Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! #1 takes a reporter to find a murderer and ends up in the jungles of Peru! The Univesal Monsters series continues with the Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! fom Image Comics’ Skybound Entertainment. It focuses on one of the best monster designs from the first film, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). The Gill-man was discovered at the Black Lagoon down the Amazon River. There were two sequels, Revenge of the Creature (1954) where he was captured and taken to the Oean Harbor Oceanarium in Florida. and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). In the last movie, the Gill-man was burned, losing his gills!, and operated to be made to live on the land. He then returned to the sea.
The writers are Dan Watters, who also wrote The Six Fingers, and Ram V, writer of The One Hand. The artist is Matthew Roberts, who also provided art for Creepshow #5 (2024). The cover by Roberts has the Gill-man half submerged in water, bathed in pink sunlight. It opens to narration as a woman is choked underwater bubbles of air escaping as she is surrounded by darkness! There is the dark form of her attacker above her. His hands grip her throat. Another closeup shows her bloody fingers clawing at tile. Her face is seen as she emerges from the dream in bed, looking at the ceiling fan. She sits up looking at a cup, the artwork looks like Bret Blevins, and then dressed, the woman puts her revolver in her holster.
Before Ms. Marsden leaves the hotel, a clerk says she has messages from her editor. We get hazy, almost Mad Magazine panels of the editor apologizing for being caught in the story. He mentions a lead in Peru. Her editor brings up that it might be him, the man who almost killed her! Marsden is about to leave when the clerk says she has a message fom the pharmacy. The title page has large panels of a Peruvian city by a river, the reporter rushing through a market, and at a stall, rows of clay figures in a familiar shape! At the pharmacy, she is told that the “American man” was there two hours ago.
Marsden’s head slumps down on the counter as she says she waited thee weeks for him. The pharmacist, Maria, did capture him on the security camea and plays it. Marsden recognizes the bald man. Maria says he regularly buys medical supplies. Marsden brings up he ampthamine and gets her bottle. She says she takes them so she doesn’t have to sleep! Outside, Marsden pops in the pill and then at the riverfront she sees a bald man and gasps, “Collier?” It is another man who hugs his daughter. Marsden asks an old man about the crowd and told that there’s another body. The Creature took the victim’s air from the lungs and filled it with mud!
Marsden doubts that it is a Creature, she’s on the hunt for a murderer. Flashback, the editor says that there were seven drowned victims. The authorities are ignoring the case and the editor suspects ex-Marine, Darwin Collier. I like the connection with Marsden, a survivor of violence, the killer, and the Creature. The woman tells Marsden that the Creature peacefully drowns the victims, a ceremony? Marsden brings a cup of coffee to the morgue. She says she has money to ask to see the body and has already tried to see murder victims. The middle aged pharmacist says he has ready taken bribes, but keeps the person secret.
He takes her money saying the body will be picked up in the afternoon. She is smoking cigarettes at a dark cafe and sees a man take the body. She runs after him thinking that he knows Collier. On the outskirts of the city next to the jungle, Marsden follows two men carrying the body. She hears that they are loading the body to a boat. She sees the other sweaty, half-bald man who is not Collier. They ride away in the boat and Marsden falls to her knees screaming. A white heron sees her, pulls up a fish, but loses it trying to fly away. She rants about the fish walking through the jungle.
Then, she hears a growling, and Marsden takes out her gun. The shadowy form growls again with pale blue eyes. We see a closeup of her shaking gun. Marsden lowers her gun and in a splash page of the jungle, we see her run from the growling. The gun must be her protection, but she is shaken not by Collier, but the Creature whose existence she doubted. Marsden enters a river to escape, but the current is too strong and pulls her under! Air bubbles leave as we see Marsden’s hand try to reach out. We see more air leave herr and then the last bubbles float away as she sinks in the darkness! Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! #1 brings a modern monster tale with a lead obsessed with tracking down a murderer!
Four Air Bubbles out of Five!
#CreatureFromTheBlackLagoonLives, #DanWatters, #RamV, #MatthewRoberts, #Marsden, #DarwinCollier, #Creature
No comments:
Post a Comment