When it comes to the Hellboy comics, films and animated productions, there are plenty of things that don't make sense about everyone, from the big red monkey himself to all of the humans in his life. Elizabeth Sherman is probably the most normal person among them all, but she also has plenty of skeletons in her closet, including some that make zero sense.
Comic Liz varies greatly from Movie Liz, particularly in terms of her relationship with Hellboy himself. But in all incarnations of the character there are various characteristics, capabilities and occurrences in her life that just boggle the mind.
She Used Prayer To Control Her Powers
Poor Liz didn't understand her powers after they manifested when she was 10 years old, so when her Catholic parents told her it was because of her sins, she desperately tried to force them to stop, with prayer. Her sheer willpower was what kept them at bay, but they were so powerful that even that didn't work for long, and when she was 11 she destroyed an entire block of over 30 people, including her parents and younger brother.
Of course it makes no sense to pray away pyrokinesis, but Liz could not have known that. It's the reason why the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense took her in at such a young age.
She Doesn't Melt Metal
When Liz wants to melt something, it melts. Sometimes she has little to no control over it either, and Hellboy's even had to step in to help, like he did in the animated movie, Sword of Storms. It was a nod to his brotherly feelings for her as well as his ability to get close due to his fireproof status.
With this in mind, the metal around Liz should also melt. From the metal she leans against to the filing cabinets in rooms, if she's melting everything, metal certainly shouldn't be immune to her powers —especially since she melted the crown in The Golden Army right before our eyes.
Her Fire Gives Her Life
During one assignment, Liz found the opportunity to give away her power and seeing the chance to be normal, she took it, transferring her pyrokinesis into the body of a man-sized homunculus. It was brought to life, but without her fire, Liz began to slowly waste away into nothing.
No medical cure could help Liz as she disintegrated without her abilities, which makes no sense, since she'd lived without them perfectly for a decade in her childhood. Hellboy was able to bring her powers back and restore her health, but the question remains: Why couldn't she just live without them?
She's Left The BPRD A Bunch Of Times
Fans of the movies know that Liz has come and gone over the years, but comic readers know that it's much worse than that. Liz loses control of her powers, takes out a bunch of people or at least endangers them, then decides she needs to go into hiding to save them. Except sometimes she still hurts people while she's in self-imposed exile. Even when Liz gets full control, something supernatural and terrible happens to her, returning her to a state of uncontrollable power.
It makes no sense that Liz would just keep disappearing and endangering humanity to the point of destroying entire islands if she knows it's a possibility. She ought to stay in their fire-proof room where she and everyone else is safe if she is really worried about being a danger.
She Admits Herself Into An Asylum
In the first Hellboy film, Liz admits herself into an asylum for help. This makes absolutely zero sense, since she knows what kind of danger she can be to others without proper paranormal supervision. She has done an incredible amount of damage before and needs to be in a place that's either away from people or with the kind of people who get her and can both protect her and others from her powers.
Staying in a mental hospital is the worst thing Liz could do. Not only is it vulnerable to anyone who would want to use her powers, such as Rasputin, but it's full of vulnerable people who could be harmed by her own powers — and they certainly are. We are left to assume that she's not being incarcerated for the fire that must've taken out at least some residents.
She Is Above The Law
Speaking of taking out everyone at the mental hospital, and the islands Borneo and Sulawesi, and every other time Liz lost control and took a bunch of lives on accident, why is she never held culpable for these actions? It makes sense to label the first incident a tragedy, but if the BPRD allows it to go on over and over again, something ought to be done.
Liz is dangerous to everyone, and despite the lives she's saved, she takes out quite a few too. Without Hellboy around to help, she's the Bureau's only defense against the Ogdru Jahad, but she's also Rasputin's best bet at awakening it in the first place.
She Didn't Just Burn That Crown In The First Place
Did Hellboy really need to defeat that entire Golden Army in Hellboy II when Liz could have destroyed the crown that controlled the army all along? Could they not have somehow sent the crown flying where she could have blasted it, caught it and set it on fire, or otherwise destroyed it?
Sure, it makes sense on a cinematic level, since that was a really cool fight and Liz's involvement would have just prevented it from happening, but watching her burn it afterward was rather anticlimactic now that we know she could have used her powers to shut the whole thing down all along.
She Got Pregnant With Little Red Monkeys
While no one is denying how adorable it is that Hellboy and Liz are expecting — and have been for 11 years, since The Golden Army was released — fans have to wonder how it's even genetically possible. Depending on his source material, HB is either a full demon baby or the spawn of a human and demon together. The demon and human were pretty special though, as he was descended from King Arthur. So is his DNA even compatible with a generic human (who happens to also have pyrokinesis)?
David Harbour has stated that his version of Hellboy certainly can't mate with humans, which only leads to further questions about Hellboy's anatomy, genes and whether or not he and Liz could really have a family.
She Doesn't Always Roast Everyone In The Room
When Liz tells someone to leave the room so she can set the entire thing ablaze, you hit the ground running if you don't want to be liquefied. That's why it makes no sense that sometimes she roasts the whole room and yet, people can just duck and cover and be okay — especially when Liz is not in full control of her abilities.
While Liz does learn to control her fiery powers better with practice, in the first film when she tells Agent Myers, "You should be running," he doesn't get far before she takes out all of the resurrection hounds. He should've turned to goo too.
She's Hellboy's Girlfriend
In the Dark Horse comic books, it's clear that Liz Sherman and Hellboy are nothing more than friends. In fact, he looks at her like a little sister rather than a romantic love interest. Guillermo del Toro's pairing them for the first two Hellboy movies doesn't make sense if they're even loosely based on the comics.
Even so, many fans love the pairing together, which makes it such a shame that we will never witness del Toro's final vision for the couple, which we can assume included not only their children but also Hellboy's demise.