Today’s not an anniversary for Mary Shelly or her book or any of her creations, but this picture’s too cool not to share anyway. It’s Boris Karloff celebrating the 150th anniversary of Frankenstein’s publication in 1968. (Found in Life’s photo archive.)
(I feel like I should mention that my preference for this look on the Monster doesn’t have nearly as much to do with fundamentalist demand for faithfulness to the source material as it does with the design just looking really really cool.)
I was bored by Secret Invasion, I’m barelymustering interest in Dark Reign, and Final Crisis seems to be going nowhere. The major drive for my reading Final Crisis was to see the redemption of Mary Marvel and now I don’t even think that’s going to happen in this mini-series. If at all.
The promised fight between Mary and Supergirl finally begins in Final Crisis #5, but our attention is quickly forced elsewhere. Presumably, we’ll see the fight continue two months from now (or whenever Final Crisis #6 is finally released). That’s if Morrison doesn’t go all Millar and Bendis and decide that it happened off-panel. I don’t think he will, but my confidence in these things is pretty much done.
Like Secret Invasion, Final Crisis doesn’t seem particularly eager to move its story forward. Wonder Woman and Mary Marvel, my two reasons for wanting to read this series are still under the control of Darkseid, right where they’ve been for the last few issues. Nothing particularly important happens at all, and in a book where the entire draw is the supposed changes its making on the DC Universe, that’s pretty sad.
One thing keeps the issue from being a complete waste of paper, ink, and time, but it’s a pretty significant thing.
Frankenstein leading the DC heroes into battle on a motorcycle. For that, at least, we can be grateful.
You know how oftentimes you read a team-up that you’ve been waiting years to see and it just doesn’t live up to expectations? That’s because Jeff Parker didn’t write it.
I love the idea behind Monster-Size Hulk. It’s an anthology that pits the Hulk against classic monsters. Peter David has a text story about the Hulk’s meeting Dracula. Steve Niles has a cool one where the Hulk fights a werewolf. My favorite though – because it’s the Monster – is Parker’s Hulk vs. Frankenstein.
In any standard superhero team-up you expect the heroes to duke it out when they first meet. It’s a superhero cliché and it doesn’t usually make sense to the story, but that’s what a lot of superhero fans want to see. Who can beat who? And really, you wouldn’t want to read a Hulk-Frankenstein comic without watching them trade some blows.
Of course, Hulk had to be weakened in order to make the match even, but Parker does an awesome job explaining that. And the scene isn’t even really a cliché here because the Hulk and the Monster are both well known for their rages and violence-first personalities. Of course they would fight each other. Unlike most superhero-battles, this one makes perfect sense.
But Parker also understands that these characters are awesomely similar to each other and he delivers the second thing we really want to see in a meet-up between the two of them. Hulk… friend.
The heroes making nice and teaming-up to fight a common enemy is another superhero cliché, but again, it’s exactly what needs to happen in this story. It more than makes sense; it’s deeply satisfying on an emotional level.
I’m down with it. The world doesn’t really need another adaptation of the novel and it sounds like del Toro has a story he wants to tell. I’d like to hear it.
I tend to like Further Adventures-style storytelling anyway. Although it doesn’t always work out well…
Still, I’m looking forward to seeing del Toro’s interpretation of the Monster.
He also promises that unlike Kenneth Branagh, he will not appear shirtless in his version.
It’s been hard, but I’ve been doing pretty good about staying on-topic since limiting the blog’s subject matter. Frankenstein’s a trump card though, so interesting Monster news will sneak in from time to time. Like Warren Ellis’ posting the cover to a graphic novella called Frankenstein’s Womb coming this winter.
Or the announcement that Guillermo del Toro’s planning a new Frankenstein movie. It sounds waaaay off in the future, but also perfect for del Toro. First though, he has to make The Hobbit, it’s likely sequel, and an adaptation of Dan Simmons’ Drood.
Simmons’ novel is a fictionalized account of Charles Dickens’ final years. I suspect and hope it offers an intriguing theory about the inspiration behind Dickens’ unfinished, last novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
