The truth is revealed, though it should have been obvious from the start.
What They Say:
FLASH FACT: The great monster hunter Miranda Shrieve will see our heroes dead before the night is done; unless they can defeat her and her army of robots.
The Review:
With the Frankenstein series and the plans to rework him into the mainstream universe in a post-Flashpoint world, I have to admit I had fun with this book. While it aped the Captain America angle pretty well with some neat twists along the way when it dealt with the 1940’s arc, it kind of sputtered a bit as it came to the present and focused on Nina and the attempts to figure out how she became like she is and what happened to her father. That gave them all a purpose since they wanted to help her, but it all went askew at the end of the previous issue where the truths beneath the swamp were revealed and Frankenstein’s Bride appeared, much to my surprise. While I knew we were dealing with the monsters from the past and all, I have to admit I had forgotten about the Bride completely, so I liked being surprised like that.
She brings a bit of sass to things, a real go get ’em attitude that makes sense when she reveals she’s part of S.H.A.D.E., the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive, a black ops group that deals with all sorts of nasty things around the world. She’s one of their better operatives and turns out to have been working for them since the end of World War II after she went looking for Frank and couldn’t find him. So when he reappeared out of a secret and unknown vault, that brought her into play. And others as well as we see that there are forces trying to take them down that want to put the genie back in the bottle, so to say.
The only clue that have is Romania, and that sends them off there to where they find a secret village that’s existed for hundreds of years with a monster secret all its own. It’s kind of campy in a way that works when you’re dealing with the wolfman, Frankenstein and vampires so you can kind of accept it, and it also works for explaining Nina’s origins and that of her father in another sort of campy way. The whole thing reminded me heavily of Hellboy in a good way and the book brings a few things to resolution while nudging it all forward to go into the post-Flashpoint world in a very Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade kind of way. But that’s what the whole series has felt like, an homage to things past that are tweaked and brought into the present while not forgetting where it came from.
Digital Notes:
This digital edition of Frankenstein is from Comixology and contains only the original cover for the release and the book itself with no extras or advertisements.
In Summary:
Similar to some other miniseries that have hit in the Flashpoint world, Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown isn’t the type of book that will light up the charts, but it shows us something different in the mainstream universe that we normally don’t get. If it was tweaked a bit and had a Vertigo label slapped on it, it’d probably garner a whole lot more critical acclaim. But I like that it’s cemented in the superhero world and will interact with them and be a part of everything that’s going on here. Lemire’s got some good stuff going on with the book, particularly with the Bride’s sass and attitude, and it has me curious to see how things will work out with these characters when it’s not working within a three issue window alongside a big event book. I likely wouldn’t have paid attention to these characters before this, but now it’s got me curious where they can go with it.
Grade: B-
