Herman von Klempt

Herman von Klempt is a fictional character created by writer/artist Mike Mignola for the Dark Horse Comics series "Hellboy". He first appeared in the "Comics Buyer's Guide.""'

Doomsday

Near the end of the second World War, faced with possible defeat, a desperate Adolf Hitler launched what the Allies called 'The Doomsday Projects'. Among these was Project Vampir Sturm (1944, proposed by Heinrich Himmler); Project Ragna Rok (The Fatal Destiny), which resulted in the appearance of Hellboy in a church in East Bromwich, England (December 23, 1944); and, lastly, the Nazi Space Program.

The Nazi Space Program

Dr. Ernst Oeming was a German physicist often referred to as the "Nazi Einstein." He was assassinated on January 1, 1939 when his car exploded. The Gestapo moved what was left of Oeming's body to Hunte Castle in Austria where Nazi scientists had managed to communicate to the "living beings in space." The Nazis immediately began preparing Oeming's body to be launched into space to provide a host body for the space creatures. On the night of March 20, 1939, the date Oeming's body was to be launched, the American hero Lobster Johnson led a group of American troops in an attack on Hunte Castle. In a state of panic, the Nazis launched Oeming's ship before the roof's doors could open. Although the rocket cleared the castle and made it into space, the explosion resulted in the immediate incineration of everyone inside the castle save one man: Herman von Klempt.

Herman von Klempt

Although most of his body was destroyed, his head was kept alive in a jar. Von Klempt created what he called a 'Kriegsaffen' (German for 'war ape'), a sort of Frankenstein's monster-like ape, to do most of the work he could no longer perform himself. At some point he had a swastika tattooed to his forehead.

After the war, von Klempt retreated to a base in the jungle near Macapa, Brazil, where he began working on other projects. It was there in 1959 that he was confronted by Hellboy, who was investigating the disappearance of peasant girls in the area. In the fight that ensued, Hellboy defeated von Klempt and his ape, whom von Klempt called "Brutus". Von Klempt's inert head would not be seen for decades.

Wake the Devil

Herman von Klempt's old friend and colleague, Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, had placed himself in suspended animation with Ilsa Haupstein and Leopold Kurtz, two other members of the Ragna Rok Project. Asleep in a Norwegian castle, they were awoken in 1994 and Kroenen sent Roderick Zinco, a follower of the deceased Rasputin, to Brazil to retrieve von Klempt. Although Kroenen was easily able to revive von Klempt, the head's private ambitions clashed with the religious zeal of Rasputin's followers leading to Kroenen's murder of Kurtz. Furious at von Klempt and Kroenen, Rasputin's ghost blinded Zinco, who accidentally set off an explosion that destroyed the castle.

The Return of a Madman

Luckily surviving the castle's detonation, von Klempt retreated to a secret laboratory under a graveyard in Germany. There he began work on Kriegaffe #10 along with various other projects when he was suddenly stricken with despair over the seeming endless failure and lack of purpose his life had become. In this moment of weakness, he was contacted by the ghost of Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin, mistakenly believed by von Klempt to be the Angel of Death, showed the Nazi scientist the destruction that would result from releasing the worm they had planted within Oeming's body. Once the world had been overtaken, the Ogdru Hem would be released from their prisons, and they would, in turn, release the Ogdru Jahad, who will reduce the world to ashes. Von Klempt, finally given purpose - to watch the destruction of the world - returned after sixty years to Hunte Castle.

Von Klempt succeeded in drawing Oeming's capsule back to Earth. A gigantic creature called 'The Conqueror Worm' surged forth from the capsule. Spewing forth a noxious gas, the worm turned von Klempt's human agents into frog-men, then devoured them immediately to feed its insatiable hunger. Only quick intervention by Hellboy and Roger the Homunculus, aided by the ghost of Lobster Johnson, managed to halt the worm's march. Von Klempt was pulled off of a cliff by Roger; the madman's jar was smashed and his life came to an end.

Other appearances

• Herman von Klempt's head came with the Kriegaffe #10 action figure released in 2005 by Mezco Toyz. A variant of von Klempt's head (with the Nazi swastika on his forehead) was released with a limited-edition Hellboy figure. [http://mezco.net/products.asp?pline=hbc2005]

• Herman von Klempt and several of his Kriegaffen are featured in the "" video game, where he acts as the game's primary villain yet has a body.

• A head in a jar that may or may not have been Von Klempt was seen amongst the collection of Nazi Supervillain memorabilia in Mr. Pope's office in the B.P.R.D. storyline "The Black Flame".

• Von Klempt appears at the end of Issue #4 of "B.P.R.D.: 1946," along with two of his Kriegaffes.

Trivia

• Von Klempt's Kriegaffe share many similarities with the Image comics (Spawn) villain Cy-Gor. A failed attempt to create a super-soldier; Cy-Gor was originally a captured Silverback Gorilla who had it's mind fused with a CIA agent, and then was augmented with cybernetics, and various weapons.

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