Michael Walsh has unearthed Frankenstein’s Monster from the perspective of a boy in Universal Monsters: Frankenstein #1! The Universal Monsters titles are now bringing to life Frankenstein by Michael Walsh. Chapter one is “The Hands of a Father.” The writer and artist is Walsh, who was also the artist of the Image title, The Silver Coin. The first issue has a cover by Walsh that has Frankenstein’s Monster half-flesh with his head and the rest a skeleton, heart, acovered by flowers! We are at a cemetary with a young boy at the tombstone of his father. There is a somber pink sky with colors by Toni Marie Griffin. Walsh’s art has simple lines reminiscent of Mike Mignola, but also with shadows and facial details like Richard Corben.
The boy has a wooden horse carved by his father which he places at the grave site. He is crying when he hears a loud sound of digging and voices. The boy runs over to see what is happening. He sees the shadowy figures of Fritz, his assistant in the 1931 film, and the doctor, pronounced, “Frank-en-steen!” The boy hides behind a gravestone as they dig up a body, the doctor finds the skull damaged, but the hands are usable. A two page spread has Doctor Frankenstein next to Fritz over the coffin with a hand to the side. There is an insert of the boy as he sees that they are taking his father’s hands!
Lightning crackles in the sky as a horse takes away a wagon with the grave robbers. At the back underneath a cloth is the frightening eyes of the boy. They reach Castle Frankenstein and the stowaway leaps out as the duo take out the coffin. Then, down steps in greenish, almost unnatural light, to a splash page of the boy in the strange mechanisms of the laboratory! He accidentally turns a switch that causes a blast of electricity! He sees the shadows of Dr. Frankenstein and Fritz approach and hides under the cloth of the operating table. Dr. Frankenstein says that once they move the body to the table, Fritz will then go to the university, there to get a healthy brain, not one from Abby Normal.
Lightning strikes down next to Castle Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein has prepared the body which is bandaged and leaves, the boy sees the hand of his father at the side of the table. He wants his father to return. He hears the doctor again and goes to hide by a corner table. I like the weaving in and out of the events of the film and this new narrative. It is raining at night when Fritz rides and we also find the carriage with Elizabeth reassured by Victor that they will get back her fiancee, Henry Frankenstein! This resolves to their argument at the lab. He tries to convince them tha the body is not dead which gets the interest of the boy. His eye is magnified by a beaker. Frankestein and Fritz turns the wheels to lift up the table that grinds upwards.
The boy sees it rise and then thunder which turns his face colorless, nice effect! This goes to a two page spread of the body being struck by the lightning coursing through several globes, impressive! The body is lowered sizzling green smoke. Dr. Frankenstein looks at the moving hand and declares, “It’s alive!”, his face half-in shadow with white eyes like a madman! Closeup of the boy covering his mouth. The doctor is taken away still raving. The boy’s face starts to be covered in shadow. The tower is now in the blue of morning. The boy peeks out of a window to hear the doctor angry at Fritz who says the creature is an abomination. Dr. Frankenstein doesn’t want fear to take away from his discovery. He sends Fritz to find Waldman so he can have someone on his intellectual level that he can have a conversation. Arrogant and mad.
The boy goes looking for his father around the tower. He finds a barrel of body parts! He recoils saying the doctor is a monster. True. He lifts a bar off a door and looks for his father, his shadow enters a room, then a shadow of Frankenstein’s monster! He turns, half-shadowed face, with a yellow eye! Frankenstein’s monster reaches out, the boy is frightened, until he takes the boy’s hand. He realizes that the creature is not his father, but that he is in pain. He is about to leave, but his hand is still in the grip of Frankenstein’s monster! The boy pulls free and falls, he feels pain in his hand, which is mimed by the creature. The boy resolves himself that the doctor has to be stopped. He looks at a table of knives and bone saws! There is a letter from Michael Walsh about the making of the comic and a hint of what is to come from “the little pieces that make a monster”! Universal Monsters: Frankenstein #1 gives a humanity of the monster through /he eyes of an orphan boy!
Five Switches out of Five!
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