Frankenstein Underground

Frankenstein Underground (Dark Horse, 2015)

Mike Mignola -Ben Stenbeck -Dave Stewart

Karen: First things first: yes, I know this is not a Bronze Age book. But, it's nearly Halloween, and we always do some horror and monster-oriented reviews during October. I happened to have read this recently and enjoyed it, so I thought, "Why not?" And that's as close to an explanation as you're going to get.

Besides, I think this is a terrific book. I'll admit that at first I was disappointed to learn that Mignola did not handle the interior art work, but I soon found myself  over that, as Ben Stenbeck is a more than able replacement. I would say he captures the mood of Mignola's milieu but his actual style is much more classical, in some ways reminding me of another horror master, Mike Ploog. Certainly there is Mignola's influence in design, but Stenbeck proves his own man.

If you have any background with Hellboy or Mignola's other comics in that same world, you'll be instantly comfortable with this story. But even if you don't, I don't believe it would be hard to jump in. I had not read the story which preceded this one (House of the Living Dead) but I had no trouble with any part of this story. Mignola's Frankenstein Monster seems a bit of an amalgamation of the literary version with Karloff's creature, and maybe a wrestler thrown in for good measure. There's certainly no mistaking the design for anything other than something from the Hellboy universe. The huge, clunky bolts popping out from all over are a little comical at times though.

The tale takes place in 1956, and the Monster is again fleeing persecution, this time in Mexico. He runs into a cave and winds up falling deep into the Earth, arriving in a strange landscape that he believes is Hell. He soon discovers (or is discovered by) a group of primitive people, who put him in chains and haul him off to a temple. There he is brought before their 'god' -who turns out to be a modern American man. He and others are the only survivors of a lost expedition. This part of the story takes its cues from 'Hollow Earth' theories, and if you've been reading this blog for a while, you know I eat this kind of stuff up. However, a terrible, evil force has corrupted the leader of the expedition, and one of Mignola's Cthulhu-derived elder gods is on the way. The Monster finds himself fighting for the unfortunate victims of this abomination, and in doing so, discovers redemption.

There have been so many versions of the Monster in popular culture. Mignola has managed to give his version his own spin while retaining that essence of the tragic, tortured creature abandoned by his creator. This Monster is no innocent, yet you can't help but feel sympathy for him, and his struggle with his identity, and his sense of purpose, is moving. It's fascinating to me that in most modern depictions, the Monster is usually portrayed as the misunderstood hero of the piece. No doubt that's driven by a generation of adolescents like us who grew up watching old Frankenstein films on Saturdays, feeling a great affinity with a mistreated seven foot tall reanimated corpse. 

There's action a'plenty in the book, with Frankenstein squaring off against the Morlock-like primitives, a club-wielding giant, weird tentacled beasties, and much more. I have to complement Dave Stewart's colors too, which are absolutely essential  in creating the eerie and mysterious settings. 

All in all, highly recommended, whether you are a fan of Mignola's work, or Frankenstein in general.

Discuss: Flame-outs

Doug: We have all seen moments of brilliance - zenith, even - followed by Poof! Gone! I'm thinking of the aforementioned Mike Ploog on Monster of Frankenstein. Obviously as moderator I don't want to take any more suggestions away from our conversational readers, but I'd lie if I didn't say Marshall Rogers' run on Detective Comics didn't fit into this category.

Doug: So here's the charge today -- who are those creators whose tenures on a given book were so short that it just left a hole in your reading enjoyment after their departure? And as we said last Tuesday, the following writer or artist (or combination) didn't have to be a step down -- I mean, John Buscema followed Ploog, for crying out loud! Not exactly a consolation prize. You might mention, if you know, who the succeeding creator was (hey, if you know the preceding creator that might be fun as well) and we can add that to our discussion. Should be fun!

PS: Karen's a lucky duck -- she and her husband have been at Disneyland the past few days. She hopes to bring you a report very soon on the Marvel and Star Wars influences in the park. I'm looking forward to it!

Well, That Was Better Than I Expected...

Doug: Today we thought we'd give our readers an opportunity to expound on some media you've recently enjoyed that was perhaps better than you had previously known or anticipated. One of the books that Karen and I have both been enjoying is the recently-released monster-sized (ha...) trade paperback Monster of Frankenstein.

The massive tome reprints all things Monster from the eponymous series of the early Bronze Age through the B&W mags and up to the two-parter in Marvel Team-Up.If memory serves, I was aware of the solo book but really had no interest in it. This trade has been an epiphany for me, one so strong that I feel like face palming like "what was I thinking (when I was 8 years old)??"

Karen: I was really looking forward to this collection of Frankenstein comics, not just because I am a big Frankenstein fan, but because I had only a few of these issues as a kid, and none of the Ploog ones! I've now read a little more than halfway through the collection -- into the Monsters Unleashed stories -- and I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised. The first six issues by Ploog are far superior to anything else in the book. Ploog's artwork here is is eerily beautiful and  richly atmospheric. I've always loved his work on Werewolf By Night and Ghost Rider (and anything else), but I almost feel like this is the best I have ever seen by him. He inks himself on issues 1-3 and 6 (John Verpoorten inks issues 4 and 5) and he does a wonderful job. There's a lushness to his pen work. The story is solid, a continuation of the Shelley story for the most part, with the Monster as presented in the novel: literate, thoughtful, but a vengeful creature who has killed in his never-ending hatred of his creator, who abandoned him. 

Doug: I have to confess to our readers that Karen and I had discussed (about a month ago) readying a couple reviews from the book for the days preceding Halloween. Obviously that didn't happen (no, instead busy life happened for both of us). Funny thing was, I was going to suggest the Marvel Team-Up with the Monster, which led into the conclusion that headlined Man-Wolf. To be quite honest, those stories along with the Monster's appearance in the "Celestial Madonna" epic was my only exposure to the character when I was a child.

Karen: I felt the quality of both the story and art dropped off once Ploog left, with issue 7. I never thought I'd complain about the art on a book that was picked up by John Buscema, but I don't think this was his finest work -- not bad at all, but it was, by his standards, rather pedestrian. Storywise, although Gary Friedrich stayed on for much of the run (as I said, I'm only halfway through) the shift into modern times, and the decision to have the Monster become mute, sapped a lot of the energy out of the story for me. I'll continue on with it, but so far, it is the first six issues that really gave this collection value for me. And I'm still happy I bought it, even if the rest of the book turns out to be a big blah!

Doug: I think I'm a few issues behind you (I've just finished the Dracula 2-parter in Monster of Frankenstein #s 8-9). I'm really looking forward to the reprints from the B&W magazines. As I've remarked in previous discussions, those seemed like sort of a forbidden fruit back in the day -- I never asked my mom to buy any for me at the grocery store. I don't know how she would have responded; I think I was just aware that they were much pricier than comics. I'm not sure what level of enjoyment the rest of the book will hold (I am looking forward to some of the stories inked by Syd Shores -- thanks, PFG!), but like you I am glad I own this now. As Karen says, the Ploog issues are visually magnificent. I have to concur with everything she says above and you'd have my highest recommendation for both the pictures but also the words for these stories. The books are wordy, but Gary Friedrich's dialogue is strong and the level of detail is in no way a bore. Strong, strong graphic literature.

Karen: Another thing I am happily surprised by is the new TV show Ash Vs. Evil Dead. I've now seen three episodes and each time I have had a good laugh. If you liked the Evil Dead films or Army of Darkness you should like this series. I have to admit, I wasn't a huge fan of the Evil Dead films but I did like Army of Darkness a lot. This show takes the Ash character from those but the connection to them -the continuity - is sort of loose. It doesn't matter though; all you need to know is Ash is his usual brilliantly stupid self and has released the Deadites on Earth again. Now he has a couple of young partners helping him try to stop the end of the world. The episodes are only a half hour long, which is the perfect amount of time for this kind of goofy mayhem. I have to tip my hat to Bruce Campbell, who somehow makes Ash likable and eminently watchable. 

Doug: My wife and I have been watching NBC's Blindspot since its premiere earlier this fall. My personal jury is out on it -- it's OK, but it raises questions for me plot-wise each week. And I'm not usually one to get too deep into a script. Both of us are generally sit-back-and-be-entertained viewers, but this show has me thinking it could be better. We still enjoy reruns of the first 4-5 seasons of ABC's Castle, although I am finding the current season to be a slog. Perhaps eight is indeed enough. So neither show gets a ringing endorsement from me, unless you DVR the old Castles shown on TNT.

Karen: Surprisingly, I have been disappointed by the Supergirl TV show. I just find it too formulaic. It's so much like every other super-hero TV show we already have. Super-secret organization involved? Check. Team of friends helping the hero? Check. Freak of the week whose origin is connected back to the hero? Check. It's just too much like Flash, Agents of  SHIELD, heck, even Smallville. I was hoping we'd get something new and exciting with a female lead -- and the actress is engaging -- but so far it has done nothing for me. 

Doug: I'll agree -- I've tried to come back to Supergirl but just haven't felt like investing the commitment. I totally agree that Melissa Benoist is quite charming in the lead role, but the show didn't seem to take many risks... what I've seen of it that is. I am hoping that today William will be along to state some of the criticisms he holds of the show and did not divulge when we ran this as a topic a couple of weeks ago.


Doug: So there you have it, kids. Today let's get some thoughts on media with which you've recently engaged that surpassed your expectations, and some that fell short and/or left you cold.

Who's the Best... Monster and/or Horror Artist?

Karen: Happy Halloween friends. Today we're talking about who's the best Bronze Age horror or monster artist. A lot of great names...Ploog, Wrightson, Colan instantly come to mind. Who's your choice for the top spot in comic book horror from the 70s/80s? And you can name others.

Bernie Wrightson

Mike Ploog

Gene Colan

What Are You Reading?

Doug: I think it's been a long time since we've checked in with each other concerning what lies atop (or a'bottom for that matter) the reading pile. I know I never feel like I read enough, although at the end of any day I guess I've read quite a bit either in the context of work, checking Twitter a few times throughout the day, or a daily newspaper early in the evening. But in terms of some seriously dedicated reading, I always feel deficient. So in the interest of prying into your personal lives and interests, here goes:

Doug: Presently I find myself in the middle of no less than four books, and that's a lot of plates to be spinning for me. Academically, I'm a few chapters into Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder and Hitler's Beneficiaries by Gotz Aly. Both are quite interesting and each book fills in my knowledge for the purpose of my teaching but also in regard to my "summer job" at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Each of these books is engaging, and neither appears to be a slog to get through. I just seem to never find a decent run of time to dedicate to really digging into them with the attention that I need to give in order to truly internalize the material.

Doug: On the lighter side of fiction, I've mentioned a few times that I began A Princess of Mars over the summer. It really never grabbed me, and although close to 3/4 of the way through I am not very eager to return. I think I'd rather re-read The Return of Tarzan, or perhaps return to The Complete Chronicles of Conan. Those short stories were nice, and as we remarked earlier Robert E. Howard seems to stay away from some of the formulaic storytelling tropes employed by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I especially enjoy reading one of those short tales and then finding the adaptation in my first four volumes of Essential Savage Sword of Conan. It's great to see the words of REH set to the comic medium.

Doug: Comics-wise, you know I've been enjoying the Marvel Pocketbook edition of The Astonishing Ant-Man: Origins; the last story I read was the 3-parter with the Hulk that originally ran in Iron Man #s 131-133. David Michelinie, Jerry Bingham, and Bob Layton paid homage to Avengers #s 93 and 140 in IM #133. I've also returned to Ed Brubaker's Captain America, finishing the Red Menace: The Ultimate Collection and now well into The Death of Captain America: The Complete Collection. Brubaker's writing is simply excellent, and the cadre of artists who illustrated these stories are top shelf.  I must declare that when I've sat down to read one of these trades I do not want to put it down. It is so entertaining. And there aren't a lot of comics that I read that are like that - page-turners. James Buchanan Barnes has really become a complex character for me, rather than the one-dimensional sidekick I'd previously believed him to be. We remarked about it earlier, but Brubaker has respectfully touched on elements of war that had been glossed over for decades. That Captain America never killed in WWII? Foolish, and Brubaker deals with that. Again, as we've said (we do have an abundance of conversations around here, don't we?) in the past, I will pass on the modern coloring for a brighter palette. But I don't let that kill my pleasure from soaking in the narrative. And I've come to employ a tactic encouraged by our friend Edo Bosnar -- in regard to the return of Bucky Barnes I just treat these as a sort of What If? or Elseworlds tale and leave it at that. I just want to find enjoyment without the continuity baggage, and Brubaker et. al accomplish that for me. I've also recently purchased the collections of Captain America: Reborn and The Winter Soldier (purchased in Lima, OH last Saturday). Once I'm done with this massive "Death of" trade, I'm hoping to get into my soon-to-arrive copy of The Monster of Frankenstein, Vol. I. I've only read the first issue and some other appearances of the Monster, so am looking forward to digging a bit deeper. And, another hardcover I need to get off the shelf is Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 13 -- gotta love some Bronze Age Superboy!

Doug: Your turn -- let's hear about your triumphs, shortfalls, and wish lists!

The Gifting of Comic Book Love

Doug:  Well?  What did you get along the lines of products interesting to your fellow Bronze Age Babies?  Today we're going to brag on the geeky gifts bestowed upon us by our loved ones.

Doug:  In the "strange but true" category, I did not receive any Hallmark ornaments for the comic book tree this year.  I really can't tell you when the last time was that I could say that.  But it's fine -- there weren't any that I wanted.  But, if I see one at half price here in the post-Christmas clear-out I may break down and pick one up for myself.  What I did get were two tpbs: The Infinity Gauntlet by Jim Starlin, George Perez, and Ron Lim, and Justice by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, and Doug Braithwaite.  I also received the 2013 edition of the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.  It's been many a'year since I estimated the value of my collection, and as I'm still strongly considering selling it in some fashion I wanted to know a rough idea of what dealers would command for the books I own.  My mom bought me two pairs of socks -- a Superman-colored blue pair with the "S" shield at the top, and a black pair with the Batman logo at the top.  Lastly, my boys bought me the Marvel t-shirt you see pictured -- it's a great shirt, nice and soft!

Karen: I got some wonderful things for Christmas, but most of them were not at all comics-related. I did however get the book I had on my wishlist, Star Trek: The Art of Juan Ortiz and it is fabulous! I spent at least an hour on Christmas day poring over that book, and certainly will spend some more time this weekend. The graphic design elements are very cool and it's fun seeing how Ortiz incorporates certain images (like the Enterprise's saucer-shaped hull) repeatedly into the posters, but in different ways.

Karen: I also got a really goofy and cool (not to mention hefty) Frankenstein Monster mug/stein! My husband knows me all too well. I'll be taking good care of this baby, as I drink my tea, soda, and what have you out of Frankie's big green noggin!

Karen: So spill -what cool stuff did you get?

Heroes and Horrors: X-Men 40

X-Men #40 (January 1968)
"The Mark of the Monster!"
Writer: Roy Thomas
Penciller: Don Heck
Inker: George Tuska

Karen: Welcome to our final "Heroes and Horrors" review. I hope you've enjoyed this look at super-heroes

and monsters. As our last hurrah, we're digging back a little deeper -technically, into the Silver Age vault, but it's all good. It's a little tale that brings us the original X-Men and the Frankenstein Monster, before Marvel began their horror line. So here we go!

Doug:  I just want to say up front that I used this cover in a tongue-in-cheek post a few years ago concerning what the House of Ideas would have been like had Scooby-Doo worked there!

Karen: Our tale starts with our mutant team having some fun in the Danger Room after a hard-won victory over Factor Three in the previous issue. The team has just received their new uniforms recently as well, so they're also pleased with them too. As they horse around, Beast and Iceman start to come to blows when a sudden mental message from Professor X puts everything on hold. The students run down the hall to the professor's room, where their teacher begins to tell them a strange story. The Professor was carrying out some mental experiments when he intercepted some radio messages from a ship in New York harbor. The vessel was claiming to be returning from an arctic expedition carrying the frozen form of -Frankenstein's Monster!  The X-Men are incredulous but Professor X explains that he has always believed the Mary Shelley story to contain some truth, believing the Monster to be some sort of android created by a super-intelligent mutant of a bygone era. He's already checked things out with his astral form and he's able to make a mental projection of what he's seen - sure enough, the creature looks an awful lot like the Universal Studios version of the Monster, right down to the neck bolts! Boy, nowadays Universal's lawyers would be all over that. Anyway, the students are excited, and the Professor says they must get to the museum where the creature, in its block of ice, is being held. He is positive that it is still alive and could be a danger to the museum personnel.

Doug:  Which new costume did you think was the best?  While I always think the Angel (shoot, most winged characters) provided the best visuals, his costume upgrade was my least favorite -- until he switched late to the blue and white bodysuit.  I think I liked the Beast's the best, followed by Marvel Girl.  As to the early action, the All-New, All-Different team certainly had a cooler Danger Room than these guys back in the day.  Scott was his typically uptight self, and the Beast's telling him to back off seemed in character.  I thought Roy did a nice job for a new reader in framing the team's personalities early here.  I did think it was interesting (not wholly bad) that penciler Don Heck chose to use two half-faces in panels showcasing Iceman and Cyclops on page 2 of this book.  Seemed like he ran out of space!  And as long as I brought up the art, I'll say that I really cannot find much influence by George Tuska on the inks.

Karen: I would agree, I liked the Beast's the most, but none of them were particularly exciting.

Doug:  Questions:  1) What the heck are "mental experiments"? and 2) If the professor is a telepath, how could he intercept a radio message?  I thought Professor X was really powerful in this episode, more than I remembered him being from this time period.  He seemed like he was channeling a little Dr. Strange, too.

Karen: I know, when reading early Marvels, it seems like the astral projection thing crossed back and forth between being a mystical attribute and a purely mental one.

Doug:  Roy's love of literature and background as an English teacher often shines through in his writing,

doesn't it?  This issue ends up being somewhat of a promotion for the novel written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, of course until we reach Thomas's conclusion.  The introduction of the Monster was very reminiscent of Marvel's first issue of Monster of Frankenstein.

Karen: The X-Men (in their civvies), including the Professor, head down to the museum. They begin to ask the guard if they can gain entry. Now here something odd occurs. Rather than have Professor X use his mental powers to just control the guard and gain access, Professor X has Jean (Marvel Girl) use her telekinetics to push the man, causing him to fall and strike his head, knocking him out! That seems unnecessarily rough to me. In any case, it's a good thing they get inside, because one of the researchers in the museum has thawed out the Monster, and as the Professor suspected, the Monster lashes out. It should be noted however that this Monster has quite a vocabulary. After declaring that he will crush everyone like fleas, the Monster starts to make his way out of the museum backroom, when the Angel comes rushing towards him. But the Monster bats him away effortlessly. The Beast tries to take him on but can't budge the huge creature. The Monster refers to "the costumed ones" with extreme dislike, almost as if he recognizes them. Cyclops fires off his optic beams, but has little more effect than his team-mates did.  It looks like Cyke is about to get stomped when he is yanked out of the way by Jean's telekinetic grasp. This confuses the Monster for a moment, but just a moment. He then responds by firing off his own eye beams! These put down the X-Men for the count, and the Monster wanders off to carry out his uh, well, whatever it is he's planning to do.

Doug:  I had to re-read those panels where Jean knocks out the security guard.  I guess folks back in 1968 weren't as concerned about concussions as we are today.  Why didn't the Professor just pull a Jedi mind trick?  I liked Heck's Monster -- he was able to take what he must have known from the Karloff films and apply a bit of a different personality, which to me is what allowed him to very slightly separate this version from what had gone before.  But this story for me just begins to head south, and never really recovers.  It seemed like the X-Men were intentionally depowered, and of course they never would have dreamed of cooperating as a unit should -- Danger Room?  We don't need no stinkin' Danger Room!  And what of Cyke's eyebeams?  Aren't they considered assault by a deadly weapon?  The guy blasts through Sentinels with them, for Pete's sake!  Ahhh.....

Karen: The X-Men begin to recover and are confronted by the museum director, who screams at them for vandalizing his building. Not having time to deal with this, Iceman freezes the man (I hope he left him an air hole!) and they all take off, with Angel scouting ahead, looking for signs of which way the Monster went. The high-flying hero soon spots the path of the creature, with wrecked cars left in its wake. It has made its way to the docks, where it has jumped aboard a south-bound freighter. The team grabs a helicopter and lands it on the deck of the ship, upsetting the crew. They soon get things settled, mainly by beating the crew into submission, and then begin searching the ship. The Beast runs into the Monster in the cargo hold, and it chases him towards the deck, where the Angel manages to throw a lasso over him. Unfortunately for the X-Men's resident bird-man, it seems the Monster can somehow magnetize his feet to the deck! The Angel can't pull him off the deck. The Monster grabs a bunch of barrels and begins hurling them at Iceman, who freezes them in mid-air. The Monster seems especially threatened by Iceman and does his best to get him. Marvel Girl jumps in with her telekinetic power to give Bobby a break but she has little effect against the towering brute. The Professor tries to reach his android brain but with little success. Finally Iceman pops back up and begins spraying a sheath of ice over the creature, even as it struggles to be free. Suddenly the Professor tells him to cast a shield over the X-Men. He does, just as the Monster explodes! 

Doug:  Weren't the X-Men supposed to be unknown to the general public?  I've never read the complete Silver Age run, so I am showing my ignorance here.  But I thought there were very  secretive about their very existence -- it seems like in this issue they're definitely "out".  You know, you remarked above how callous it was of Jean to slam the security guard's head against the wall -- and here it sounds like the Professor just mentally coerces the pilots to give up the helicopter.  Very strange doings in this one!  And by the way, it's an ugly helicopter...  Anyway, the Monster has: super-strength, eyebeams, magnetized feet, and at least average intelligence.  Formidable, indeed.  And I guess that's why I kept asking myself, as I read this back on October 12th, if Roy shouldn't have just created a new super-baddie for this issue.  Of course, it's been documented that due to the fact that creators received no royalties in these days, Roy wasn't always forthcoming with new characters.

Karen: In the last couple of panels, the Professor explains he'd looked into the Monster's android mind and seen that he had been the creation of an alien race from a tropical word, sent to Earth to be an ambassador 150 years before, but had malfunctioned terribly. The aliens had chased him to the arctic regions, and somehow Mary Shelley must have learned of all this and written her story. What??? 

Doug:  At this point I couldn't take it any more!  I remarked to Karen in an email shortly after I finished reading this that I thought Roy might have been auditioning for a job with Silver Age DC.  This would have fit in just great in the pre-"New Look" Batman.  Is it any wonder that the X-Men teetered on the brink of cancellation in the late 1960s?  "...and somehow Mary Shelley must have learned all this and written her story."  Oh my...

Doug:  A few days after I typed my comments to Karen's framework, her post on Bigfoot, et al. ran.  And that got me to thinking -- was Roy Thomas's conclusion that the Monster should be a construct of aliens all that different from that same revelation concerning Andre the Giant's Bigfoot in the $6 Million Man?   I'm trying to remember if I found that to be a cop-out when I was 10-years old...  I know back then I really believed (well, at least was quite wary of the possibility) that Bigfoot was real.  That television show sort of ruined it for me.  I guess in the Frankenstein Monster's case, we should be glad that Marvel got it right just a few years past this story.

Karen: When Doug brought that idea up it was a real 'slap your head' moment. He was right, the two stories were incredibly similar, although of course the X-Men tale came first. I just felt like Thomas had forced two different ideas on each other. He could have had a fun Frankenstein story, or a fun alien robot story, but together, they just didn't make a whole lot of sense.  I sort of like the visuals, but there's no there there, as Gertrude Stein once said. The whole thing is goofy. I think for Heroes and Horrors month, we went 3 for 4, buddy! Not too bad. 

Who's the Best... Horror Comic?

Doug:  Bronze Age, or any other age; comic book or B&W magazine...  Let's hear about all of your favorite scary funny books, and if you didn't dabble in them much (like me), then tell us why you stayed on the sidelines.

Classic vs. Modern Monsters

Karen: When it comes to horror and monsters, I am decidedly old school. Growing up, the Universal Monsters -Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy, Creature - were always on TV, usually on Saturdays, and I sat in front of the screen mesmerized by their tales. Each one had such a distinct back story and personality. Three of them, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolfman, and the Mummy, also had tragic elements that made you feel for the characters. For me Dracula was just flat-out evil, and the Creature was more like a wild animal. But all of them had something that made them exciting and scary, but in a fun way.

Then in the 70s and especially 80s, a new type of monster came along: The slasher. This monster was far closer to our reality than the old monsters had been. He was essentially a serial killer with supernatural abilities or origins. There's Freddy from the Nightmare on Elm Street series, Jason from Friday the 13th, Michael Myers from Halloween, Chucky from Child's Play, and many others. Most of their victims are teenagers. While some of these characters were somehow wronged in their past, most of them are just plain evil psycho killers that deserve little sympathy, if any. Certainly the child murderer Freddy can hardly be considered worthy of our concern. And yet, these monsters are immensely popular with some fans.

So I'm curious: I know some of you also enjoy monster stuff. Where do you fall in this discussion? Classic or Modern? And if it's modern, I'd really be interested in hearing why.

Check out the new Avengers movie trailer here!! Wow!

Monsters: Classic vs. Marvel!

Karen: Marvel Bronze Age fans know that in the 70s, Marvel published a ton of monster comics. But how do the Marvel versions stack up against the Universal movie classics that obviously inspired them? Let's take a look.

Dracula: The bloody Count has been featured in numerous films, and played by many actors, but one name always stands above the rest: Bela Lugosi.

Lugosi left his mark on the role -and our psyches -with his interpretation of the world's most famous vampire. His Dracula set the standard for all images to come. On some levels, this includes Marvel's version. But the comics Count does have his differences.

Marvel's Dracula, as drawn by the legendary Gene Colan, was tall and lean, with a thin mustache, and oddly enough, pointed ears! Although he had the same widow's peak hairstyle as Lugosi, he may have owed more of his look to either John Carradine's version, or the then-current Hammer films vampire, portrayed by Christopher Lee.


The Frankenstein Monster: Most famously portrayed by Boris Karloff, the Monster was played by no less than four actors in the Universal films (Karloff, Lon Chaney Jr, Bela Lugosi, and Glenn Strange), and since then a ton of other films have featured some version of the Monster. But that Universal image, with the elongated, flattened head, drooping eyelids, and the infamous neck bolts, is the one most firmly entrenched in the public mind. Particularly at Halloween time, you see representations of it everywhere: on toys, greeting cards, I even saw a box of tissues bearing the image of the Universal Frankenstein!

Marvel's Monster certainly owed a strong debt to the classic look. His head had a high forehead and a somewhat flattened top. The eyes were typically drawn as half-shut. No neck bolts -that would've been too close to the Universal version, I'm sure. But interestingly, the Marvel version was typically shown wearing a fur vest, very similar to the Monster's garb in Son of Frankenstein. Perhaps the biggest change was making the Monster's skin tone a pale white. Although the original films were made in black and white, the commonly accepted skin color for the Monster has been green (you can still find some color shots floating around that depict a green Karloff in the role). Truthfully, the white skin seemed to make more sense than green. The Monster was drawn by a number of artists, including Mike Ploog, John Buscema, and Val Mayerik.

The Wolfman: The third member of the classic monster triumvirate is the bestial Wolfman. As portrayed by Lon Chaney Jr., the Wolfman was a tragic figure, cursed to become a beast when the moon was full. Universal's lycanthrope seems tame in comparison to modern movie werewolves, but in some ways, I think this classic version allows more of the humanity (and thus the tragedy) of the character to come through. The Universal Wolfman is hairy, with a wolf-like nose and fangs. Although the movies were in black and white, most representations of the character (such as action figures) depict him as having brown fur and skin.

In this case there are actually two Marvel characters who were influenced by the Wolfman. The first is Jack Russell, aka Werewolf by Night. He could almost be the Wolfman's twin brother. Same color scheme, and facially very similar, as WBN retains a more human appearance. One way they did differ: the Werewolf liked to run around shirtless! I'll go on record saying I prefer the Ploog Werewolf over all others.

On the other hand, the Man-Wolf looked decidedly different than the Wolfman. The most obvious difference is coloring: Man-Wolf had a white or silvery look to his fur. He also had a bit more of the wolf to his face, as he seemed to have a bit of a snout, and large, canine ears. He'd fit right in with werewolves in more recent flicks.

Now Marvel also had a Living Mummy, but there's not much to say here: both the Universal Mummy and Marvel's version were just guys wrapped up in bandages! As for that later addition to the Universal Monsters, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, there's no strong Marvel analog. Yes, Marvel did come up with a monster called the Manphibian for the Legion of Monsters magazine, who definitely seemed inspired by the Creature, but he was a one hit wonder. If any Marvel monster reminds me of the Creature, it's probably Man-Thing. Although they look nothing alike, the concept of the solitary , one of a kind monster, living in an aquatic environment (in Man-Thing's case, a swamp) is similar. But visually there's no comparison.