Abe Sapien

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Abe Sapien
AbeSapien.jpg
Abe Sapien by Mike Mignola
Publication information
Publisher Dark Horse Comics
First appearance Hellboy: Seed of Destruction
In-story information
Alter ego Langdon Everett Caul/Abraham "Abe" Sapien
Team affiliations B.P.R.D.
Partnerships Hellboy
Liz Sherman
Notable aliases Brother Blue, Fishstick

Abraham "Abe" Sapien (born Langdon Everett Caul) is a fictional character in the comic book series Hellboy, created by Mike Mignola. He is identified as an Icthyo sapiens, similar to a merman.

As well as regular appearances in Hellboy and B.P.R.D., Sapien has also starred in his own one-shot comic, Abe Sapien: Drums of the Dead by Brian McDonald and Derek Thompson, and the mini-series Abe Sapien: The Drowning by Mike Mignola.

Contents

[edit] Fictional biography

Sapien began life as Langdon Everett Caul, a Victorian scientist and businessman who became involved with the Oannes Society, an occult organisation who believed in life and all knowledge having come from the sea. After retrieving a strange jellyfish-like deity from an underwater ruin, Caul and the other members performed an arcane ritual that inadvertently ended with the creature's release and Caul being turned into an icthyo sapien. Believing him to be Oannes reborn, the society sealed the developing icthyo sapien's body in a tube of water in the hidden laboratory beneath a Washington, D.C. hospital until such time as he was fully formed. Forced to abandon the site by the outbreak of the Civil War, the Society never found occasion to return for Caul, and there he stayed until he was found by workmen in November 1978.

With no memory of his life before, the icthyo sapien received a new name from a piece of paper attached to the tube, dated the day of Abraham Lincoln's assassination (April 14, 1865). Abe Sapien was taken to the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) for a gruelling round of research by curious BPRD scientists, and was saved from dissection by an empathetic Hellboy. Thereafter Abe entered the ranks of the BPRD as a valued field agent, embarking on his first mission with Hellboy in 1981.

At Cavendish Hall, during the climax of Seed of Destruction, Sapien was possessed by the spirit of long-dead whaler Elihu Cavendish, a contemporary of Langdon Caul, who killed the mad monk Rasputin, foiling his plans to unleash the Ogdru Jahad to destroy the world. During the subsequent 'Girescu affair' during Wake the Devil, Abe and a fellow agent were led into a trap which left the agent dead and Abe with a broken arm. Rasputin's vengeful spirit appeared before him and prophesied that Sapien will one day be speared to death, just as he was.

In Plague of Frogs, Rasputin's prediction came true when Sapien was impaled by a spear and apparently killed by one of the Ogdru Jahad's followers. Sapien appeared to die and had an out of body experience that brought him to his former life in antebellum America. Witnessing his past self's actions, Abe entered Caul's body prior to his transformation, creating a spiritual/mystical time loop before Abe returned to life in the present, making a fast recovery and began to do research into his past life. As a result, Abe learns of Edith Howard, Langdon Caul's wife, who drowned herself out of madness, becoming a spectre that was forced to be exorcised after she attempts to have Sapien resume his life as Caul, leaving Sapien with the memory of a wife he could never know.

In Garden of Souls, Sapien was contacted by Panya, an ageless mummy trapped by the Oannes Society, Sapien's compatriots from his former life as Langdon Caul, who were sequestered away on a hidden island in Indonesia, their now-withered psychical forms contained in cyborg bodies. Aware of the imminent apocalypse, the society were determined to save at least some of mankind's spiritual essence, and were poised to use bombs to cause massive tidal waves which would devastate the southern hemisphere, the souls of whose population could then be harvested by the Society in vat-grown bodies made expressly for the purpose, granting them god-like powers.

Horrified, Abe managed to single-handedly destroy the society and escape with Panya, and in so doing finally came to terms with the ghosts of his past; he was truly a separate identity from Langdon Caul, who would likely have agreed willingly to the society's plan.

[edit] Powers and abilities

Abe Sapien is an amphibian who can survive underwater, an excellent gun marksman, and a formidable hand-to-hand combatant. He has extremely high intelligence and in film roles is adept at telepathy and psychometry. Information revealed in B.P.R.D: The Dead suggests he is ageless, and has been since before his transformation, and in possession of a superhuman toughness, having survived numerous wounds that would be fatal to humans.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Comics

Main article: list of Hellboy comics

[edit] In other media

Doug Jones as Abe Sapien in Hellboy

[edit] Films

In the 2004 film adaptation, Hellboy, Sapien is played by Doug Jones, and voiced by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce who refused credit out of respect for Jones' performance.[1] In the movie, Sapien is psychic, and has psychometric abilities. Sapien's genetic makeup gives him the power of ultra-sentience found in the most mysterious and intelligent underwater creatures. With a frontal lobe resembling that of a dolphin, Abe is able to transmit and receive electro-psychic information in the same way that cetaceans use sonar. Sapien has encyclopedic knowledge of the occult, and holds a paranormal expertise rivaled only by Professor Bruttenholm. He is also nicknamed "Blue" along with Hellboy, who is "Red".

Unlike the comic version, Sapien is unable to survive indefinitely out of the water for long periods without a collar-like apparatus that provides water to his gills.

This version of Sapien enjoys eating thousand year eggs. He spends much of his time reading four books simultaneously through the large water tank (in which he lives, located in Professor Bruttenholm's office). He is attempting to solve a Rubik's Cube, having stated it's been three decades and he has only completed two sides.

Sapien appeared in the film's 2008 sequel, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, in which he was played and voiced by Doug Jones. He doesn't wear his breathing apparatus as much in this sequel, and he shows his marksman skills in the film. He is also the one who discovers Liz's pregnancy in the mission where Hellboy is revealed to the world. He falls in love with the elf Princess Nuala, which leads to his helping Prince Nuada by giving him the magical crown piece (to control the Golden Army) for her safety, but Princess Nuala killed herself to protect Hellboy from Nuada's attempt to kill Hellboy.

[edit] Animation

Abe Sapien is one of the characters appearing in two straight-to-DVD Hellboy Animated films, Hellboy: Sword of Storms and Hellboy: Blood and Iron, in which he is voiced by Doug Jones. This version of the character, although similar to the movie Sapien, is much more like his comic book counterpart, showing signs of neither the psychic abilities nor breathing apparatus.

[edit] Video games

Abe is a playable character in Hellboy: The Science of Evil.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ "Doug Jones interview". Horror.com. http://www.horror.com/php/article-1596-1.html. Retrieved 2007-06-03. "he was quoted as saying, "That was Doug's character and I wanted to leave it that way"" 

[edit] External links

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