Karl Ruprect Kroenen
| Karl Ruprecht Kroenen | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Dark Horse Comics |
| First comic appearance | Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1 |
| Created by | Mike Mignola |
| In-story information | |
| Team affiliations | Nazi Germany, Project Ragna Rok |
| Partnerships | Rasputin |
| Altered in-story information for adaptations to other media | |
| Full name | Karl Ruprecht Kroenen |
| Abilities | Immortality Superhuman agility, stamina, and durability Expert in hand-to-hand combat and swordfighting |
Professor Doctor Karl Ruprect Kroenen is a fictional supervillain in the Hellboy comic book series, created by Mike Mignola. Kroenen is a Nazi occult scientist and disciple of Rasputin who was involved in the ritual that first brought Hellboy to Earth in the 1940s; disappearing after the end of World War II, Kroenen and several allies return from suspended animation in the 1990s to continue pursuing their apocalyptic goals. Due to a disfiguring accident, Kroenen always wears a gas mask and bodysuit that together obscure his entire body.
The character was greatly revised and adapted, as Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, for the 2004 film adaptation Hellboy. Writer-director Guillermo del Toro reimagined the scientist as an undying assassin.
He may have been based on the real Karl Ruprecht, an Austrian born in Gratkorn on June 19, 1910, who became a Nazi official and folklorist in 1934