open_flame | Liz's entry in "Hellboy: the Companion"

Thought this might interest some of my friends to know more about where I pull bits of Liz's personality and history from.

Elizabeth Anne Sherman was born in Kansas City; Kansas, on April 15, 1962. She was raised in a strictly religious family and attended Catholic school as well as twice-weekly Mass.

Liz's pyrokinetic ability first manifested itself when she was ten. Small fires-no bigger than a match head began to flare up near her. She kept the fires a secret, extinguishing them before they could spread. However, as time passed, the fires began to appear more frequently-by February 1973, they were a daily occurrence. Liz was convinced that the fires were her fault-punishment for some unknown sin-and she turned more and more to prayer as a means of managing her guilt.

For a time, prayer seemed to work: by April, the fires had stopped completely, probably controlled by Liz's will and determination.

In July 1973, Liz thought she had her problem under control. However, a neighborhood boy made fun of Liz's ponytail, and her anger manifested in a fire that leveled an entire city block and killed thirty-two people, including Liz's parents and brother. Firefighters discovered Liz, miraculously unharmed, standing in the middle of the smoldering rubble.

The BPRD, which had been called to the scene, wanted to take custody of Liz immediately, but the request was blocked by Liz's family, who refused to believe investigators' claims-or Liz's-that she had been responsible for the fire. They soon learned otherwise, as small fires once again began to flare up around her. Over the next ten months, Liz grew increasingly depressed as she was passed from relative to relative-her extended family was understandably afraid of her destructive powers-until she finally became a ward of the BPRD in May 1974.

At BPRD headquarters, Liz was kept in a flame-proof room while the Bureau scientists studied her power. With no real comfort or physical contact---only doctors and scientists in bulky flame-proof suits were allowed to enter her room--Liz withdrew further and further into depression.

Her isolation was finally broken by Hellboy, who became her closest friend and source of "human" contact in those first weeks. Hellboy helped Liz to overcome her trauma, fear, and isolation, and to adjust to her new home in the BPRD For the next six years, Liz and Hellboy remained extremely close-he traveled frequently on assignments, but made sure to check in on Liz regularly-as she trained with both the BPRD scientists and independent experts on pyrokinesis, developing at least tenuous control of her abilities.

In 1978, Abe Sapien was brought to BPRD Headquarters. Much like Liz, Abe was held in a tank while scientists studied him. Like Liz, Abe was rescued from his confinement by Hellbov, with whom he developed a deep and lasting friendship. When Hellboy was away from Bureau headquarters, Abe and Liz, too, became fist friends independent of their mutual savior. While Liz still occasionally had nightmares about the fire that had killed her family, she gradually began to let go of her past life. And while she was still tar from complete control of her powers, the number of accidental flare-ups continued to steadily decrease.

In 1980, when Liz reached legal adulthood, she decided to remain with the BPRD, which had offered her a position as a full field agent. In the field, Liz continued to struggle with her pyrokinetic abilities. In stressful situations, she often lost control of her power, and, as a result, she was often assigned to quieter cases. Between 1980 and 1994, she quit the BPRD twelve times, though she always returned. No matter how much she wanted to leave the Bureau, she didn't trust herself in the outside world.

In May 1994, Abe, Liz, and Hellboy traveled to Cavendish Hall in upstate New York to investigate the murder of BPRD director Trevor Brurtenholm (Broom). During the course of the investigation, Rasputin seized control of Liz's power, funneling it through the creature Sadu-Hem and "into the void," where he hoped it would free the Ogdru Jahad from their prison. Rasputin might have succeeded in his mission had Abe not killed him, spearing him through the chest with a whaling harpoon. Liz, shocked out of her trancelike state when Rasputin died, was unable to regain control of her fire. In the explosion that followed, she destroyed both Sadu-Hem and Cavendish Hall.

Liz was devastated by both the violation of being used by Rasputin and her own loss of control, and she quit the BPRD for the thirteenth time in June 1994. But if Liz did not trust her power within the BPRD she was even less confident of her control in the outside world; she returned to the Bureau the following February.

In 1997, Liz joined agents Bud Waller and Sidney Leach on a search for the body of the vampire Vladimir Giurescu. In the course of their Investigation, the group discovered the seemingly lifeless body of a man-sized homunculus in a castle in Romania. Liz was drawn to the homunculus and, sensing a way to be rid of her fire, she put her finger into a hole in the homunculus's chest. Her tire drained into the homunculus, bringing it to life. When Waller shot Liz in the arm in an attempt to break the connection, the homunculus killed him, then fled.

The price of the exchange had been steeper than Liz could have anticipated: her fire was integral to her life, and without it, she wasted away and died in a Romanian hospital. She was only dead a few minutes, however, before the homunculus, which Hellboy had named Roger, restored her to life by returning her stolen fire to her.
Liz returned to work, but death had taken a psychic toll on her. In February 2000, she left the BPRD once again, this time traveling to a monastery in the Ural Mountains, where she hoped to be able to achieve some semblance of balance and make peace with her fire.

Although Liz never discussed the details of her experience at the monastery, by mid-2002, she had finally achieved the equilibrium she sought and with it, full control of her powers. Unfortunately, in September 2002, the monastery was attacked descendants of a Hyperborean slave race, which had been living deep in the earth. All of the monks were murdered in the attack. Liz's spirit was stolen out o1 her body and imprisoned inside a Hyperborean device that the King of Fear, the leader of the slaves, planned to use to power ancient war machines. Liz was somehow able to broadcast her distress to Abe, who mobilized a BRD rescue mission. Liz was rescued, and her spirit was restored to her body. Though shaken by her experience, Liz retained her newfound balance and was soon traveling with the BPRD on other assignments.

One such mission involved a spore that BPRD scientists had discovered during a routine sweep of Cavendish Hall. The spore had grown into an earthly manifestation of Sadu-Hem, which had escaped from the BPRD laboratory and traveled to Crab Point, Michigan, where it transformed the town's entire population into frog creatures. During that investigation, Liz was able to control her fire, using it to destroy both Sadu-Hem (again) and an enclave of frog creatures.

Despite Liz's efforts, some of the frog creatures escaped. Liz, along with other BPRD agents, traveled all over the country trying to eradicate the frog creatures. After the BPRD had destroyed a nest in Handelson, Montana, an old woman approached Liz and gave her a lotus blossom, which apparently caused Liz to lapse into a brief coma. While she was unconscious, Liz dreamt of a mysterious gentleman who seemed to know things about the frog creatures. With his guidance, she was able to channel her power through an ancient Hyperborean artifact, and destroy the enormous creature Katha-Hem, one of the Ogdru Hem summoned by the frog creatures. She was not, however, able to save Roger from being destroyed by a former C.E.O. of the Zinco Corporation, who had adopted the identity of the Black Flame in homage to the World War II Nazi villain of the same name.

Feeling responsible for Roger's death, Liz moved into his old room to be closer to his things. In 2007, her mistrust of new BPRD field leader Benjamin Dairmio proved sound when Daimio transformed into a jaguar creature, killing several operatives and attacking Liz. The mysterious gentleman was able to use this incident to extend his influence over Liz, when she once again lapsed into a coma. She was awakened when Johann, possessed by the spirit of Lobster Johnson, appeared and shot the stranger.

Liz's visions persist, with increasingly apocalyptic imagery, and the mysterious gentleman's warnings grow more grave, along with his promise that he alone can help her stop what's coming. The identity and intent of her visitor remains a mystery, as does the true nature of his interest in Liz.