Susan "Sue" Xiang was a Chinese American psychic woman that worked as a field agent for the B.P.R.D. during the 1950s, alongside Hellboy.
History[]
Susan Xiang was an American born Chinese that grew up in San Francisco. Susan comes from a family that was protectors of China against the supernatural. They served the Golden Crane Society for generations, with her great uncle being the most recent member. Susan's grandparents would tell her stories of her ancestors protecting China from supernatural threats, but she had always regarded them as stories. Her opinion changed when she was seven years old she had an experience with the supernatural witnessing a jiangshi.[1]
Sometime in the past she worked as an intelligence analyst for the F.B.I, but was recognized as a potential psychic by Professor Bruttenholm and joined the B.P.R.D since 1952. She was assisted by Dr. N.K. Sandhu to develop her abilities.[2]
In November 1953, Susan and Hellboy investigated a haunting in Sweetwater County, Wyoming. Her psychic abilities led her to a secret grave for the bodies of massacred Chinese laborers. She and Hellboy were able to give the restless ghosts peace by promising to return their bones to their homeland.[3]
In December of 1953, Susan was teamed with Hellboy and Jacob Stegner to investigate the disappearances of six missing children and the body of a deceased adult in Rosemead, California. The team found their first lead through a suspicious man, who possessed a piece of Enkeladite. Through the artifact, Susan was able to see the incident involving monsters from a parallel reality attempting to invade Earth in Utah back in 1948.[4]
Her team managed to discover that a mutated dog of a young local boy was responsible for the killings. After the beast was slain by Hellboy, Susan went to collect a sample of the creature before it decomposed. She had another of her flashes, this time of visions of the Ogdru Hem and the Visitor.[5]
In June 1954 in Baltimore, Susan and Hellboy came to investigate the haunting of the Koestler family. Thomas Koestler's brother Robert had died in his apartment when it caught fire. His brother's pet monkey Diogenes also perished and for some reason came back as a ghost and began haunting the Koestlers, specifically Thomas. Susan decided to investigate the house in order for her abilities to get a read. Just as she was passing her hand over a gasoline container, she had a vision of Thomas killing his brother and then setting his home afire. She realized Diogenes was out for revenge. The agents were too late to save Thomas, as its apparition mauled him to death. Much to their surprise Victor Koestler had a spiritual connection with the ghost and was able to call it to and from his body. Margaret, Victor's mother, begged the agents to help her son as she was unable to help him. The agents agreed to introduce Victor to the Bureau where he would get the proper attention and care.[6]
In August of the same year Susan, Hellboy, and Archie Muraro had a case in Kowloon Walled City to assist Roland Childe in retrieving an artifact. There was more to the case than it appeared. Susan detected that the spiritual atmosphere to be wrong. As they went deeper into the city, they discovered piles of bodies and two rampaging demons demanding the souls be returned. While Archie and Hellboy distracted the demons Susan encountered an injured Bao Zhi and was shocked to learn that he was a member of the Golden Crane Society, a group she was told by her grandparents and assumed to be a story.[7]
She told him her association with the Society and assisted him. Bao Zhi explained to her that a British occultist, Thomas Rhymes stole a powerful spirit jar, the hunping and was using it to steal souls to empower himself to become a god. The two demons that she had encountered were Ox-Head and Horse-Face who wished to return the stolen souls to their proper places. While Childe distracted Rhymes Susan managed to retrieve the hunping and threw it to Hellboy who smashed it to pieces releasing all the entrapped souls. In his dying breath, Bao Zhi weak from his injuries passed a few words to her ear, shocking her. Before leaving China, Susan told Hellboy that once they got back to the States she would take some time from the Bureau as she needed to take care of some family business.
Susan travelled to London in September 1955 to undergo tests with Doctor N.K. Sandhu at the Institute of Psychiatry. While staying at Dr. Sandhu's home she had a strong reaction to a Trishul, a traditional Indian weapon that had once belonged to the doctor's older brother, A.N. Sandhu. Associated with the goddess Shiva, the weapon was believed by the elder Sandhu to have strange powers that could be unlocked by those who were properly attuned. With further contact, Susan had her longest lasting vision yet, seeing Hellboy face many more creatures mutated by Enkeladite in the future. She predicted bad times were ahead.[8]
Returning to B.P.R.D. headquarters, Susan heard of Bruttenholm's encounter with the Special Intelligence Directorate in London and Hellboy's run-in with the Center for Defense Research and Development and the Russians of the Special Sciences Service in the Marshall Islands. She said it sounded "almost as if there is a secret Cold War going on that we don't even know about."[9]
In October 1955, Susan, Bruttenholm, and Hellboy went to Port Orange, Florida to investigate a series of deadly burnings. Susan used the Trishul to focus her third eye and make her visions more specific. She identified the culprit as a psychic scar on the landscape caused by a long history of pain, rage, and anguish in one spot. Hellboy banished the fire by acknowledging the area's history of death, disease, slavery, and forcible resettlement.[10]
Agent Xiang was assigned to work with intelligence consultant Myron Linneberg in August of 1956. Linneberg showed her pictures of Valentin Moravec in an attempt to use her visions to learn more about the so far unidentified Russian agent. Their work was interrupted when Bruttenholm secretly sent Susan to Boynton Beach, Florida to make contact with retired Air Force General Betz. She brushed up against him on the golf course and her visions showed that he had not destroyed all the Enkeladite created in Utah in 1948. Instead Betz had sent some to "the Center" in Colorado. She also saw a vision of the future in ruins likely caused by a little girl (whom she did not recognize as Varvara). Reporting back to Bruttenholm, Susan became suspicious when he cut off their conversation telling her the girl was not her concern.[11]
When Susan returned to B.P.R.D. headquarters, she resumed her work with Linneberg. He showed her pictures from Hellboy's 1952 mission to Brazil that showed the same little girl was responsible for Robert Amsel's death. These photos sparked visions of the future world destroyed and Hellboy dead. When Susan returned to her senses a lock of her hair had turned white. Afterwards, she confronted Bruttenholm, accusing him of keeping the girl's identity secret and swearing she and Linneberg would get to the bottom of it.[12]
Power & Abilities[]
Susan was a psychic and was adept at psychometry, able to recall events from items that had transpired.