Hellboy: Or Fascism with American Characteristics

I like Hellboy as played by Ron Perlman. I like Hellboy way better than I do Batman, Superman or any of the Avengers. Hellboy isn't as thick and serious — as deep down turgid — as Hulk, Thor etc.. There's humor to him, and a bit of whimsy.  

So I respect his opinion a lot more than I would that of Ultron, Odin, Black Widow, Iron Man or the rest of that clunky, corporate bunch. And I'm not surprised in the least to learn that he detests Trump keenly, though it's nice to have it in his own words. Asked, for example, if he'd like to play Trump in a film, Perlman asked back, what's to play: "There’s nothing there to explore. He’s one-dimensional, and he’s not clever. He’d be very boring to play.”

Anything else Hellboy would like to point out about Scrump? Well, that he's "normalized things that are unconscionable, lies every time he speaks and has desensitized us to what a lie and the truth is. There is nothing to teach our children to aspire to, the ideals that are truly American. He’s got it all muddled. He’s supporting Nazis, he supports all of the things that autocrats support, destroying the credibility of the free press. He’s managing to speak to the lowest form of discourse. And he’s parlayed this into this hold he has on the GOP, and shown there is no patriotism in the GOP."

As for the cast of characters Trump has promoted or tried to — that band of fascists with American characteristics — “It seems for him the only way to maintain full control is to tear down everything that exists. The head of the EPA, he puts in a guy who protects polluters. The Treasury is supposed to protect the economy, and the guy he names protects the one-percent. Housing, he’s got this fucking idiot, I don’t know if he’s asleep or awake."

Note well the Marvel, DC and Disney big shots stay mum.

But Hellboy, he  can't help it, he speaks out.

Hellboy has no dual identity. He can't crawl back into Clark Kent or Steve Bannon or Bruce Wayne. He's Hellboy 24/7/365, with his tail, his horns and his sweet love of cats.

Hellboy has fought all kinds of heinous entities, the wonderfully named Wink, for example, in Hellboy II, and Sammael, the Seed of Destruction, Hound of Resurrection in the original. Hellboy has defended the Earth from Rasputin and monsters that hail from the Lovecraft dimension of   evil, older things, just waiting for the conjunction of forces that would let them break through. Hellboy has even defended the earth from Hellboy , shearing off his budding Hellboy horns when need be.

But you get the feeling even Hellboy and Perlman are debating how to deal with the "cardboard cutout piece of shitfuck," we in 2018 call president.  How is it possible? How could it happen? This question brings us to history, politics, philosophy and what may extend beyond these disciplines — comics.