Moving my recent "Frankenstein" posts togeth with the intention of continuing.
DICK BRIEFER'S FRANKENSTEIN:
JUNE 20: I am diligently plowing my way through volume one of Dick Briefer's Frankenstein. I will probably post some sort of individual topic, but I haven't yet decided the direction the thread will take. I'm considering either discussing just the Briefer series, or I might make some sort of "chronology" out of all the Frankenstein series.
JUNE 21: I have been thinking a lot about how preschoolers play (or at least how I and my friends used to play when we were pre-schoolers). Usually the play was one-on-one, with my most frequent playmates at the time being either my next-door neighbor Scotty or my cousin Jimmy. (My social circle wasn't very large before I started to attend elementary school.) Our make-believe play was quite imaginative at the time, part role-play and part improv. One of us would suggest a scenario, and that would become the "reality" we would then build upon, no questions asked. Dick Briefer's Frankenstein reminds me in many ways of Fletcher Hanks' Stardust except, whereas I once described Stardust as a comics written and drawn by someone who was told what a comic book was but had never actually seen one for himself, Frankenstein is more like a comic book plotted by a preschooler. When I was very young, our "plotting sessions" were often peppered with the phrase "Let's say..." For example, they might go something like this...
"Let's say Dr. Frankenstein and his girlfriend go to a wax museum in a carnival, and there's an exhibit of the monster inside."
"Okay, let's say it's really the monster who has replaced the wax figure."
"Yeah, and let's say all of the bodies are real dead victims."
And that would be it, we'd go from there. We wouldn't give too much thought to why the monster was there or how he got into the park without being seen or where his victims came from or what he did with the wax figures. Or it might go something like this...
"Let's say the doctor and his girlfriend go up into the Statue of Liberty."
"And let's say the monster is crawling up the outside."
"Let's say he breaks one of the windows and starts throwing people to their deaths."
"...then Dr. Frankenstein leaps out to window to destroy the monster."
"...but he misses and lands in the statue's arm."
"...then the monster lifts him up and puts him back in the statue because he wants him to suffer."
Or...
"Let's say the doctor adopts a little boy who was orphaned by the monster."
"Yeah, and let's say ten years have passed and he grows up to be a superhero who fights the monster."
These are all actual plots from Prize Comics.
JULY 4: I am still reading tpb v1, up to Prize Comics #26. (The "big change" comes with #33.) I am impressed by the level of story-to-story continuity on display. Prize Comics was an anthology title and Frankenstein debuted in #7, but he was cover-featured (apart from "floating head" shots) only once. That was #24, when all of the anthology's other characters (Green Lama, Black Owl, Yank and Doodle, Doctor Frost, even the (humorous) General and the Corporal) banded together to take him down.
JULY 11: Prize Comics #33 is where the direction, if not the tone, changes. I have read some of Briefer's purely comical Frankenstein's, but these are not those. The monster (called "Frankenstein" after its creator) has been captured. Professor Carrol speakseloquently on the monster's behalf and is granted custody. He brings in a psychiatrist (to hypnotize him), a barber (to give him a haircut), a plastic surgeon (to fix his face) and a tailor (to sew him a suit). In the very next issue, his new adventures begin. When he doesn't work out in the job market (#34), he is sent to the first grade (#35). An old enemy (the Midget) returns in #37, and Frankenstein is (falsely) accused of stabbing a boy in the back. This is 1943, and not exactly the kid-friendly humor comic I was expecting. that is the end of v1.
JULY 18: After his makeover in #33, Frankenstein (the monster is known as "Frankenstein" after his creator) moved into the phase of dark humor in #34-37 I described before. In Prize Comics #38 (which leads off v2), Frankenstein becomes involved with Nazis. They undo his rehabilitation and he becomes evil again, but it doesn't last. At that point, he becomes a double agent (in a Gestapo uniform) working against the Nazis. This phase last through issue #43. Then his adventures in Nazi Germany come to an abrupt end and he returns to the United States. I have this "neat idea" that all "Frankenstein" comics from every company all relate the stories of a single character, and it is at this point where I slot the "Creature Commandos" stories from DC's Weird War Tales.
In the next phase of Dick Briefer's version (which lasts from #44 through #48), Frankenstein meets Zora the Vampire and Rollo, her thrall. The stories continue in a light-hearted but slightly edgy vein and trio end up managing a hotel (don't ask), but this direction ends rather abruptly as well. Issue #49 sees Frankenstein in a Superman spoof as "Blooperman." It is at this point the series becomes silly, and I have no desire to read the "silly" issues at this time.
JULY 26: The humorous Frankenstein continued in Prize Comics through #68 (1945), at which point the no-longer-monster was given his own eponymous title, which ran for 17 issue through 1949. the series reamined on hiatus for three years until it returned in 1952, with #18, to ride the wave of horror popularized by EC. The series was rebooted at that point as a continuing horror series and is really quite good. Frankenstein continued in that vein until #33 in 1954 when it was laid low by Frederic Wertham's anti-comics crusade.
JULY 31: My previous post jumped the gun a bit an took the discussion to the end of the series (#33), when in fact I read #31 only today. These stories are pretty gruesome, but this issue's "Three-Fold Horror and Revenge" in particular. It is exactly the kind of story a kid would write. (See my recent link to Stephen Colbert's Inside Goodbye: Hell-O! "movie" pitched by kids I linked in "Anything, Everything or Nothing at All" recently.)
There are three brothers: John is a painter; James is a singer; Jerome is a conductor. Shortly after the story opens, the three brothers come upon the Frankenstein monster stuck up to his neck in quicksand. Deciding that he is "a living horror! A blight upon the beauty of nature! It does not deserve to live!" one at a time the brothers take turns 1) sewing the monster's lips shut, 2) poking out its eyes, and 3) poking out its ear drums. The monster is found by an old witch who nurses it back to health and resores its lost senses. Later, the monster seeks its revenge upon the three brothers one at a time. "With two fingers of steely strength outstretched," the monster takes its revenge upon John. As Jerome is listening to his records, the monster first breaks them, then boxes his ears, popping his ear drums, deafening him. Lastly, he drops onto the stage as James performs. "Lips, teeth and tongue help to form perfect speech and perfect singing--but powerful fingers are put to work to destroy that combination."
"Sometime later, in an insane asylum," one of the doctors observes that the brothers, now completely insane, sit around like statues all day. "yes, they do resemble a statue," te narrator tells us, "the statue of the three wise monkeys... speak no evil, see no evil and hear no evil!"
MARVEL'S FRANKENSTEIN:
AUGUST 4: I have moved on from the Dick Briefer series to the 1973 Marvel color comic The Monster of Frankenstein by Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog.
AUGUST 8: Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog teamed up to produce the first half-dozen issues, the first four of which were told in flashback. Just as the original novel was told within a framing sequence narrated by Robert Walton, so too are the first four-issues narrated by his great-grandson, Robert Walton IV. Because much of the original story was Frankensein relating what the monster had told him (a story within a story within a story), the comic book adds an extra layer (a story within a story within a story within a story). Actually, it's not that difficult to follow; for the most past Friedrich and Ploog have swapped one narrator for another, his great-grandson.
The year is 1898 and the Monster has been frozen within a block of ice for 100 years or so, when Robert Walton IV leads an expedition to the Arctic to find it/him. The action cuts back and forth between the past and the present, the first three issues adapting the novel. The fourth issue is still told partially in flashback, relating what happened to the Monster immediately after the events depicted in the novel. At that point, the story catches up to itself and proceeds in 1898, with the Monster heading south to find "The Last Frankensein." Many people compare Marvel's Man-Thing to DC's Swamp Thing (for obvious reasons), but the real comparison should be between Frankenstein and Swamp Thing. For one think, Mike Ploog's style is closer to Bernie Wrightson's, and for another, Gary Friedrich's plots are closer to Len Wein's. The series' title changes from The Monster of Frankenstein to Frankenstein's Monster with #6, Ploog's last as artist.
AUGUST 15: After issue #6, Mike Ploog was replaced as artist by John Buscema for #7-10, the villain for #7-9 being Dracula. The only thing that could have made these issues better would have been if they were inked by Tom Palmer (but they were not, alas). The villain of #10-11 was Vincent Frankenstein (the last descendant of Victor), and the artists were John Buscemaand Bob Brown. The end of the story reveal yet another Frankenstein, so the family tree will continue. #12 is a transition issue by Doug Moench and Val Mayerick. When it comes time for me to link all the Frankenstein comics together into a "cohesive" whole, #12 will be a key example. Not only does it transition from 1898 to 1973 (or does it?), but the end also splits the story in two, one branch heading into #13 (via Giant-Size Werewolf), the other into Monsters Unleashed.
SEPTEMBER 7: Picking up where I left off...
GIANT-SIZE WEREWOLF #4: This is more of a "Werewolf By Night" story than it is a "Monster of Frankenstein" story, but this is definitely where it takes place in continuity... at least in regard to the color comics issues; the b&w ones are a bit more problematic. Jack Russell's narration is intrusive so I simply skipped it. If I were reading from the werewolf's POV I wouldn't have.
THE FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER #13-18: The last six-issue storyline is written by Doug Moench (#13-17) and Bill Mantlo (#18), and drawn by Val Mayerick. It introduces a new supporting cast (Ralph Caccone, Eric Prawn, Veronica Frankenstein and her assistant Werner Schmidt), a new villainous organization (I.C.O.N. - International crime organization Nexus) and its operatives (Cardinal, Indigo and Rainbow). The very last issue introduces Victoria Frankenstein, but her relationship to Veronica is not specified (a distant cousin, I imagine).
MARVEL TEAM-UP #36-37: There is no sense of continuity between The Frankenstein Monster #18 and MTU #36; the plot threads from the Frankenstein series remain dangling to this day. MTU #36-37 is written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Sal Buscema. The villain is Baron Ludwig von Shtupf and Spidey's allie is SHIELD agent Judith Klemmer. Man-Wolf enters the story at the very end of part one. Frankenstein's monster has been hanging around the MU every since, but they've never done much with him. From here he goes to Iron Man, and was last seen (to the best of my knowledge) in a Hulk special from the early 2Ks. I had originally planned to read two more Frankenstein projects, but I think I'm going to take [what I hope will be] a short break at this point.
Replies
FRANKENSTEIN'S WOMB:
This "graphic novella" more about Mary Shelley and how she came to write Frankenstein than it is the monster itself, but it's a fascinating read, very fanciful but also very dark.
Timeline: N/A
THE YOUNG ALL-STARS #18-19:
The Monster shows up on the last page of #18 referring to himself as "Victor Frankenstein II" and he appears in three pages of #19. He has been living in the frozen wastes of the North for all this time since the end of the novel, and didn't even realize there was a novel. He considers the option of returning to civilizarion.
Timeline: He could not have been living there since 1797, obviously, but he could have chosen to go back (for some reason) at some point.
TOMB OF DRACULA #49:
This is about a young woman named Angie Turner who has the ability to physically manifest her favorite literary figures incuding the Frankenstein monster. In this story, she accidentally and inadvertantly calls forth the real Dracula.
Timeline: As tempting as it is to speculate that she called forth the real Frankenstein monster as well, the story doesn't fit that interpretation.
Some of the covers reflect the idea that the monster is green. Apparently this comes from Jack Pierce's makeup for Boris Karloff.
The "Spawn of Frankenstein" stories were included in Showcase Presents: Phantom Stranger v.2. But that's B&W, of course. The series was by Marv Wolfman and Mike Kaluta #23-#25; the crossover story in #26 by Len Wein, Wolfman and Jim Aparo; and the instalments in #27-#30 by Steve Skeates and Bernard Baily.
Kaluta did the cover of #26. He has a website with many images. I'd post a link, but these days the board automatically hotlinks to images if you do that. It can be found through his Wikipedia page.
Baily had contributed to DC since at least 1938. In the Golden Age he was the co-creator of the Spectre and Hourman (and Mr America/Americommando). In the 1960s he was the artist of "Prince Ra-Man". His work was variable, but can be striking. He drew some famous horror covers: Weird Tales of the Future #7 and Weird Mysteries #5. He was also a small publisher. The GCD tells me he did some further work for the DC horror titles after "Spawn of Frankenstein".
The "Spawn of Frankenstein" stories were included in Showcase Presents: Phantom Stranger v.2.
Good to know. I have the Phantom Stranger omnibus so I'm not likely to buy the showcase editions at this point for just the "Spawn of Frankenstein" stories, but I'll keep it in mind. Can you believe it's been more than a decade since DC stopped releasing Showcases? They're not necessarily easy to find these days, either, as I recently learned when I tried to tracj down a copy of "Death Knocks Three Times!" SP: Batman v2.
Some of the covers reflect the idea that the monster is green.
Funny you should mention that, because the covers of my next selection reflect the idea that the monster is blue. He is on the cover, anyway, by Mike Mignola; inside, by Claude St. Aubin (and colored by Carl Gafford), his is pale yellow, and looks quite a bit like Mike Ploog's (Marvel) version.
THE FRANKENSTEIN/DRACULA WAR:
"Frankenstein? I like Frankenstein. Dracula? I like Dracula? I think I'll buy this series!" That was my thinking nearly 30 years ago, and I did buy it, but I didn't read it until today. Remember Topps Comics? They not only weren't bad, some of them were actually quite good. Len Brown (yes, the same "Len Brown" for whom Tower Comics' "Dynamo's" secret identity was named) had been with Topps since 1959 in New Product Development and was largely the force behind Topps getting into comic books. One of their first projects was an adaptation of the Francis Ford Coppola film Bram Stoker's Dracula. Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in 1897 and, in 1992, Francis Ford Coppola made it into the most recent of a long line of cinematic adaptations. The fact the the screenplay was itself adapted into a novelization tells you pretty much all you need to know about how close Coppola's version hued to the original. Although I was to see the movie, eventually, years later, I didn't bother with the "novelization" or the comic book adaptation.
In 1993, Topps Comics editor-in-chief Jim Salicrup hired writer Roy Thomas and artist Esteban Maroto to do a three-issue biography of Vlad Tepes titled Dracula: Vlad the Impaler, the last issue of which revealed Tepes' vampiric origin. Even though The Frankenstein/Dracula War was more of a sequel to Dracula: Vlad the Impaler, it still had that Bram Stoker's Dracula stink about it, so I put off reading it for nearly three decades.
Timeline: It takes place in 1796, about two years after Frankenstein and 100 years before Dracula, an era largely unexplored in comics. It could be fit in quite easily.
The depiction of the monster on the covers doesn't match his look in the story, but ya gotta love that Mike Mignola art!
IRON MAN #101-102:
I have intended to stop my coverage of Marvel's version of Frankenstein with Marvel Team-Up #36-37, but Iron Man #101-102 is far, far better. For one thing, this story does a much better job of picking up the dangling plot threads from the end of The Frankenstein Monster #18, plus it's written by Bill Mantlo, who left those threads dangling in the first place.
MONSTER-SIZE HULK ONE-SHOT (2008):
SPECULATION: Marvel brought Frankenstein's monster into the MU proper then didn't know what to do with him. They turned him over to Gerry Conway to deal with (in Marvel Team-Up), but he didn't do a very good job of it. Bill Mantlo thought he could do a better job (again, this is all speculation), so he lobbied for the job in Iron Man. The monster wasn't seen again, as far as I know, until 2008, when he turned up in the Monster-Size Hulk one-shot. Far from being immortal, the monster's flesh is decaying and Victoria Frankenstein contacts Bruce Banner to rivive the creature. She uses Banneer's blood against his will, but the monster is revived. When the Hulk-Busters show up, Frankenstein (or "Adam" as he's now called) and the Hulk team up against them. Then they go their separate ways. This is the last time that I am aware of in which the monster appeared in the Marvel Universe.
Timeline: This could be worked in, easy-peasy.
MADAME FRANKENSTEIN:
Boston, 1932. Disgraced medical student Vincent Krall brings Courtney Bow, the girlfriend of his chief rival, back to lifeafter an accident, then loses interest in her. He renames her Galatea, after the myhtological sea nymph, or Gail for short. Little by little, Courtney's original memories begin to resurface. As a child she gained a certain amount of fame and noteriety for seeing "fairies."
Timeline: This series has nothing to do with Frankenstein, either the doctor or the monster, apart from the main character taking inspiration from the Universal Studios version, but I want to mention it because it a a very good story with very good artwork. Recommended.
JOE FRANKENSTEIN:
Madame Frankenstein (2014) was followed closely by Joe Frankenstein (2015). As much as I enjoyed the former, it was a very quick read and difficult to hold in my head between issues. So when Joe Frankenstein came out, I read the first issue, decided it was "worthy" and decided to read the whole thing at a later date when I was in the mood. That "later date" came nine years later (tempus fugit). Joe Pratt is a teenage pizza delivery boy whose "grandfather's great-great grandfather happens to be Victor Frankenstein. He doesn't know it, of course, until he is attacked by a horde of vampires and is saved by the monster (actually, he prefers the term "creation"). There is something in Joe's DNA, which (oddly) he shares with the creation, who has gone from being "Frankenstein's monster" to "the Frankensteins' protector." The Frankensteins' chief enemy is the "Bride" (yes, that one). Whatever is ion Frankenstein DNA provides the secret to immortality. The monster has it, too, but Victor Frankenstein did not give it to his second creation, the Bride, and she wants it... bad. Jow Frankensteini is a good, fun series (four issues).
Timeline: Yeah, this could fit.
Man, there's a $#!t-ton of Frankenstein comics! When I first started this thread, I had it in mind to look at four series: Dick Briefer's Frankenstein, Marvel's The Monster of Frankenstein/Frankenstein's Monster, Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein Alive, Alive! and one other. Then when I got here I got carried away. Madame Frankenstein (2014) and Joe Frankenstein (2015) were followed by yet another "Frankenstein" series in 2016, but I can't remember which one it was. When I went to look for it, the one I thought it was had been published much earlier. (Maybe I was remembering the collection...?) My intention never had been to read and comment on every Frankenstein story/series ever published, but I was saving the best, my favorite, for last.
Before that, though, I'd like to mention two other Frankenstein comics I do have but won't be rereading at this time.
UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: FRANKENSTEIN:
This 1993 one-shot is a pitch perfect adaptation of James Whale's 1931 classic movie.
Timeline: I'm not really including movie continuity (that's a whole other timeline), but I wanted to mention the comic book because it's so good.
ANGEL VS. FRANKENSTEIN:
I had forgotten I had this one until I saw it online. It's John Byrne's version of a crossover with the BTVS character.
Timeline: I'm ambivalent about including this one.
NEXT: The series that gave me the idea for a "timeline" in the first place.
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