I think we can all agree that the past several weeks of this newest presidential term have not been healthy. Between a Muslim ban and the rallying cry for a wall to be built in the south with our neighbors in Mexico all intermixed with the shouts of protest from women, minorities, and others who cry for justice, the current political and social climate in this country seems dire. With that in mind, nothing seems more timely than today’s announcement from BOOM! Studios of a new series entitled “Destroyer.”
In “Destroyer,” novelist Victor LaValle (The Ballad of Black Tom, Big Machine) and artist Dietrich Smith (“Shaft,” “Incredible Hercules”) tap into this political instability, all the while combining our contemporary world with that of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. “Destroyer” follows the journey of Dr. Jo Baker, the last surviving member of the mad scientist Victor Frankenstein’s family, whose 12-year old son is murdered by police on the streets of Chicago. Baker resurrects her son with nanotechnology, becoming a modern day Frankenstein’s monster in the process. All the while the threat of Frankenstein’s original monster, who is never stated to have died in the original novel, looms over the entire book.
LaValle explained he based Baker’s son, Akai, on numerous cases of African-American teenagers being murdered by police such as that of Tamir Rice, who was shot and killed in Cleveland while playing with a toy gun, and Akai Gurley, who was killed in New York. LaValle stated he felt naming Baker’s child Akai would honor Gurley whose story he felt did not receive the national attention it most surely deserved.
LaValle went on to tell that this serious was really about answering the question “Is humanity worth it?”
I wanted to get at this question: If you go far enough into rage and grief, you start wrestling with the question, is any humanity worth saving at all?
Are we worth it?
Are we worth it! That is actually the question of the entire comic. Dr. Baker, in many ways, doesn’t know. The monster decides no. Her revived son is still young enough that he thinks the answer is yes. But she’s still in the middle, trying to decide which side sways her. If she sides with the monster, they could pull off mass destruction. If she sides with the son, they’re going to have to fight the monster.
Blending the political discourse of the Black Lives Matter movement with that of the horror that is Frankenstein, “Destroyer” arrives in May from BOOM!.
