Grigori Rasputin (Hellboy)
Grigori Rasputin is a male comic character who features in Hellboy.
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Biography
Grigori Efimovich Rasputin was a male human born on January 21 1869. As a young man, he frequently had visions where he became aware of great power inside him, the ability to heal sick people and see the future. These powers convinced him he was destined for greatness. He used his power to gain a place in the court of Tsar Nicholas II, using his powers to cure prince Alexei's hemophilia. In 1902, he had an affair with Zoya, who later came to him with the news that she was expecting his child. Sensing something about the girl Zoya was carrying, Rasputin sent her away. Zoya would once again visit Rasputin in January 1913, accompanied by her husband Yuri and her daughter, whom she had named Varvara after his legitimate child to spite him. He killed Yuri and left Varvara and a sickly Zoya in the cold. Zoya died by the following sunrise, and Varvara was possessed by the demon Yomyael shortly afterwards.
Around eight years ago, he was beat, shot and poisoned where he was thrown into the frozen Neva to die. It was there within those icy waters that he was contacted by beings that he came to learn were the Ogdru Jahad. The beings empowered Rasputin to rise once again as they showed him the destruction that waited the world in the future. It was then that Grigori was resolute in believing that he was destined in bringing about the doom of mankind. Afterwards, he left his home of Russia and settled in a small town in Italy in order to gather his power once more. He lived in isolation for the next twenty years where he lived in isolation except for the odd time he preached to those willing to hear his words as a prophet of the coming apocalypse of Ragna Rok. Grigori attempted to listen to the voices of the Ogdru Jahad but they themselves were silent and he waited for a sign to spur him to his next action. That sign came in the form of a small diminutive man named Heinreich Himmler who wanted to hire Rasputin's services. Thus, Grigori travelled to Germany where he met with Adolf Hitler and he sensed an opportunity at using Nazi Germany's large resources to achieve his goals. As such, Rasputin came to join the Third Reich and was put into a cabal of Germany's top minds that were talented in the arts of mass destruction. He came to work closely with three of the top minds in establishing Project Ragna Rok where he promised a miracle that would allow Germany win World War II. In reality, Rasputin cared little for the Nazi's goals and was only determined in using them to bring about the destruction of the world. Through astrology, he came to determine that a key was needed in freeing his imprisoned masters and looked to summon it on an isolated island as the culmination of Project Ragna Rok. The project seemingly failed when it did not manifest anything but in reality it had brought a small demon that was taken in by the Allied forces. By this point, the war had turned against Nazi Germany who ultimately lost with Rasputin's comrades fleeing to safety thus leaving him all alone. By this point, he was once again unsure of himself and Grigori sought a sign on what to do but this time he heard the distant whispers of the Ogdru Jahad who bade him to travel north to the Arctic wastes. He hired a team to accompany him and promised them gold but instead he used their souls to sustain him in the journey when he finally arrived at the fabled temple of the Ogdru Jahad and came upon the fossilised body of Sadu-Hem. (Hellboy: Seed of Destruction v1 #3)
Whilst mediating, he communed with the Ogdru Jahad and came to learn their names along with the nature of their imprisonment. He remained in this state for years until an expedition led by Trevor Bruttenholm arrived at the scene. Upon encountering the man, Rasputin instantly knew that this was the person who had claimed the demonic key needed to free the Ogdru Jahad with this being adopted by the man where he named the child Hellboy. Rasputin decided to use the humans for his plans and prevented Sadu-Hem from slaying them for nourishment. Instead, he used them as his disciples and had most of the expedition transformed into frog monsters. From Bruttenholm's mind, he came to find their base camp and had the people enslaved to his will where he compelled them to carry the fossilised statue of Sadu-Hem onto their ship that sent sail to New York City. During the journey, Rasputin had Sadu-Hem feast on the crew with all being killed except for Bruttenholm who was spared and allowed to escape in order to warn Hellboy of the danger. (Hellboy: Seed of Destruction v1 #3)
He attempted to use the pyrokinetic energies within Liz Sherman as part of a ritual to free the Ogdru Jahad from their prison. After mind controlling her, he conducted the ritual that nearly succeeded in freeing his masters from the void but he was speared with a harpoon gun from behind by Abe Sapien. Sherman was freed from his control and unleashed her flames that caused the entire building to catch on fire thus killing Sadu-Hem. As the building was collapsing, Rasputin attacked Hellboy but was unable to defeat the demon and vowed to return. Hellboy then punched Rasputin that caused his body to crumble to dust seemingly killing him. (Hellboy: Seed of Destruction v1 #4)
Overview
Personality and attributes
Powers and abilities
Even before Grigori Rasputin was recruited by the Ogdru Jahad, he possessed some measure of supernatural abilities, including the power to temporarily heal others. After he made contact with the Baba Yaga in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, his powers truly began to come into their own, making Rasputin a very powerful wizard indeed. By offering Baba Yaga a portion of his soul, Rasputin also became immortal, though not invincible.
Prior to his death, Rasputin demonstrated a wide array of supernatural talents. It was with his magic that Hellboy was brought into the world, and it was with his guidance that many of the Nazi doomsday projects came into existence. After meditating for decades and communing with the Dragon, Rasputin's power grew enough to read a man's thoughts with a touch and control the minds of numerous humans from afar. With the assistance of Sadu-Hem, Rasputin was able to transform four explorers into frog men, significantly more powerful than most of those later made by Sadu-Hem alone. When Hellboy first encountered Rasputin in Cavendish Hall, the wizard was able to survive a large caliber gunshot wound to the head and knock Hellboy away with barely a murmur while easily overriding the numerous charms of protection Hellboy kept on his person. Rasputin was also able to take control of Liz Sherman's mind through arcane means, and was shown to survive a spear through the chest, though the injury did weaken him significantly (possibly due to the fact that he had already used a good portion of his power cracking the Ogdru Jahad's prison). Reduced to a flaming skeleton, the last power he demonstrated before his death was the ability to breath fire, in which afterwards Hellboy shattered him with his stone fist, killing him.
Notes
- Grigori Rasputin was created by Mike Mignola and John Bryne where he made his first appearance in Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1 (March, 1994).
- The character was based on Grigori Rasputin.
- In 2009, Grigori Rasputin was ranked as IGN's 83rd Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.
In other media
Films
- In Hellboy, Grigori Rasputin appeared in the 2004 live-action film where he was portrayed by actor Karel Roden.
Appearances
- Hellboy: Seed of Destruction v1: (1994)
- Rasputin: The Voice of the Dragon v1:
External Links
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