BPRD... Er, what time is it?

[Middenway]

When Hellboy first started, unless there was a little panel saying otherwise, we always knew the story was set in present day, but since the Plague of Frogs, there's been more and more story to tell, and with such limited space in a monthly comic, Hellboy-time has fallen out of sync with our own time. As more and more time passes, it's easy to forget just how close everything's been happening.

So, I've invented this thread to track it all a little bit as the clues to the timeline are dropped. I'm not sure how elaborate I'm gonna make this, and I'm certainly in no hurry with it, so if you want a more detailed timeline, you'll have to go to the Hellboy Companion (which, just so you know, is mostly canon, but not completely canon... Have fun wrapping your mind around that one...). I'll return to this as I re-read stories.

For now, I'll be picking up from the Nebraska incident in The Black Flame since it's frequently referenced and its date is confirmed clearly in the comics as March 2006.


B.P.R.D.: The Black Flame (March 2006)
- March 2006, the Nebraska Incident

B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine (16th April 2006)
- The majority of this story takes place 16 April 2006.
- The Crab Point incident happened 2 years ago (2004 the Plague of Frogs began).

B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs #3/Chapter 5
- Set in July 2006.

B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls
- Nothing specific except that Abe arrives at Balikpapan before the 22nd of that month.
- Kate is returning back to work and has a cast on her arm. Since it is unlikely she was away for 8 months, this story is set in 2006.

Hellboy: The Mole
- Set two weeks before the events of Darkness Calls.

Hellboy: Darkness Calls
- In the first epilogue Kate mentions Hellboy has been gone 6 years. Conqueror Worm is set 61 years after 1939, so it was in 2000. This means the epilogue is set in 2006.
- The letter is received a month after it was sent. Hellboy has been staying at Harry Middleton's for at least a month at the beginning of the story. This can further be narrowed down since Kate is not wearing her cast, so enough time has passed since 16 April for her to have recovered. This places the events of the epilogue at June to September.

B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground (September 2006)
- After 23 September (less than a week), Daimio goes on his murderous rampage.
- They've known Daimio for 3 years. Since they met him in 2004, that places this story in 2007. However, this could also be taken as nearly 3 years, since Daimio was introduced very early 2004. This places the story in 2006. See this note for further information.

B.P.R.D.: Out of Reach (September 2006)
- Set only a few hours after the end of Killing Ground.

B.P.R.D.: The Warning (Starts in October and ends in November 2006)
- This story starts a week after the finale of Killing Ground making it early October 2006.
- Abe is searching for Daimio for an unspecified length of time, likely several weeks.
- The attack in Munich happens less than a week after Liz's abduction.

B.P.R.D.: The Black Goddess (Most likely late December 2006)
- The battle on the Stanovoy Range happens a month after the battle in Munich.

B.P.R.D.: King of Fear (Most likely January 2007)
- While in Agartha it is said Liz was recovered a week ago.
- The meeting in Washing DC with the US Joint Chiefs was on the 4th of the same month in which the meeting with the UN Security Council happens in the book's finale.
- The UN Security Council meeting happens two days after the global volcanic activity. That places the finale of this story in the middle of the month.
- The events of Garden of Souls happened "last year". Factoring in the time that has passed since the events of Killing Ground, this means this story is set in January or February 2007. However, for it to be set in February, Abe would have to have been looking for Daimio and Daryl for 8 weeks at the beginning of The Warning, so it is most likely January.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: New World (July, 2007)
- Abe makes it quite clear in this story that it is currently July.
- A news broadcast places the Nebraska incident as "last year", which makes this July 2007.
- Kate mentions she didn't have to deal with this UN stuff 6 months ago, meaning the end of King of Fear could have been set in January 2007 at the earliest. This would also mean Abe was out looking for Daimio and Daryl for over three weeks at the beginning of The Warning, placing the attack in Munich in November and the events of The Black Goddess in December.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Seattle (Most likely July 2007)
- Clearly stated to be after the Houston incident from New World.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Gods (August 2007)
- Set two weeks after the incident in Houston from New World. (So late July or early August)
- Kate has to go to Moscow next month (August or September, depending on how late in July New World was set).
- Abe says he's been living with his fear of being like the frogs for 15 years. The Incident in Cavendish Hall was 1994, so that would place these events in 2009, though given the heated argument Abe was having at the time, I doubt he did the maths. This is hardly a reliable reference point.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Monsters (September 2007)
- Enough time has passed since the events of New World for Reverend Paul Nedin to grow a rather full beard.
- This story is set the month after Gods, since Kate is supposed to be going to Moscow, but trying to postpone it.

Hellboy: The Storm (September 2007)
- Set after the events of King of Fear. Likely very close to the events of The Fury.

Hellboy: The Fury (September 2007)
- Set the same time as Monsters.
- In Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible #1, the date of Hellboy's death is said to be September 11, four months earlier.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Russia (October 2007)
- From Kate's talk with Johann on the plane, it seems very little time has passed since the events of Monsters.
- In issue 5, Iosif makes it clear that it has been "a few weeks" since the finale of Monsters and The Fury.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: An Unmarked Grave (October, possibly early November 2007)
- This is set very shortly after Russia since Kate was making preparations to leave in the final issue of that story.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Long Death (December 2007)
- In the third issue it is stated that it is currently Winter. However Kate is still in England, so it can't be set too far after those events.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Devil's Engine (December 2007 or early January 2008)

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Pickens County Horror (???)
- At the beginning of issue 1 it is mentioned that "rumours circulate that Obama may not run for a second term".
This indicates that the year is 2012, which doesn't fit in with any frame of reference provided in the comics at all, not even remotely. However, this is not the same universe we live in. It's possible Obama's first term may have happened a term early. We really don't know. Either way, I'm more interested in the passage of time as it affects the characters than the mechanical workings of the world.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Transformation of J.H. O'Donnell (January 2008)
- The flashback sequence was set in 1987, which was stated in the beginning to be "more than twenty years ago". Happy new year, B.P.R.D.! Welcome to 2008.
- The current events are established to be very shortly after The Long Death, so it would be January.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Abyss of Time (January 2008)
- The present day material happens at the same time as the earlier issues of The Return of the Master. (A week before Wasteland)

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: The Return of the Master (January 2008)
- Issue 4 is set a week after Kate approved Zinco's development of the clone body.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Wasteland (January 2008)
- Picks up during the the events of the fifth issue of The Return of the Master.

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: A Cold Day in Hell (January 2008)
- Set a three days prior to Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible
- Set a week after the conclusion to The Return of the Master

Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible (January 2008)
- Set four months after Abe was shot.

So the current time in the Hellboy universe is:
January 2008

Which means the characters ages are:
Hellboy: 62, deceased
Abe Sapien: ...I'll get to this later
Liz Sherman: 45
Kate Corrigan: 48-49
Johann Krauss: 60-61
Andrew Devon: 29
Benjamin Daimio: ??, deceased
Panya: 3000+
Fenix: 16

[Jason Abbadon]

So...it's 2008?

Hmmm...I cant recall exactly what happened in 2008....(drinking with skeletons again)
http://www.historyorb.com/events/date/2008

Maybe Detroit can blame the worst season ever in football history on frog monsters....Wall Street can too! The Recession is all the fault of the Ogdru Hem!

Huh. I bet in the Hellboyverse the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would grind to a scretching halt as troops are re-deployed stateside!

[Artie Ness]

(which, just so you know, is mostly canon, but not completely canon... Have fun wrapping your mind around that one...). I'll return to this as I re-read stories.

Please do return to this, I'm really curious

[noble_enough]

I think it has to be current time, 2011. Or at least close to it, as when Hellboy was in the pub with Alice he saw the news report of the BPRD fighting the giant penis monster (katha-hem? I never remember the names) so he has to be close to the BPRD timeline. Unless when he enters the fairy realm or wherever he fought the queen of blood time goes at a different pace.

Because we know his death date and year.

[Kees_L]

I think it has to be current time, 2011. Or at least close to it, as when Hellboy was in the pub with Alice he saw the news report of the BPRD fighting the giant penis monster (katha-hem? I never remember the names) so he has to be close to the BPRD timeline. Unless when he enters the fairy realm or wherever he fought the queen of blood time goes at a different pace.

Because we know his death date and year.

And that would be set in stone, you'd say?










Hah! I just KILL myself sometimes.








I'm guessing you'd be right 'though.

I could live with it.

(But this reminds me I gotta come up with my own epitaph shortly, albeit catchily.)

[noble_enough]

And that would be set in stone, you'd say?

Haha! OH Kees

And yeah, I'm thinking this is official so by that account I would suspect BPRD is close in time. Maybe in 2010 at the latest.

[Middenway]

So...it's 2008?

No, it's 2007, roughly August.

I think it has to be current time, 2011. Because we know his death date and year.

I wouldn't take that literally. That image is tied into a larger marketing scheme. It would be weird to have a deathday party in which the date is 4 years earlier. It just makes more sense from a marketing point of view (not to mention it's damn confusing!)

But he died in the latter half of 2007. The timeline of the BPRD makes that clear. Maybe it was August 10, 2007 (and the tombstone guy got the year wrong? )

BPRD makes it pretty easy to keep track of how much time has passed. John Arcudi keeps dropping little clues, and when you put them together it's not very hard at all, just as long as you don't want to get too specific. I've no doubt in my mind he keeps track of these things.

Please do return to this, I'm really curious

Damn it, that was poor wording on my part. I meant that I was going to return to that first post and update the details as I re-read. I put this thing together after thumbing through the books for about 15 minutes, so I very easily could've missed something. In fact, I'm sure I have. But I had no intention of elaborating on why the timeline in the Companion is not completely canon, mainly because there are so many threads that bring that up.

But since you ask, I'll answer, praying that this doesn't unleash a hellstorm of arguing. Truth is, I don't really care about exactly when things happen, but I do like to have approximate dates as it puts me into the headspace of the characters better. It makes a big difference when you realise Daimio's only been out of his own for 5-6 months in New World and not 3 years. But I don't really care if he met up with Abe on the 17th of July, which was a Monday. I don't need that extra information.

OK, so the Hellboy Companion timeline was written by Jason Hall under the supervision of Mike Mignola and Scott Allie. And it has at least one error in it: The date for the events of Darkness Calls. In the Fegredo epilogue, Kate gets a letter from Hellboy. Abe and Liz are there too and they talk about it together. Thing is, this letter arrived a month after Hellboy wrote it, which according to the timeline would mean Liz had already been taken by Memnan Saa and she hasn't returned to the BPRD since, so how could she have seen Hellboy's letter?

When this was pointed out to Scott Allie he said something along the lines of, "This is why I didn't want to do the damn thing in the first place." I totally get where he's coming from. I see no reason why the events of Darkness Calls can't be moved to earlier in 2006 in the next Hellboy Companion if they ever make one. It wouldn't contradict anything in the comics, and the comics are the real canon (as long as the backgrounds match the season it's set in).

Then, there was the incident with The Black Goddess, in which we find out how all of Lobster Johnson's crew died... except that one of them had already died in Night Train, and those events were written into the timeline.

With Night Train it was written without Mike Mignola's involvement at a time when MM didn't know what this spinoff series BPRD really was yet. It was written around the same time as There's Something Under the Bed, a story that completely misses the mark in terms of fitting in Hellboy's universe (tonally and plot-wise, it's an odd fit). Yet both stories are in the timeline. Are they canon? Who knows? I'm inclined to think not, and that Jason Hall put them in the timeline because they were published under the BPRD banner. In my opinion those two stories are as much canon as any of Hellboy's Weird Tales stories. That's only my point of view, not fact. They could actually be canon. Point is no one knows except MM.

And guess what? There's a chance that guy that died wasn't even the same character as the one shown dead in The Black Goddess, but merely a new sidekick that looked similar. I guess Lobster Johnson likes blondes .

See why I didn't want to go into this?

So, I take the comics and Christopher Golden's three books (which he has confirmed are canon) as canon. The timeline is just whatever concept existed in Mike Mignola's head when they wrote it, and even then it's a translation of that by Jason Hall. The timeline is constantly evolving and changing. Many of the events written in that timeline have never even been referenced in a story yet, and I'm sure if MM needed to juggle those around, there'd be no hesitation about it. He's not going to to let a timeline written years ago tell him what he can and can't write just to preserve its legitimacy as canon.

So, for the purposes of this thread, I'm not using the Hellboy Companion, because the comics are the only real canon and I don't own a copy of it any way... I take all my leads directly from the comic pages, which is as close to definite as you're ever going to get.

I totally get Scott Allie's exasperation whenever someone mentions the word canon. 'Tis a troublesome word.

[Kees_L]

No, it's 2007, roughly August.
I wouldn't take that literally. That image is tied into a larger marketing scheme. It would be weird to have a deathday party in which the date is 4 years earlier. It just makes more sense from a marketing point of view (not to mention it's damn confusing!)

But he died in the latter half of 2007. The timeline of the BPRD makes that clear. Maybe it was August 10, 2007 (and the tombstone guy got the year wrong? )

I disagree with the word *marketing scheme*.

Not with the purpose of this thread.

But the official date here would be the publication date according to our own real world, not the fictional world of Hellboy & the BPRD. Two worlds which do not connect, or only fictitiously.

I wouldn't be surprised if the date put on the tombstone in the comics would be to correspond with the comic timeline instead of the official date.

I totally get Scott Allie's exasperation whenever someone mentions the word canon. 'Tis a troublesome word.

Canon.

Canon canon canon .

It serves a purpose since Hellboy/BPRD/etc is a one-creator-instigated thing. Some books or titles do not reflect to being part of that so they're not.
Even two stories by mr Mike, being Hellboy Junior ones.

Just like how the Hellboy movies or Hellboy Animated would not be canon since they'd be (purposefully) different beasts, both as made by other people.

I too understand mr Scott's relative objections to what I believe to being the timeline specifically, more rather than the canon-bit I would think. It's all in the Companion - everyone should totally get their copy.

Of course it's fun both as interesting to try and figure out exactly at what time all the different bits would be happening or not. But at the same time it'll be plausible that things might turn up as being conflictive to a degree, since such could happen, because dates might get slabbed onto stuff pretty much out of the blue in some occasions and foremostly, if things would be made to matter a great deal then it'll come up amid the story in more ways than simply by unseen clocks ticking silently I would think.

But like I said: I certainly don't object to or disagree with this thread, for what that'd be worth .

[Middenway]

I disagree with the word *marketing scheme*.

'Tis another ugly word ;)

[Kees_L]

'Tis another ugly word ;)

Mwell, erroneous or unneccessary more like.

Since everything making comics (or entertainment or art) possible could be seen as marketing.
Or every form of journalism or advertizing information media could be seen as being part of marketing.

And frankly, Hellboy's going under seems nothing like for example the Jason Todding of Jason Todd, or Mary-Jane or any such.

Since for Hellboy it seems to be a definitive motif or perspective embedded in the character as a whole, to which there were however no wild or hefty leadups or buildups, other than just the story matter itself.

Granted I was anticipating the possibility of hellboy being unalive by as far back as more than a year ago (which I noticed via the search option) and I'm sure there'll be many others, but one cannot say that it was launched as being a marketing scheme I would think.

I even guess that the way some superheroic deaths get treated as being schemes for boosting sales time and again, would be why it all came to pass rather soberly or somewhat anti-climatically almost, 'cause who would have guessed this would really be the destiny-establishing battle? Or at least the first phase of it?
Although I have to say: the coming weekend I'm hoping to finally read it for myself - I can't wait and I feel almost spoiled rotten frankly .

[Middenway]

Mwell, erroneous or unneccessary more like.

I disagree. While Hellboy's death was not a marketing decision, having a tombstone made up and a deathday cake at The Comic Bug most definitely was. But marketing schemes are not always an evil. In this case, I thought it was a really cool way to promote the book, and one that was really celebrating the fandom.

[Jason Abbadon]

So, I take the comics and Christopher Golden's three books (which he has confirmed are canon) as canon. .

I'd dearly love to see Duncan paint the Thor's hammer story- that one is amazing (and Mike did illustrations for it).

[Middenway]

I'd dearly love to see Duncan paint the Thor's hammer story- that one is amazing (and Mike did illustrations for it).

I'd be up for that. I'd love to see those books adapted into comics, but it's never gonna happen. Though I really wish it would.

The novels are in low circulation and it would be a great way to reintroduce them so they can be collected alongside the rest of the comics. I imagine they'd be very fat trades...

But, yeah, I think everyone's far busier writing new stories to even think about adapting these three.

[Kees_L]

I disagree. While Hellboy's death was not a marketing decision, having a tombstone made up and a deathday cake at The Comic Bug most definitely was. But marketing schemes are not always an evil. In this case, I thought it was a really cool way to promote the book, and one that was really celebrating the fandom.

I meant the "scheme" part of *marketing scheme* to being what the "erroneous or unneccessary" would be pertaining to.

Since the comic Bug festivities or any prints, or even the letters or brands on the back of books, would be promotional or part of marketing. Even printed clothing or decorational buttons could besides being decorational be seen as part of marketing or promotion to a degree. Whereas it wouldn't automatically be part of any *scheme* or *cheat* or *ploy*, I'd think. Just saying.

[Middenway]

I meant the "scheme" part of *marketing scheme* to being what the "erroneous or unneccessary" would be pertaining to.

Since the comic Bug festivities or any prints, or even the letters or brands on the back of books, would be promotional or part of marketing. Even printed clothing or decorational buttons could besides being decorational be seen as part of marketing or promotion to a degree. Whereas it wouldn't automatically be part of any *scheme* or *cheat* or *ploy*, I'd think. Just saying.

Ah, I see. Well, I mean Marketing Scheme = Promotional Purposes.

On another note, I added the ages of the characters up the top. I find it's easy to forget how old everyone is. I was surprised to find Kate is not yet fifty, but then I thought the series was only about two years behind real time until I put together this thread.