One of the most notable things about Mike Mignola’s Hellboy (and B.P.R.D.) books is that, despite the fact that they star a big, gun-toting, cigar-chomping ass kicker and his various superpowered friends, they never feel much like superhero books. That’s mostly on account of the forces that Hellboy and his teammates are arrayed against, the sort of cosmic, eldritch forces that copious face-punching can’t really solve, and which frequently drive the franchise into the open, grasping tentacles of horror.
That’s a tone that didn’t necessarily come across in either of the existing Hellboy films, despite the many charms of Guillermo Del Toro’s work. But it also might be about to change, courtesy of the upcoming David Harbour-starring reboot—at least according to the movie’s panel at New York Comic-Con today. “There’s this dark, kind of horror-y, monster element to it,” Harbour said of the film, praising its copious practical effects. “I think that’s really at its core in a different way a little bit than a superhero movie.” And while it’s not clear if the Neil Marshall-directed movie will actually go full-on Lovecraft here, the early-look footage from the panel—including an appearance from Mignola himself, who co-wrote the screenplay—is drawing strong reviews.
Not that it’s all doom and gloom, either; co-star Daniel Dae Kim promised that the film still contains plenty of humor, and Harbour was thoroughly back on his Twitter retweet grind, noting that he’s currently entertaining a challenge to officiate a wedding in costume as Hellboy (an escalation from when he did something similar as his Stranger Things character Hopper earlier this year).