David Harbour Explains Why He Loves Hellboy More Than Any Other Comic Hero

David Harbour may not have been the biggest comic book fan growing up, but he’s certainly grown into the role.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter at Comic-Con International: San Diego, Harbour admits that he was more into cartoons and roleplaying games than comic books as a child.

“I did read some comics, but I was not a huge comic guy,” Harbour says. “I got into graphic novels later on in my life. In my twenties, my friends introduced me to some darker graphic novels, things like Watchmen and Hellboy.

“The comics were not really my thing. I was a little more into cartoons and Dungeons & Dragons and like He-Man and Thundercats. Those cartoons and stuff.”

However, now that he does have some comic book literature under his belt, Harbour still believes that Hellboy is the best superhero of them all.

“I really do think those Mike Mignola Hellboy comics are so beautiful and he’s such a hero for America that we live in today,” Harbour says. “I definitely think Hellboy is an antihero. He was kind of born into it. It wasn’t something like Batman where he chooses to go and fight crime. He was just born this weird half-demon spawned by Nazi occultists and saved by these dudes who tried to raise him right.

“For him, it’s a sense of discovery. His actual destiny as a ‘hero’ is to end the world. He is the beast of the apocalypse. So, in a way, his struggle to be a superhero is to just not do the thing that he’s destined to do.”

You can learn all about Hellboy’s comic book debut in the episode of ComicBook.com’s Major Issues included above.

The next Hellboy movie, Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen, is aiming for an R-Rating. Neil Marshall (Game of Thrones) will direct.

The new Hellboy film will be a total reboot that is not connected to the previous two films, Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Guillermo del Toro, the director of those previous films, and star Ron Perlman are not involved. Both del Toro and Perlman had been campaigning to shoot a third Hellboy movie, but those negotiations reportedly fell through when del Toro and the Producers could not reach a compromise over the sequel’s budget.

The first Hellboy movie opened in theaters in 2004. Hellboy II: The Golden Army followed in 2008. In addition to Perlman, the films also starred Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Rupert Evans, John Hurt, and Doug Jones.

More Hellboy News: Hellboy Reboot Was Originally Meant To Connect To Del Toro’s Movies / Hellboy Reboot Appears To have Found A Home / Hellboy Reboot Director One What To Expect From R-Rating / Del Toro Gives His Blessing To Hellboy Reboot