Baba Yaga (Hellboy)
Baba Yaga is a female comic supervillain who features in Hellboy.
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Biography
Baba Yaga
Ages ago, she came to take advantage of Koshchei's fear of lost his soul where she assured him that though his path was dark and bloody that he would still be redeemed. The witch was responsible for sending him on a qest to slay the last breeding pair of dragons and their hatchlings in Russia so that mankind could be spared from them. However, in doing so, he came to be responsible for murdering the family of his adoptive father.
In 1895, she contacted a young Grigori Rasputin and told the monk that the fates had chosen him to be an agent of change and a father to the new millennium. To ensure that his spirit would be forever safe, Baba Yaga came to place half of it within the roots of the world tree Yggdrasil. As a result, she and Rasputin gained a strong bond to the point that he came to refer to her as 'grandmother'.
In March 1964, Hellboy first encountered Baba Yaga while investigating a string of children disappearing. The disappearances were Baba Yaga's doing as she kidnapped the children to satisfy her cannibalistic hunger. When Baba Yaga was counting the fingers of the dead in a cemetery, she attempted to use a skull that once belonged to someone called Katayev to lead her to the Sabbath. Then she was ambushed by Hellboy who leaped onto her in a sudden attack. During the scuffle, Baba Yaga's left eye was shot out and she retaliated by attacking Hellboy with the graveyard's tombstones. As a result of her defeat at Hellboy's hands, placing a curse on the village of Bereznik with no spring for that year while every baby born would be blind in one eye, Baba Yaga's diminished power causes her to disappear from the world and reside in a pocket dimension created in the image of her Russia as it appeared long ago. But on occasion, if needed to, Baba Yaga can briefly return to the real world.
Later on, her servant Koku presented an iron maiden to Rasputin in his failed attempt to ensure Ilsa Haupstein's survival in the coming apocalypse, Baba Yaga observed Hellboy being cast into the darkness by Hecate alongside Dagda and Edward Grey. During Hellboy's struggles Baba Yaga believed that he would eventually succumb and destroy the world, and later faced disbelief when he did not. Soon after, Baba Yaga meets with Rasputin at Yggdrasil where she tries to convince him to stay with her in her realm to no avail. Though Rasputin turned down her offer, Baba Yaga collected what remained of his soul after he was dispatched by Hecate.
Overview
Personality and attributes
She was well known across the Russian lands and was feared by many who dwelt there especially those who lived in the wilderness she often roamed.
Powers and abilities
After losing her eye, it was stated that the Baba Yaga lost her ability to exist in the normal world.
Before the loss of her eye and depowering, she was often seen in the graves of the dead, counting the fingers of the corpses before sucking in their souls and breathing them into empty skulls to create ghostly lanterns. These lanterns are shown to hang from the branches of the world tree and completely fill the interior of her chicken-legged house.
A vast army of the undead was under her control.
Within her dimension, Baba Yaga is easily the dominant power. Her army of undead reinforces her power there tremendously. Several other deities and Russian folklore figures exist in the faux Russia with her, but she is shown to be extremely oppressive to them and will kill any who oppose her.
Notes
- Baba Yaga was created by Mike Mignola where she made her first appearance in Hellboy: Wake the Devil v1 (1996).
- The character was based on Baba Yaga of Slavic and Rusian folklore.
In other media
Films
- In Hellboy, Baba Yaga appeared in the setting of the 2019 live-action film where her voice was provided by actress Emma Tate and motion capture provided by Troy James.
Appearances
- Hellboy: Wake the Devil: (1996)
External Links
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