Abe Sapien
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| Abraham Sapien | |
 Abe Sapien by Mike Mignola |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Dark Horse Comics |
| First appearance | Hellboy: Seed of Destruction (1993)) |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Langdon Everett Caul |
| Team affiliations | B.P.R.D. |
| Abilities | Underwater breathing, increased intelligence, excellent marksman, formidable hand-to-hand combatant, (film version) psychometry, telepathy |
Abraham "Abe" Sapien is a fictional character in the comic book series Hellboy, created by Mike Mignola. He is identified as an "icthyo sapien", similar to a merman.
As well as regular appearances in Hellboy and B.P.R.D., Abe has also starred in his own one-shot comic, Abe Sapien: Drums of the Dead by Brian McDonald and Derek Thompson. An upcoming mini-series called Abe Sapien: The Drowning will be published in 2008.
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[edit] Character history
As seen in Seed of Destruction, Abe was found in a water-filled tube in a Washington, D.C. hospital. He got his name from a piece of paper attached to the tube, dated the day of Abraham Lincoln's assassination: (April 14, 1865). Abe quickly entered the ranks of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (B.P.R.D.), along with the demon Hellboy and the pyrokinetic Liz Sherman. During the climax of Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Abe is possessed by the spirit of a long-dead whaler named Elihu Cavendish, who kills the mad monk Rasputin and foils the madman's plans to unleash the demonic Ogdru Jahad to destroy the world. In the next series, Wake the Devil, Rasputin's spirit warns Abe that he will be speared to death, just as Rasputin was.
In the miniseries B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs, Abe's origin was finally revealed. As Rasputin predicted, Abe was stabbed by a spear and apparently killed by one of the Ogdru Jahad's followers. However, instead of dying, Abe had a vision of his former self living in the Victorian era. Abe was formerly Langdon Everett Caul, a powerful businessman involved with a strange cult. Caul's transformation into Abe occurred after he retrieved a strange jellyfish-like deity from an underwater ruin called Num-Yabisc. At a clandestine meeting, witnessed by Abe in spirit form, Caul and other gentlemen perform an arcane ritual that ends with the creature's release. Abe's spirit merges with his former self and the two become the modern Abe Sapien. His associates in the past place him into the water casket, where he rests for decades.
B.P.R.D.: The Dead reveals that Caul's wife, Edith Howard, had gone mad and drowned herself. However, her spirit remained, haunting the house until Caul's return. She tricks Abe into believing he is Caul once again. However, Abe breaks through the illusion and Edith's spirit is exorcised, leaving Abe with the memory of a wife he could never know.
In the 2007 mini-series B.P.R.D.: Garden of Souls, Abe is contacted by Panya, an ageless mummy trapped by the Oannes Club. The Club proves to be made up of Abe's compatriots from his former life as Langdon Caul, who are sequestered away on a hidden island in Indonesia. Trapped in cyborg bodies, the club occupy themselves with growing new bodies for themselves. They plan to use bombs to cause massive tidal waves which would kill most of the people in the country, (whose souls could then be harvested by the Club) but Abe manages to single-handedly destroy the entire club and escape with Panya.
The 2008 mini-series Abe Sapien: The Drowning, set in 1981, chronicles Abe's first B.P.R.D. mission without Hellboy.
[edit] Appearances in other media
[edit] Hellboy Film
In the movie adaptation, Abe is played by Doug Jones and voiced by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce (who refused credit out of a profound respect for Jones's performance).[1] In the movie, Abe is psychic, and is able to touch an object to see the past or the future that the item may hold (in a process called psychometry).
Unlike the comics version, Abe is unable to survive (comfortably, at least) out of the water for long without mechanical aid; in the comic, Abe seems to be able to survive for very long periods of time without water. Though he uses an apparatus resembling a reverse aqua-lung in order to provide water to his gills, he is able to breathe air later in the film without apparent difficulty. It is possible that the aqua-lung device is used for land-based situations where he may be subject to high levels of activity, given the context of its usage.
This version of Abe enjoys ingesting century eggs.
Abe will be returning for the sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, once again played by Doug Jones, who this time will also provide the voice work.
[edit] Hellboy animated
Abe Sapien is one of the characters appearing in two straight-to-video Hellboy animated movies. He is voiced by Doug Jones, in a twist from the Hellboy film, in which Jones supplied Abe's movements but not his voice. This version of the character although similar to the movie Abe, is much more like his comic book counterpart, showing no sign of either the psychic abilities or breathing apparatus.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Doug Jones interview. Horror.com. Retrieved on 2007-06-03. “he was quoted as saying, "That was Doug's character and he wanted to leave it that way"”
[edit] External Links
- Jason Shawn Alexander, artist of Abe Sapien: The Drowning, interviewed on It Came Out on Wednesday, 03-2008
[edit] See also
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