Essential Monster Of Frankenstein Volume 1 TPB (Essential (Marvel Comics))

Essential Monster Of Frankenstein Volume 1 TPB (Essential (Marvel Comics)) | Gary Friedrich, Doug Moench | Collection ranges from true classics to true drek.

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	Essential Monster Of Frankenstein Volume 1 TPB (Essential (Marvel Comics)) Gary Friedrich, Doug Moench Marvel Comics, 2004 - 496 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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One of the better '70s Marvel Horror titles

Back in the 1970s, Marvel had a line of horror comics, many of which are now being re-released in Marvel's Essentials books. Up to now, my feelings of these horror comics have been mixed: while I have enjoyed The Essential Dracula, I have been far less impressed with the Essential Werewolf by Night and Essential Marvel Horror. So it was with a bit of wariness that I picked up The Essential Monster of Frankenstein, but I found myself pleasantly surprised. While not great, it is a decent collection.

Despite all the issues within featuring Frankenstein's Monster, there are actually two separate Monsters appearing in different storylines. In the issues of Monster of Frankenstein (later titled Frankenstein's Monster), the story begins in the late 1800s, with the Monster being thawed out and his story recounted. The Monster, like in Mary Shelley's novel, is actually intelligent but has a major chip on his shoulder. After an encounter with Dracula, he loses his ability to speak and is eventually refrozen and awakens in modern times, where he tries to track down Frankenstein's last descendants. This storyline ends inconclusively.

We then get the storyline of Monsters Unleashed, featuring a Monster who is of subhuman intelligence and entangled in a plot involving brain switches, animated corpses and other twists. While still savage, this Monster is also not as angry at the world.

Even within the storylines, we get inconsistencies, especially in the first one, where the Monster somehow loses his intelligence in the later issues. In general, the parts of this volume are better than the whole: the individual issues are often fun to read, but taken in its entirety, there is a bit lacking. With that caveat, I still recommend this collection for fans of the Marvel horror comics.

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Collection ranges from true classics to true drek.

This mammoth black-and-white reprint volume features some of very best comics plushing by Marvel... and some of the very worst. Basically, the tales within these pages that have Gary Friedrich credited as writer are true gems of comic story-telling, from the fabulous adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, through the inevitable battle between horror gothic horror titans Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster, through the tragic conclusion of the monster's quest to find the Last Frankenstein, the first 11 issues of the Monster of Frankenstein comic book are indeed "essential" reading. The stories are well-crafted, the 19th century setting refeshing (and particularly fun if you're a lover of Hammer films like me), the characters all interesting, and the illustrations for those tales, primarily by Mike Ploog and John Buscema, are also among some of the finest work those artists ever did.

The same is true of the first few reprints featuring Frankenstein's Monster from the pages of Monsters Unleashed. The saga of Frankenstien's Monster is moved into the modern day as an obsessive mad scientiest discovers the inert creature in a traveling sideshow and revives him with bizarre and tragic consequences. The initial stories were written by Gary Friedrich and illustrated by John Buscema, and these, again, are true comic-book classics.

But once Friedrich leaves as writer, the quality goes down the drain. With the exception of the final story in this collection, the episodes penned by Doug Moench are just plain awful, with Frankenstien's Monster facing off against a silly secret criminal organization and even sillier by-products of the efforts of modern-day monster-builders. I hate to say that Moench turned in bad work for the series, as he has written some of my favorite comics(Master of Kung-Fu, Six From Sirius, his run on Catwoman), but there is just nothing redeeming about his efforts on the Frankenstien series. (Except the very last story from Legion of Monsters. Moench and the artist he was teamed with on the strip, Val Mayerick, do their only decent work on that one.

All in all, about 1/3rd of this book is trash, but the good parts are really good, and I say it is a worthy addition to any fan of horror comics' bookshelf. Just skip the material that originally appeared in The Frankenstein Monster issues 12-18 and Monsters Unleashed issues 6-9.

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When will it come out in color?

After reading that artist Mike Ploog has done some recent (2008) work on the revitalized "Spirit" title, my memory was jogged and I was reminded how much I dug Ploog's work in the 1970s, particularly his work at the start of Marvel's "Frankenstein" series. Sadly, these cheesy black-and-white reprints are the only version available (other than back-issues) of those great early issues. I'd love to see Ploog's fluid style again, but I guess I'll wait until they pony up for full-on color reprints... Otherwise, why bother? And, yeah, it's true that this series fell into utter mediocrity, but those first issues were really great. I loved them as a kid!

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Starts out great then goes south

This series starts out fantastic. Ploog's artwork is awesome and the retelling of the classic Frankenstein story works well. Once that ends though it hits very troubled waters. Doug Moench decided somewhere along the way that his narration would be a better way to convey the thoughts and feelings of the Monster and that's where the whole series just tapers off to garbage. Frankenstein's Monster spends most of the series trying to track down and kill a seemingly endless supply of Frankenstein heirs. Anyone who befriends him is doomed the second they become friends which makes the Monster angry....rinse lather repeat. For such a low price it's a fun read but disappointing that it had such wasted potential. It could have been AWESOME.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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