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.
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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.
Eh, a bit longer than seven weeks, that's not bad. I've taken longer "breaks."
NEAL ADAMS MONSTERS:
This is not one of the two projects I had in mind, but rather one that came to me during October's "Cover a Day" theme. This doesn't really fit into my overall "chronology" as it deals with a different Frankenstein and a different monster, but I'll include it as a tangent. Using the old Univelsal Studios monster movies as a source of inspiration, Neal Adams set out to crate the final blowout movie in which all of the three main monsters battle each other. "They did do one," admits Adams in his introduction, referring to Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. "But things were goinf downhill by then and, horribly, they didn't get Karloff for the monster, but Bela Lugosi with his chubby cheeks played him poorly and Lon Chaney Jr. was a marginal Wolfman at best." Adams scrupulosly avoided the Universal Monsters and the Universal makeup. He takes credit for the first depiction of a man actually turning into a wolf. (The Howling was released a short time after this story originally appeared in serial form in Echo of Future Past. In 2003, the story was expanded, updated with new digital effects and computer color, and collected in hardcover.
The setting is Romania in the year 1912. Vincent Frankenstein (Victor's nephew) and Erika von Ristat-Galant, his fiancée are on the run (presumably from Geneva, Switzerland or Ingolstadt, Germany) and flee right into the waitng arms of Prince Vlad, who at first offers them shelter, but then threatens Erika's life unless Vincent creates another monster, which Dracula wants for reasons of his own. At one point, Erika is bitten by a wolf and becomes the werewolf. It's not a bad little story, but probably not what you're expecting (unless you're familiar with the work of Neal Adams).
FRANKENSTEIN ALIVE, ALIVE! by Steve Niles and Bernie Writghtson
This is the first of the two projects I had had in mind back in September. The as the story opens, the Monster is working as a sideshow freak during the great depression. Then a series of flashbacks fill in the details from the end of the novel forward. Regarding my overall "chronology," but this version and Ploog's deal with the Monster being thawed from the ice following the end of Mary Shelley's novel, so I may have to work out an "Earth-1" and "Earth-2" chronology so to speak. The entire package is simply breathtaking; this is my third time reading it. Unfortunately, Berni Wrightson did not live to see its completion. He did, however, leave it to his hand-picked successor, Kelley Jones (who did an absolutely wonderful job) to finish. Highly recommended.
MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS #20:
This is a fairly faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, although I prefer the Classics Illustrated version.
Marvel Classics Comics eliminates the framing sequence of the novel (so does Classics Illustrated), but Marvel also tones down the violence in regard to the attrocities committed byt the Monster, presumably for CCA approval. It is by John Warner (writer/editor) and Dino Castrillo (artist). The Marvel version pairs better with the Marvel Comics Monster of Frankenstein / Frankenstein's Monster series, but the Classics Illustrated version pairs better with Dick Briefer's. Regarding my overall inclusive timeline, I may eventually have to pick and choose.
MARVEL TALES #96 - "The Return of the Monster"
This story takes place in an unspecified time, but obviously the 20th century. A young American writer named Clifford Armstrong has traveled to a "Barvarian country" to reseach the veracity of the legend of Frankenstein's monster. A cold reception awaits him as he makes his way from the train station to the inn. He is struck by the beauty of the desk clerk, who introduces herself as Nina Frankenstein, daughter of the last male heir to that name. She explains that the townsfolk had assumed Clif was a member of a group called "The Fanatics" who are obsessed with reviving the monster, who is rumored to still be in the castle after all these years. Their plan is to create an army of invincible monsters and conquer the world. To that end they have kidnapped Nina's father to force him to tell the secret of the monster's creation, which has been rumored to have passed from father to son for generations.
As Clifford and Nina ascend the mountain toward the castle, the Fanatics have already obtained the secret from the elder Frankenstein by torture. As he brings the dormant monster to life, the stress is too much and he drops dead of a heart attack. The monster revives and kills all the Fanatics, then makes his way to the village. Clifford and Nina see him leave, but are determined to find her father. By the time they find him and discover he is dead, the Monster has already laid waste to the village, killing everyone, and is on his way back to the castle. The Monster grabs Nina and smacks Clifford aside. Stunned, Clifford watches as the Manster carries Nina into the dank recesses of the lowest regions of the castle. Clifford follows and manages to slip away with Nina, the monster in hot pusuit. Nina notices "a pile of dynamite nearby" (how convenient!) and Clifford uses it to seal the Monster beneath the ruins of the castle forever.
Weeks later, back in New York Harbor, newspaper reportes gather around Clifford for the scoop. He denies any truth to the matter, yet ghis hair has turned white, which he attributes to getting older. When the reporters asks about the woman he is with, he introduces her as Nina Armstrong. As far as the overall timeline is concerned, I suspect this is how the American branch of the Frankenstein family originated. Also, we know from Prize Comics (and elsewhere) that the monster was wandering the world in the 20th century. It could easily be that he returned to the castle around the time the Fanatics arrived, which just happened to fit the legend that the Monster had been in the castle all along.
This story was reprinted in Where Monsters Dwell #2.
(Both of those covers are somewhat deceptive.)
DETECTIVE COMICS #135 (1948) - "The True Story of Frankenstein" by Edmond Hamilton, Lew Schwartz & Charles Paris
Alone in his study, Professor Carter Nichols, Gotham City scientist, ponders over a time-worn document. The document indicates that the story of Frankenstein, the scientist who created a monster, is true. In order to satify his own curiousity, he steps in front of a morror and uses his power of "time-hypnosis" to sent himself int the past, and is whirled back through time to the central Europe of a century and a half ago! He arrives in a village of windmills alongside modern-looking barns with silos alongside houses with thatched roofs, all in the sadow of a castle looming in the background. (The village looks not unlike Portmerion, Wales.) Professor Nichols makes his way to the castle where he meets Baron Frankenstein, his cousin Count Mettern, and his servant Ivan. Ivan is a giant, about seven feet tall with a flat head, but no monster.
Professor Nichols asks to see Frankenstein's experiments, and the Baron asks Ivan to turn the wheel of a crude electrostatic machine. But Ivan turns the wheel too quickly and is knocked into a coma by a discharge of electricity. Nichols attempt to revive Ivan by quickly whipping up a batch of adreneline and injecting him with it. Ivan's body revives, but not his mind. Professor Nichols explains that "adrenaline shock has done that! More treatment later will bring his mind back!" Ivan is succeptible to the power of suggestion in his present state, and Count Mettern sees the opportunity to dispose of his cousin and inherit his estates.
That night, Count Mettrn orders Ivan to kill Baron Frankenstein and then go to his own mansion to await further orders. But Ivan is interrupted in his task, and flees to the village where he runs amok, enraging the villagers. If you're wondering where Batman comes into the picture, Professor Nichols thinks, "I need to help recapture that mindless giant! I've got it! I'll draw Batman and Robin back to this time by hypnotic force!" Presently, Prof. Nichols projects his weird powers of hypnosis across the years: "Come back Batman and Robin--wherever you are," he chants. "Back into the past!" In 1948, Batman and Robin begin to feel a "strange summons" which they "cannot resist."
Drawn across time, the duo hears Nichols' story of a terrible event! "There was not enough adreneline for his huge frame," the professor explains, "It revived only his body, not his mind!" "Then more of this adreneline would revive his mind, too!" Batman concludes. Just then, they receive word that the "monster" has killed Dirk the Forrester. Batman and Robin track Iva to Count Mettern's mansion. He greets them at the door and acts surprised that the monster might be after him. He says there is an alternate entrance to his mansion through an underground passage and leads them to it, but as Count Mettern flings open the door, his cunning trap is revealed! They fight, and Batman and Robin are subdued. "This is the stranger-scientist's drug!" says Count Mettern, taking is from Batman's unconscious body as Robin assumes his usual role of boy hostage.
"It made Ivan a soulless slave," Mettern schemes. "If I use it to revive this man, I'll have two slaves!" He injects Batman with the drug, which revives him as a mindless monster. Mettern sends Batman out to wreck the village to distract the villagers' attention from Ivan's second attempt on Frankenstein's life. When Batman stalks into the town, the villagers assume that Frankenstein has created another monster, one that looks like a giant bat. They fire at him from multiple directions and Batman is hit with at least three bullets, but the don't affect him. Meanwhile, Robin frees himself with the help of a spear mounted on the wall, and uses a silk tapestry hanging on the wall as a parachute to intercept Ivan. As Ivan enters the castle, Batman steps out from behind a curtain and activates the electrostatic machine, which stuns Ivan. Then Professor Nichols injects him with more adreneline which restores his mind.
By this time, the villages are nearly at the castle carrying all manner of weapons.While Batman, Robin, Nichols and Frankenstein go out to talk sense to them, Ivan locks himself and Mettern in the laboratory. When the villagers see that Frankenstein himself has been injured, that slows them long enough for Ivan to detonate the chemicals in the lab and blow up the castle. Soon, to an English-woman writer attracted by the terrible case, Batman tells the whole story. It wouldn't be believed!" says Mary Shelley. "I'll have to write it as fiction!" How does this story fit into the overall timeline? Frankly, it doesn't. The notion of "time-hypnosis" is ridiculous, and the whole story is apocryphal. Frankly, AFAIAC, Professor Nichols hypnotized himself into imagining the entire episode.
U.S.A. COMICS #13 (1944) - "Curse of Frankenstein"
Online Synopsis:
Captain America and Bucky answer a distress letter from Anna Frankenstein to come to her ancestral castle in Europe. They go unaware that someone has found Victor Frankenstein's long lost notes and have used it to create a new Frankenstein's monster. Arriving at the castle, they are not admitted into the castle, so Captain America climbs up one of the towers. He is attacked by the Frankenstein butler, but manages to fight free but gets caught at gun point by Dr. Frankenstein. Meanwhile, outside, Bucky is greeted by Anna Frankenstein and welcomed into the castle. They rush upstairs and find Dr. Frankenstein just as he is putting his gun away, not wishing to shoot the legendary Captain America.
Anna tells the two heroes that she had called them to investigate strange noises coming from one of the towers. Her father dismisses this as nothing but common noise and then offers Cap and Bucky to stay the night. While they are preparing for bed, Cap and Bucky are attacked by a Frankenstein's monster but the creature is forced to flee when the two heroes prove to be too much for it. When the monster disappears, Cap calls together the Frankenstein's and their working staff, including a blind German named Von Rottz, who offers to help them find the monster.
Leading the heroes through the castle, Von Rottz leads them directly to the monster who grabs Bucky and rushes to the parapet of the castle. There he tosses Bucky to his death, but Captain America swings out from a window and catches him. When they get back up to the parapet, they witness as the monster strangles Von Rottz to death and then grabs Anna and makes a hasty retreat. Captain America follows after them and manages to save Anna and lure the monster into a quicksand trap. Captain America then confronts Anna with the truth: That she is a Nazi sympathizer who worked with Von Rottz to create a new Frankenstein's Monster for the Nazis. Shamed by this revelation, Anna then throws herself into the quicksand pit and drowns herself.
Captain America returns to the Frankenstein home, and unable to tell the doctor that his daughter is a traitor, he leaves Frankenstein to believe he was unable to save her. Believing that his daughters death was the result of the family curse, the doctor then sets the castle's laboratory on fire.
TIMELINE: Like Neal Adams' Monsters, this is a different Frankenstein and a different monster, therefore the story is tangential to the timeline.
ADVENTURES INTO THE UNKNOWN - "The Spirit of Frankenstein"
This is also a "tangential" series in that it doesn't deal with the original Frankenstein or his monster, but rather asks the question whether or not, "in this age of science, such a crerature can be created--in the Spirit of Frankenstein himself?" So it's not the original Frankenstein, but I found the premise too interesting not to at least mention. What I thought, at first, was a two part story from Adventures into the Unknown #5-6 ended up being a seven-part series which ran between issues #5 and #16 (1949-1951). I read the first two parts before I realized it was a serial. It doesn't belong in this thread, but I may come back to it at some point in the future.
THE VAULT OF HORROR #22 - "The Monster in the Ice"
This one takes place about a year before publication (let's say winter '51/'52) in which two geologists discover Frankenstein's monster frozen in the Arctic.
Timeline: A lot of these stories use the monster being discovered frozen alive as a starting point. I'll have to account for that, somehow. Luckily, the Prize Comics run presents a possible solution. Or I may simply declare ceratin versions apocryphal.
STRANGE TALES #10 - "The Monster's Son"
Here's a good example of the difference between EC horror stories and those published by other companies. In the EC story we looked at yeaterday, one of the geologists asks the other if he's ever read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The second geologist says, "No! But I saw the movie," to which the first responds, "No! I'm not talking about the Hollywood version! That was nothing like the book!" Both comics take liberties with the plot, but the "Atlas" version takes the "Hollywood version" as it's starting point. Expect SPOILERS.
A man named John Kent discovers a manuscript which seems to indicate that Frankenstein had a son... not the scientist but the monster! Further, it revealed that "the monster was really a genius! He used Frankenstein's equipment to create an heir for himself!... He covered his son's deformed face with a rubberoid mask so that he would be able to hide from the mob what would otherwise have destroyed him on sight." Before the villagers set fire to the castle, the monster hides his "son" in the dungeon. John Kent travels to the Castle Frankenstein in hope that the monster's son is still alive. Poking around in the "underground grotto" Kent is soon discovered by the creature. He runs through a tunnel which opens on a cliff face, which crumbles beneath his weight, tumbling him to his death. The monster makes his way down to the body, takes off Kent's mask, and laments, "My son!! My son!!"
Timeline: This story (with art by Jim Mooney) carries a lot of impact in only five pages, but is obviously apocryphal.
MENACE #7 (1953) - "Your Name is Frankenstein!"
A little five-page morality tale by Stan Lee and Joe Maneely (signed).
Timeline: This tale could easily be worked in to an overall comprehensive timeline with just a slight change in narration. Most writers who "adapted" the "legends" they heard didn't have "the whole story." (That's my take.)
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