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Review: Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #3

By | November 10th, 2011
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

Written by Jeff Lemire
Illustrated by Alberto Ponticelli

Frankenstein and The Creature Commandos crash-land on the invading alien planetoid and all-out mayhem ensues, but nothing can prepare them for the coming of The Titans of Monster Planet! And just when they thought things couldn’t get worse, Father Time receives a troubling message from his past.

This is going to sound like an insult, but i swear it is a complement: the ideas behind Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. are similar to the ideas little kids make up when telling stories.

Hear me out here — let me pitch it to you as if it was coming from my 7 year old nephew:

“So, instead of being dumb, Frankenstein’s monster was, like, super smart. And he uses a giant sword! And he fights other giant monsters, like the size of Godzilla, and his friends are a vampire, a werewolf, and a mummy! And their headquarters is indestructible!”

The great thing about kid ideas is that they are HUGE – kids don’t care about scope, they care about planets fighting other planets and spaceships the size of Antarctica. And so, taking inspiration from something so massive can lead to truly imaginative, amazing pieces of art, unencumbered by the laziness and logic that comes with age.

And by pairing such huge ideas with a writer and artist of this caliber, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. is one of the most exciting books being published today. Click the jump to read why.

One of the threads that ties together both of Jeff Lemire’s DCnU books are the extended cast of characters. Lemire has the ability to create characters that fit into archetypes, yet don’t feel like you’ve seen them all before. In Animal Man, we meet people like Detective Krenshaw, who could easily be reduced to every cop stereotype but who, through minimal interaction, sets themselves apart as unique and well thought out characters.

This has been one of the pleasant surprises of Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.; the Creature Commandos, Father Time, Ray Palmer, and even Agent Bellroy are all fully realized characters from the start. Velcoro (the Vampire) talks like the pilot he once was; he is brash and thinks he’s hot shit. Griffith (the Werewolf) is star-struck by Frank, and wants to be noticed by him more than anything. Neither of those characters have more than a dozen lines of dialogue in any issue, and yet we know their motivations and can picture them outside of the pages of the comic.

The other thing this book is doing is blending two genres that , you would think, should blend together more often. Much like President Clinton’s famous “Wad Accord,” this book is the meeting ground between horror and sci-fi that somehow doesn’t happen all the time. Through the S.H.A.D.E. organization, elements like teleportation, shrinking technology, other dimensions and mind portals get to rub shoulders with monsters. Again, this is the sort of large in scope idea generating that just isn’t seen all that much.

The sci-fi side loses out a little bit, visually, due to Alberto Ponticelli’s artwork. Personally, I really dig what he brings to the book, but even I must admit that there is a crudeness to his pencils which don’t do justice to a lot of the S.H.A.D.E. tech. Ray Palmer’s lab, for instance, looks like something out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, full of smoke and tubes, rather than a 21st century scientific lab of this caliber.

However, that is more than made up by Ponticelli’s action work. So many times, fight scenes look like choreographed ballet scenes; Ponticelli’s look painful, chaotic, and dangerous. He also makes the Creature Commandos, despite being the “heroes” look terrifying, and doesn’t hold back on their brutality. You may be rooting for them, but you certainly don’t want to run into them on the street.

The “Monster Planet” idea is similar to the “fighting the moon” arc in Stormwatch, and I think that a S.H.A.D.E./Stormwatch crossover could be a TON of fun (make it happen, Cornell and Lemire!). What am I saying? This book is already a ton of fun.

Final Verdict: 8.8 – BUY!


Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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