Robert Hellsgaard

Origin

A scientist and engineer born in Lenskirch, Germany, in 1898 Dr Robert Hellsgaard returned home after work one night to find his entire village, his family included, slaughtered by Werewolves. With no time to spare, his family resurrected by the full moon, Hellsgaard killed them before escaping. He became a hunter of monsters after that night, building himself a robotic suit of armour and fighting alongside Ulysses Bloodstone. Hellsgaard had created a portal to a dimensional limbo of Hell, a place to send all the monsters they had slain until the Prince of Darkness, Dracula, went to war with them and near killing Hellsgaard sent him to Hell.

Spending over a century in Hell with nothing but the corpses of his enemies for company, Hellsgaard returned having gone insane after Japanese scientists desperate to fight off the Legion of Monsters terrorising their cities discovered and restored the dimensional portal that Hellsgaard had originally created.

A greater monster himself for having been consumed by his lust for revenge, and his iron encased body now mummified, Hellsgaard became the leader of an army of monster hunters dedicated to killing all monsters...

Irony!!!!

Creation

Dr Robert Hellsgaard was created in 2010 by then regular 616 Universe Punisher writer Rick Remender and artist Tony Moore as the nemesis of the Legion of Monsters in the Punisher's Franken-Castle story arc. Moore, whose art is memorable for The Walking Dead, is a genre defining artist for horror comics who on that same year worked on The Victorian Undead, which no doubt had its influences on the story and Hellsgaard's background. The notably Steampunk element of Hellsgaard's appearance and Franken-Castle's skulky, bulky, massive-gun toting opposite, also nods in the direction of Hellboy. And then there's how Henry Russo says it, "the man is a walking, talking Iron Maiden song!"

Story Arcs

Punisher: Franken-Castle

Crippled, defeated, outnumbered and face to face with his executioner, Frank Castle aka The Punisher makes his last stand on a New York City rooftop one stormy night after being forced to witness the death of his family a second time. Meeting his grisly fate head on and then his remains thrown into the gutter of the alleyway below, Frank Castle is no more... call him Franken-Castle!

His dismembered body patched back together and mechanised, he is resurrected by the Legion of Monsters in the sewers beneath New York City as a last ditch attempt at protecting Monster Metropolis from Dr Robert Hellsgaard and his army of monster hunters. Morbius the Living Vampire has something they want, a mysterious ancient demonic artifact known as the Bloodstone. It has the power to both regenerate its possessors to full health and to grant them super-strength.

This Hellsgaard already knows due to his alliance with its previous owner Ulysses Bloodstone, and he will stop at nothing to get it. And once he has it, its costly price of perpetual rage and insanity will see to it that he never stops, no matter who he turns his rage on. Hellsgaard has been delivered from a dimensional limbo of Hell by Japanese scientists threatened by the Legion of Monsters after Dracula put an end to his last reign. But it is Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night, that has some explaining to do. If it wasn't for his slaughter of Hellsgaard's village and family in 1898, the German doctor wouldn't have ever vowed to deliver death to all monsters.

Hellsgaard begins his war by wiping out the majority of the inhabitants of Monster Island, which is why the Monster Metropolis comes to reside beneath the surface of New York City. It doesn't take long though for him to track them down and as soon as Hellsgaard gains the Bloodstone and its powers, he becomes unstoppable and the atrocities he goes on to commit far outweigh his justifications, leading Franken-Castle to put the horrors of his own living nightmare to one side, understand the difference between the afflicted and the evil and bring an end to the genocide.

It is now down to Franken-Castle to stand between Hellsgaard and the Legion, to rescue its founders and reclaim the Bloodstone, whether he's falling apart at the seams or not and even if it means going to Hell and back!

Powers & Abilities

Dr Robert Hellsgaard was a brilliant scientist and engineer in his day before Dracula sent him to Hell. In his fight against the creatures of the night, he created a battle suit that would protect him against all known threats. But when Dracula stormed the castle where he based his operations, he was mortally wounded and only somehow kept alive and preserved within his suit, becoming mummified. He is immortalised within the confines of the suit and doesn't need food to sustain himself, hence how he survived Hell for roughly a century. Besides serving as a suit of armour, his suit also brandishes fixed weapons designed to deal with specific monsters.

Gatling Guns

Giant hand cannons that fire acid filled silver bullets patented to deal death on a massive level to armies of werewolves.

Flame Throwers

Not your average flame throwers, these bad boys are fuelled by no ordinary fuel either. Hellsgaard uses none other than Holy Gasoline, hoping to weigh up the odds the next time he comes face to face with Dracula.

Buzz Saws

What are the chances these are no ordinary buzz saws? Large! They're in fact projectile buzz saws infused with the power of sunlight and no doubt forged from the iron of a wicked pharoah's priest!?!?!?!?!?! Now that's what I call Spinal Tap....