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Every generation needs a reminder that games-based-on-movies-based-on-comics are their own strange little ecosystem, and Hellboy: The Science of Evil is a proud, slightly confused citizen of it. It doesn’t adapt either del Toro movie directly. Instead it just borrows the general vibe, invents its own plot, and trusts you to recognize a giant stone fist and a wisecracking demon without needing either film’s actual story. It’s the video game equivalent of a cover band that only plays originals.

And that giant stone fist deserves a moment, because it’s doing some real character-design heavy lifting. Hellboy is built around exactly one absurdly oversized body part, and that’s basically the whole design manual for a certain flavor of comic book tough guy: pick one appendage, blow it up past the point of reason, let the silhouette do the talking. Todd McFarlane ran the identical play with Spawn, except he went south instead of north, handing us a hero who could probably punt a sedan but might struggle to tie his own laces. One big fist, one big boot. Same weird design instinct, opposite ends of the body.

Which is a good excuse to bring in George Marston of Spawnography, the podcast where podcast where Pierce Lydon joins in to spend their time in the giant-boot corner of that exact design philosophy. George is flying solo this round to see how a giant fist holds up against a their usual task of studying a giant boot.

So pick your favorite oversized body part, brace for a beat-em-up that seems mildly allergic to its own source material, and let’s find out whether The Science of Evil earns a place next to del Toro’s films, or whether it belongs exactly where most tie-in games end up: forgotten. And don’t forget about the Nazi occultism.

Learn such things as:

• How close was Hellboy to being a real thing?
• Isn’t it horrible when the game makes you have a certain item to progress, but also takes that item away because you did normal game actions?
• At what point does it stop being a movie tie in game and start just being a game based in the movie universe? And is there even a difference there?
• And so much more!

You can find Spawnography on BlueSky, and Instagram, and of course those Apple Podcast, YouTube, and Spotify places. You can find George personally on Instagram @crypttrash and be sure to check out their band La Cigarette.

If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in.

If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store.

Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix.

Play Comics is also part of Art Comedy Pop-Culture Network, which is a long-standing creative organization spawning from a love of Adult Swim. Be sure to check them out for all sorts of entertainment news, commentary, and just plain fun stuff.

You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, @playcomicspodcast on Threads, @playcomics on YouTube, or the Play Comics website.

If you want to hear Chris talk with Karrington Martin about the lessons we learned from children’s media and how crazy it is that we’re supposed to just forget about that now that we’re adults, then Sugar, Spite, and Everything is Fine is probably something you should check out.

A big thanks to Brynn Reno and the Fire Within from Mattie Paige and Lee Carvalo’s Podding Challenge for the promos today.

Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who has one big boot and one big glove, but they go on the wrong foot and hand.

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