru spirit, his loyalties changed. What he actually was we still don’t know as he died before anyone could find out.

However, it seems Varvara may know…

The S.S.S. and the B.P.R.D. in the Future

As the world goes to hell, loyalty to any one county is becoming less and less relevant. The survivors, if there are to be any, will be those loyal to humanity. The B.P.R.D. began as an offshoot from the British Paranormal Society, funded largely by the U.S. government, with some support from the U.K. as well. In modern day, the Bureau is funded by the United Nations, but it still very much an organisation made of Americans.

With the B.P.R.D. and the S.S.S. collaborating on many operations already, it is likely that in the future the two will fold into a single operation. Elizabeth Sherman’s glimpse into the future in B.P.R.D.: King of Fear even shows a flying ship designed by the S.S.S. bearing a B.P.R.D. logo.

But what will this mean for Iosif? Will he be content to follow B.P.R.D. Director Thomas Manning’s orders, or will he be the one giving the orders? The power struggle within the B.P.R.D. is going to play a crucial role in the future, and Kate Corrigan is already showing signs of cracking under the pressure.

Or will the S.S.S. crack first? It is at odds with the government that funds it, with Iosif declaring that the president shall come before him on his knees. Not to mention, Varvara seems hellbent on breaking out, and I daresay she’ll want some payback. She’s been sitting silently in her prison for decades, staring daggers at Iosif as he goads her, and we already know she not the forgiving sort.

But there is another side to the S.S.S., a sign of resilience against all odds. Their soldiers may be willing to lay down their lives, but they also want to survive. In A Cold Day in Hell they fight alongside American troops, and they fight well. Though the pilot of the Ekranoplan was unwilling to rescue his commander, he proves himself useful in a pinch when he could have run away and saved himself.

Despite their pragmatic attitude, the S.S.S. doesn’t look like it’s going to go down without one hell of a fight.

 

 

Extra Credit:
Rascar Capac

The S.S.S. recovered many relics from the Nazis after World War II. Few are as impressive as the discovery of the mummy of Rascar Capac who vanished after a lightning ball collided with it in The Adventures of Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls in 1944. They should be careful though. The Incas don’t like it when you mess with their mummies…

 
…I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.