Hellboy: Seed of Destruction is the first Hellboy comic book mini-series, published by Dark Horse Comics. It was conceived and illustrated by Mike Mignola and scripted by John Byrne. The comic opens in 1944, with a report from a U.S Army official named George Whitman, who has been ordered to lead a team of commandos to the (fictional) village of East Bromwich in the English Midlands. The army group (accompanied by a Nazi-fighting superhero named The Torch of Liberty) is under the guidance of three paranormal officials, one of whom is a young Trevor Bruttenholm. According to the group psychic, one Lady Cynthia Eden-Jones, a terrible event is to take place in a local ruined church; a doomsday project orchestrated by the Nazis, which could herald the end of the world.