I have only a vague recollection of purchasing Monsters Unleashed Annual #1 at Ahmann's Newstand in 1974, but it makes sense that I did. I was a big fan of Marvel's "monster" reprints at the time, as well as their black and white Planet of the Apes magazine. In any case, the annual was my first exposure to the "Frankenstein: 1974" serial which ran through issues #2, 4-10 and the Legion of Monsters one-shot. I was so enthralled by the entire Monsters Unleashed Annual package that my grandmother indulged me in ordering all of the backissues of the main series advertised in the back of the magazine. (Grandma was my enabler.) This was my first exposure to the Frankenstein's monster; although I had already assembled the Aurora model kit, I had yet to see the Universal Studios classic. I didn't know it at the time, but pages 9-13 of Marvel's color comic The Frankenstein Monster #12 served as a perfect prologue to "Frankenstein: 1974" (actually, the first two chapters were titled "Frankenstein: 1973" but it was 1974 when I read them and in 1974 they remain in my memory).
Part One: We meet neurosurgeon Derek McDowell and his girlfriend Tisha at a carnival somewhere in the midwest. McDowell has discovered a manuscript of the creature's origin has has traced the creature (or stumbled upon its remains, really) to this freakshow, where the monster's body is held in stasis in a tank of water. Derek doesn't know it, but Tisha has read his papers. In flashback (wearing noting but a towel in this non-Code-approved magazine), she learns of the origin of Frankienstein's monster. A footnote refers those interested to the color comic Monster of Frankenstein #1-4 but, little did I know the flashback actually related Mary Shelley's novel rather than Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog's adaptation. (The first three chapters of "Frankenstein: 1973/4" are by Friedrich and John Buscema, BTW.) McDowell's "manuscript" is actually, in story, the letters written by Robert Walton to his sister which comprise the original tale. Jealous of Derek's obsession with the creature, Tisha sets fire to the exhibit, getting horribly burned herself in the process. Exit Tisha. The fire revives the monster, but it is quickly killed (apparently) by the local police.
Part Two: Derek McDowell bribes the local police chief to let him take custody of the monster's body, which he promptly brings to Dr. Owen Wallach, his mentor, in New York City. Wallach is dying, however, and is less interested in reviving the monster than in finding a young, healthy body to transfer his mind into. McDowell revives the monster anyway, but does use it in an attempt to secure a new body for Dr. Wallach. Controlling the monster electronically, McDowell sends the monster after an artist (because of his delicate, skilled hands). He doesn't have good control of the monster, however, and ends up killing the artist. At that point, he has no choice but to kill the artist's model lest she testify as witness. (Neither of these scientists are exactly ethical.)
Having failed to secure a suitable body for the brain transplant, McDowell gasses Wallach in his sleep and transplants Wallach's brain into the monster's body and transferring the monster's brain into a jar, thus beginning a game of "musical brains" I found fascinating when I was ten years old (and still do if I'm being honest). Wallach is none too pleased to wake up to find his brilliant mind in the monster's body (as you might expect). He kills McDowell and throws his body into the East River. Wallach visually inspects the creature's brain and determines it is damaged. He plans to repair the damage, the transfer it back to its original body after securing a young, virile body for his own brain to be transferred into.
Part Three: Wallach's previously unseen assistant, Ruthie, enters the lab forcing the Wallach/monster to kill her. After that, he goes to the circus at Madison Square Garden to secure a body for himself. Two trapeze artists are performing high above the ground without a net. The woman, Gretchen, gatches a glimpse of the monster which causes her to miss being caught by her partner and she plunges to her death. The male acrobat rushes to her side, but the Wallach/monster knocks him unconscious and carries him back to the laboratory. The audience thinks it's all part of the show, and it happened so fast that all of the other performers were caught off guard.
Back at the lab, the Wallach/Monster injects the acrobat with something to keep him asleep and straps him to some equipment. Unbeknownst to McDowell, Wallach has a "molecular transposer" which enables him to perform brain transplants without surgery. What he has in mind is a two-step process: first, he will exchange his brain with the acrobat's; then, after repairing the damage to the Monster's original brain, he will transfer it back into the Monster's body, allowing the acrobat's brain to die. But Wallach didn';t count on a white lab mouse escaping from its cage and scurrying up the acrobat's leg and under the transfer helmet. When the switch is thrown, it is the mouse's brain which is transferred into the Monster's body, and Wallach's mind is tranferred into the mouse! The acrobat comes to his senses in his own body, but the mouse/Monster panics and attacks him, stalking out into the city leaving the Wallach/mouse alone in the lab to regret this turn of events.
Part Four: With this chapter, Doug Moench and Val Mayerik take over from Friedrich/Buscema.It has been three days since Derek McDowell's corpse was unceremoniously tossed into the East River. Now it rises, putrid, bloated and decomposing. (In the flashback, the mouse/Monster killed the Wallach/mouse before it left.) He makes his way back to Wallach's lab and discovers the acrobat's body and the molecular transposer, and uses it to transfer his mind into the acrobat's body and vice versa. Meanwhile, the mouse/Monster (which the McDowell/acrobat thinks is the Wallach/Monster) is running amok in New York City. The McDowell/acrobat grabs a rifle and sets out in pursuit. Before too long he has captured the mouse/Monster, returned it to the lab, and used the molecular transposer to switch the creature's original damaged brain-in-a-jar back into it's own body. The McDowell/acrobat is nonplussed to discover a teeny-tiny mouse's brain floating in the jar, but he doesn't have too long to consider it before the Monster throws him against the wall, breaking his neck. Just then, the acrobat regains consciousness in McDowell's putrid, bloated, decomposing body.
From afar, an unseen person monitors the lab via video camera. "How well the two forces work in conjunction," he or she muses, "science and sorcery... the electronic surveillance of Wallach's laboratory, which even he was unaware of, and the voodoo resurrection of Derek McDowell's drowned corpse. The poor fool never even wondered how he returned to life after lying on the bottom of the East River for three days... never realized that his resuurection was not designed to grant him petty vengeance, but to return the Monster's brain to its body... for my purposes."
That's as far as I was able to read in 1974 and where I'm going to leave it today.
"NEXT: A shockingly new direction for the Frankenstein 1974 series!"
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"NEXT: A shockingly new direction for the Frankenstein 1974 series!"
He made an ill-fated attempt to get into pro wrestling in Memphis.
Part Five: The trapeze artist, now trapped in Derek McDowell's putrid, bloated and decomposing body, commiserates with the Monster. He tells him his whole life story and we finally learn his name: James. James was raised poor and was fiannly expelled from school for poor attendance (because he was working to support himself) after both his parents died. Eventually he joined a circus as a roustabout, but practiced on the trapeze in secret. after a successful audition, her met, fell in love with and married the other trapeze artist, Gretchen (and we've already seen how that rurned out).
Still watching from afar is a hideously deformed freak who calls himself The Master. The Master has an equally hideously deformed hunchbacked servant named Bruno, and a whole passel of hideously deformed freaks as followers. The Master uses voodo to manipulate James/Derek into leading the Monster to his lair, but he also sends Bruno and some of the freaks as backup. As soon as the Monster and James/Derek arrive, the Master decides he doen't need James/Derek anymore and destroys the voodoo doll, killing him.
Part Six: The Monster is none too pleased that the Master has just killed his only friend and attacks, but the Master sends his little army of freaks against him. Although they cannot subdue him, they slow him down enough through sheer force of numbers for the Master to fire a gas bomb using an Army surplus granade launcer. When the Monster comes to he finds himself shackled to the wall. The Master explains that he was once "the most handsome man in the world" and blames his current looks on one Julia Winters. Julia lives in her father's mansion with a servant named Bernard. She would prefer to treat him like an equal, but he is apparently more comfortable in the subservient role of butler. They are discussing threats she has received from a former suitor, James Shinoda (now the Master). She dismisses the threats but should have heeded Bernard's advice because Bruno and two of the other freaks burst into the house, knock Bernard out and kidnap Julia.
When she awakes, she is chained to a column next the the Frankenstein Monster as the Master prepares to disfigure her face with a hot poker. "I asked you for a dat, litle Miss
Julia," he rants, " and you turned me down... me, the most handsome man in the world. Do you know what that did to me, Julia winters? It turned me ugly... so ugly I'm now forced to wear a mask to hide the ugliness you rejected!" He removes his mask revealing the handsome features of James Shinoda underneath. This comes as something of a surprise to Bruno and the rest of the freaks, who thought he was a deformed as they are. They object to the idea of mutilating Julia's face, but they decide if he wants to destroy beauty so much they will destroy his, so he whips out a gun and starts shooting them one-by-one. Julia has long since fainted by this time, but so too has the Monster had time to break his bonds and set her free. As the house begins to burn and collapse from an overturned cauldron, the Monster carries Julia's unconscious form outside where he is met with the police, summoned by Bernard.
Part Seven: The Creature defeates the cops and makes his way to Central Park, where he engages in a lot of Comic Book Philosophy regarding the nature of beauty. He then stumbles upon the zoo where, after more C.B.P., he decides to free the animals. First he releases the tigers which, being animals, attack him, forcing him to kill them. He leaves the zoo and, after a while, ends up in Times Square, where he encounters some winos. He has it in his head to return the girl home, although she is still unconscious and he has no idea where her "home" might be. the police finally catch up with him again, providing the opportunity for more C.B.P. He defeats them and Julia finally awakens, takes one look at him, screams and beans him with a rock. We are left with this final bit of C.B.P.:
"This is not right. This is horrible. This is wrong, so very, very wrong. He has gone through hell to preserve her beauty, to protect her, to make her love him... What did he do to make her act this way...? But even as he turns away, and shuffles down the street, he knows he has done nothing wrong... and, too, he knows it is not her fault... But perhaps somewhere... somewhere in the vast darkness beyond the lights... he will find something beautiful... to be his friend."
I swear this whole chapter was like that. There are still two b&w stories left, but this is essentially the end of the arc begun in Monsters Unleashed #2.
I'll finish out this (short) discussion with two "done-in-ones"...
MONSTERS UNLEASHED #10: The Frankenstein Monster hops a train which just so happens to be carrying the President of the Unioted states to Chicago. The Monster teams up with a hobo woman to protect the President. Many Secret Service agents die in the attack, but it ends up being a decoy train all along. One final assassin lobs a grenade killing the girl.
THE LEGION OF MONSTERS #1:
The Monster follows a woman dressed as a fairy princess from the city to a house in the country. She's attending a costume party, so he fits right in. The Monster ends up getting involved in a murder mystery (the woman's), but fails to prevent it.