Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1

A demon on a belt buckle

Hellboy began as a sketch. In 1991 Mike Mignola drew a demonic figure for a promotional pamphlet for the Great Salt Lake Comic-Con; it had "Hell Boy" on its belt buckle but looked little like the character that followed. Mignola later said the name was a last-minute addition: "I added the Hellboy name at the last minute, and it made me laugh."

The character took two more years to reach print. A prototype appeared on the cover of Dime Press #4 in May 1993. His first full story came in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2, a black-and-white book given away at the August 1993 convention, which also introduced Arthur Adams's Monkeyman and O'Brien. He was seen in color, as a fictional character, in John Byrne's Next Men #21 in December 1993.

Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1 followed with a March 1994 cover date. It was the first issue of a four-part monthly miniseries and the character's first series of his own.

Mignola, Byrne and the Legend imprint

Mike Mignola was born in Berkeley, California, on September 16, 1960, and earned a BFA in illustration from California College of the Arts in 1982. He inked and penciled for Marvel from 1983, then drew for DC from 1987, including Cosmic Odyssey with Jim Starlin in 1988 and the Batman one-shot Gotham by Gaslight in 1989. Hellboy was his first creator-owned project.

John Byrne, born in Walsall, England, on July 6, 1950, had by then drawn long runs on X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 Superman relaunch The Man of Steel. At Dark Horse he was drawing Next Men, and he was one of the founders of Legend, a creator-owned imprint, with Frank Miller, Mignola and Art Adams. Seed of Destruction #1 carries the Legend brand on its cover.

Mignola plotted and drew the story; Byrne wrote the words. Mignola has said he wanted experienced scripting help for his debut, and he went on to write every later Hellboy story himself. The comic's index records an unusual division of labor in the lettering as well: Mignola drew the balloons and sound effects, while Byrne lettered the dialogue in a font based on his own hand lettering, and neither was credited for it. Mark Chiarello colored the story and Kevin Nowlan designed the Hellboy logo.

East Bromwich, 1944

The issue opens in 1944 at church ruins in East Bromwich, England, where specialists from the British Paranormal Society have gathered because a medium, Lady Cynthia Eden-Jones, has sensed a disturbance. A demon child appears in an explosion of flame, and Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm names it Hellboy. The demon's arrival is the result of an occult ritual staged on a Scottish island by Nazi agents, orchestrated by Grigori Rasputin.

The story then jumps fifty years to 1994. Bruttenholm tells Hellboy about a recent Arctic expedition; frogs swarm into his office, and the professor staggers back into the room dead. Hellboy kills the frog-like creature and calls the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. The last page is a dossier on the Nazi officers of Project Ragna Rok, among them Kroenen and Ilsa Haupstein. Later issues bring in the agents Liz Sherman and Abe Sapien and end with Rasputin's attempt to use Hellboy to summon the Ogdru Jahad.

The back of the book holds a seven-page Monkeyman and O'Brien chapter written and drawn by Arthur Adams, along with Byrne's one-page "Hellmail" afterword and house ads for Next Men and Howard Chaykin's Power & Glory. Adams also drew the small Monkeyman inset on the cover.

How many and how to identify one

No print run for the issue appears in the sources consulted here. The grading census gives a sense of how common sound copies are: as of September 30, 2025, it had graded 1,087 copies, with a median grade of 9.6. Of those, 445 were graded CGC 9.8, including 121 Signature Series copies, and three were graded 9.9, all with Universal labels.

A first printing is the 36-page comic with a March 1994 cover date, a $2.50 U.S. and $3.40 Canadian price, a Legend logo alongside the Dark Horse brand, and a small Monkeyman and O'Brien inset on Mignola's cover. Collected editions, beginning with a 1994 trade paperback and a 1995 hardcover, reprint the story but are separate books, and in July 2026 Dark Horse issued a facsimile edition of the issue, original ads included, with a 1-in-25 variant cover by Mignola colored by Dave Stewart.

Because 9.8 copies are plentiful, they trade steadily. Between September 2025 and September 2026 CGC 9.8 copies with Universal labels sold for as little as $242.50 and as much as $450, most of them between about $300 and $375. A Signature Series 9.8 signed by Mignola sold for $550 in April 2021.

From a four-issue miniseries to four films

The collected Seed of Destruction won the 1995 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint, and Mignola won the Eisner for Best Writer/Artist the same year. He went on to collect further Eisner and Harvey Awards through 2009, an Inkpot Award in 2004 and induction into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame in 2019.

Guillermo del Toro adapted the miniseries into the film Hellboy, starring Ron Perlman, which premiered on March 30, 2004, opened wide in the United States on April 2 and earned $99.8 million worldwide. Hellboy has since appeared in four live-action films, two animated films and several video games.

Dark Horse's own summary of the character's run is that Hellboy has become one of comics' most expansive universes, earning Eisner and Harvey Awards and inspiring generations of creators. The 2026 facsimile of issue #1 was pitched as a way for new readers to flip through the first issue as it originally appeared.

The numbers

Cover price

$2.50 U.S. / $3.40 Canada

Pages

36; 23-page Hellboy story, 7-page Monkeyman and O'Brien backup

Print run

Not documented in the sources consulted

Census, September 30, 2025

1,087 graded; median grade 9.6

CGC 9.8 copies

445, including 121 Signature Series (September 30, 2025)

Highest grade

Three CGC 9.9, all Universal (September 30, 2025)

Timeline

1. 1991

   Mike Mignola sketches a demon with "Hell Boy" on its belt buckle for a Great Salt Lake Comic-Con pamphlet.

2. May 1993

   A prototype Hellboy appears on the cover of Dime Press #4.

3. Aug 1993

   Hellboy's first full story runs in San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2, given away at the convention.

4. Dec 1993

   Hellboy appears in color, as a fictional character, in John Byrne's Next Men #21.

5. Mar 1994

   Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1 is published by Dark Horse under the Legend imprint for $2.50.

6. Jun 1994

   The fourth and final issue of the miniseries is published.

7. 1994

   The miniseries is collected as a 128-page trade paperback.

8. 1995

   The collection wins the Eisner for Best Graphic Album: Reprint; Mignola wins Best Writer/Artist.

9. Apr 2, 2004

   Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy, starring Ron Perlman, opens wide in the United States.

10. Apr 2021

    A CGC 9.8 Signature Series copy signed by Mignola sells for $550.

11. Sep 30, 2025

    The grading census counts 1,087 copies, 445 of them at CGC 9.8 and three at 9.9.

12. Jan 14, 2026

    A CGC 9.8 copy sells for $450.

13. Jul 1, 2026

    Dark Horse releases a facsimile edition of Seed of Destruction #1.

14. Sep 17, 2026

    A CGC 9.8 copy sells at auction for $439.

The world in 1994

• Jan 1, 1994

  The North American Free Trade Agreement takes effect.

• Jan 17, 1994

  The Northridge earthquake strikes greater Los Angeles, killing 57 people.

• Mar 21, 1994

  Schindler's List wins seven Oscars, including Best Picture.

• Apr 8, 1994

  Kurt Cobain is found dead at his Lake Washington home.

• Apr 22, 1994

  Former president Richard Nixon dies in New York at 81.

• Jun 14, 1994

  The New York Rangers win their first Stanley Cup in 54 years.

• Jun 15, 1994

  Disney's The Lion King opens in theaters.

• Jun 17, 1994

  O.J. Simpson and Al Cowlings lead police on a chase in a white Ford Bronco.

Price record

A realized private sale is a completed transaction outside an auction room. The amount is what changed hands on the date shown. Private sales are reported less consistently than auction results, so a single comparable carries less weight than a run of them.

By reference price, Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1 is number 86 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (87 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Mignola added the name Hellboy at the last minute, and said it made him laugh.
• Hellboy's first full story ran in a giveaway comic at the 1993 San Diego Comic-Con, alongside the debut of Monkeyman and O'Brien.
• Mignola drew the balloons and sound effects in issue #1, while Byrne lettered the dialogue in a font based on his own handwriting; neither was credited.
• Byrne scripted only the first Hellboy story; Mignola wrote every one after it.
• The issue's cover carries a small inset of Arthur Adams's Monkeyman, star of the backup feature.
• Three copies of the issue had graded CGC 9.9 by September 2025, all with Universal labels.