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.
After refusing to be their king after Hecate was disposed of, Baba Yaga offered the witches to give her Hellboy so she can exact her revenge within her world. After the intervention of the Leshii, who offered Hellboy a one-night sanctum in his woods, Baba Yaga summoned her greatest servant Koshchei the Deathless to hunt down Hellboy and bring her his head, or eye, with the promise to release Koschei from his cursed immortality. After killing Perun for his interference in impeding Koschei's progress, after Vasilisa the Beautiful showed Hellboy the way back to his world while providing him gifts to hinder Koschei, Baba Yaga resorts to infusing her champion with the thousands of souls from her collection of skulls and then a fragment of her own soul to take control of Koschei's body. Drained of almost all her power as Koschei is defeated, Baba Yaga attempted to use Rasputin's soul before a fearful Koku snatched the acorn that contained the evil monk away from her and cast it through the roots of the World Tree into Hell. In a last-ditch effort, Baba Yaga ordered Koschei to throw his dagger into Hellboy's back as he ascended to the exit of her world. But the last attempt on Hellboy's life failed as a weakened Baba Yaga is calmly derided by the ghost in black as she is told that Hellboy must give her his eye willingly.
The ancient Russian witch Baba Yaga manifested her spiritual presence inside a dark, desolate church to confront the paranormal investigator Hellboy while he was actively searching for the missing body of Vladimir Giurescu. Rather than physically fighting him, she appeared as a floating, spectral entity with a missing left eye and used the encounter to taunt and speak to him about his true, dark destiny. She cryptically reminded him of their violent past encounter in 1964—where he had shot out her eye—and warned him that his refusal to accept his demonic nature would eventually lead to his downfall. After delivering her ominous, taunting message and refusing to give him direct answers regarding the whereabouts of the vampire he was hunting, she vanished back into the shadows, leaving him to continue his investigation alone. (Hellboy: Wake the Devil v1 #4)
Baba Yaga remained inside her private, magical pocket dimension, where she observed the ongoing affairs of the supernatural world and plotted a brutal, personal revenge against Hellboy. Following the events involving the goddess Hecate, a group of powerful witches approached Baba Yaga and offered to make her their new queen, an invitation she flatly rejected in favour of focusing entirely on her vendetta. She instead demanded that the witches deliver Hellboy directly into her domain so that she could exact her punishment. To ensure his capture, she summoned her most lethal and fiercely loyal servant, the immortal warrior Koshchei the Deathless, and struck a bargain with him by promising to finally grant him the sweet release of true death if he successfully brought her Hellboy's head or his remaining eye. When the storm god Perun attempted to interfere with her plans and aid Hellboy in escaping, she ruthlessly ambushed and murdered the deity to ensure she remained the sole godlike authority within her artificial Russia. As Koshchei ultimately failed to execute his target and Hellboy prepared to escape the pocket dimension back into the mortal world, she drained her own magical reserves and infused her champion with a massive collection of stored souls to forcibly take telepathic control over Koshchei's physical body. (Hellboy: Darkness Calls v1 #4)
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, Baba Yaga had stood as the embodiment of Slavic folklore’s darkest roots. She appeared as an ancient crone—frail yet formidable—with one glowing eye and the other socket a haunting void, having lost her left eye in a confrontation. Her gait was unnervingly fluid despite her withered form; she moved with the unnatural grace of someone untethered to normal mortal constraints. She wore tattered robes stitched from human bones and crow feathers, and her twisted chicken-leg house hovered beside her like a roaming sentinel. In March 1964, during Hellboy’s investigation of child disappearances, she surfaced from between worlds—skimming across the snow into a Bereznik cemetery, where she had been counting the fingers of the dead. When Hellboy confronted her, she retaliated by hurling gravestones and casting curses, but was ultimately wounded and forced into her pocket dimension. She then beset the village with a curse: no spring would come, and every newborn would be blind in one eye. (Hellboy: The Chained Coffin v1 #1)
In personality, Baba Yaga had exuded a chilling mix of cunning malice and ancient authority. Her motives were often inscrutable; she sought children as both sustenance and ritual tokens and manipulated mystical allies like Rasputin and Koschei to serve her agendas. She spoke in riddles and half-truths, twisting words to ensnare others—she offered help to Hellboy, demanding his eye as payment, knowing full well he would never willingly surrender it. She exhibited maternal cruelty, calling herself a 'grandmother' over Rasputin even as she placed curses upon entire villages for affronting her. Her laughter echoed like cracking ice, and her curse over Bereznik revealed both vindictiveness and metaphysical power. Eternally bound to Russia and its soil, she insisted she could never truly die, returning from her pocket realm when called upon by fate or ritual. (Hellboy: The Chained Coffin v1 #1)
These snapshots from her first comic appearance illustrated Baba Yaga’s dual nature: a being of primeval, supernatural terror, yet grounded in folklore’s cautionary themes. She was not merely a monster but a living myth—ancient, cruelly intelligent, and eternally woven into the dark heart of her world, waiting to be encountered again. (Hellboy: The Chained Coffin v1 #1)
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.
Baba Yaga's magical expertise appears to lie in spiritual magic, or magic that involves the control or manipulation of souls. Her lanterns are a chief example of this; it has been stated that she had thousands in her collection. A vast army of the undead is under her control, one that she uses to dominate her faux Russia with little resistance, save by the hands of the Leshii, who delights in getting in her way. She also controls Koschei the deathless and owns his soul, which is keep in an egg inside a duck inside a rabbit inside a goat. Her ghostly lanterns appear to be the source of her power; she has demonstrated the ability to use them to amplify the powers of other beings. She can also remove portions of a soul and place those portions elsewhere to grant the soul's owner extended life, as demonstrated with Rasputin.
Baba Yaga also uses other forms of magic to aid her. She is often seen traveling great distances inside a giant wooden mortar, in a manner similar to a witch's broom. She also possesses a set of prosthetic wooden legs and a wooden lower torso, both of which are likely powered by magic. She has demonstrated on more than one occasion the ability to see great distances, going so far as to even see outside of her faux Russia and into the normal world. She also has the ability to communicate with witches in the normal world should she deem it necessary.
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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