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“The Island of Dr. Moreau” #1

By | August 8th, 2019
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

H.G. Wells’s timeless story of terrifying science fiction and cautionary horror returns with a new comic book adaptation from IDW Publishing, but does this new take, in an all new medium do it all justice? Mild Spoilers Ahead!

Cover by Gabriel Rodríguez
Adapted by Ted Adams & Gabriel Rodríguez
Illustrated by Gabriel Rodríguez
Colored by Nelson Dániel
Lettered by Robbie Robbins

It is 1896. Having just left behind a dead, mutinous crew and a ship at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, biologist Ellie Prendick is rescued and brought to a secret island to recover. Right from the start she knows not all is right and her hosts seem less than thrilled to taking on the care of a stranger. What secrets does the odd facility hold? What horrors are howling in the jungle?

Eight days after the sinking of the Lady Vain, Ellie Prendick, unconscious and near death, washes ashore in a life boat. A small man, masked by shadow, rushes to the boat to see what’s going on as he and others load cages of animals onto the dock. Their leader, a man we learn to be a hunter, cast out from civilization, tells the others to leave Ellie be. He takes her in to their compound to care for her.

About a day later Ellie comes to and the hunter, Montgomery fills her in on what she’s missed and has a meal prepared for her. Montgomery gives Ellie a little bit of history about himself and the island, but never actually answers any of her questions. He does break the news to her that she will most likely have to live under his care for about a year. Ships only come about once a year and their last shipment arrived the same night she did. Most of this information is glossed over in a way that leaves the reader feeling similarly to how Ellie must feel.

Ted Adams (Diablo House) and Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key) clearly know the source material, but they move through the script so quickly it has no lasting power. It feels like someone trying to discuss something they know really well and are unable to realize to teach you about it. They can’t get around their own knowledge of the story so they just throw a bunch of information and random details at you. They keep it moving rather than ensuring that newcomers understand what they are being told. It is not poorly written, it is simply trying to get through too much story without saying a lot.

Apart from slimming down the narrative for a comic book format, there is one major change to the story. Our protagonist, Ellie Prendick, is not a woman in the original novel. Originally readers were introduced to Edward Prendick. The gender swap works fine in this version, and while it does remove some plot elements present in the novel, it opens the door for a few others. Like her male counterpart, she is sick and weakened from her week lost at sea, but she is also noticeably smaller than Montgomery, Dr. Moreau, and many of the island’s other inhabitants. It adds even more tension to the physicality of the story. Not only are we worried that she may be overpowered by villains based on her weakened state, but there are unwanted sexual advances which may lead to another kind of endangerment. Ellie is not a weaker version of the character by being made a woman, but it does add that additional tension that is mostly left out of the original version. She is very intelligent and strong willed, but she is one person lost on an island where she is unsure of trusting anyone and if they turn on her, things will be very bad for her.

Shortened storytelling aside, Rodriguez’s artwork is beautiful and is the star of this book. Like with most of the books he works on, he crafts clear, clean depictions of people and environments. Very little is left to the imagination as he is more than capable of giving us exactly what we need from the story. His impeccable shading and shadows are never used to hide imperfections in his work. They come in to help create tension or to emphasize the build up of various emotions. His design of the characters and the island are true to Wells’s (thin) descriptions and, more so, his intentions with the story. The scares and the pain that are the main focus of the story come to forefront through his illustrations. Rodriguez captures the late 1800s adventure tone of the book. He brings a modern day mentality to his depictions of the animal people, Moreau’s laboratory, and few other things, but never strays from what Wells put out into the world in the first place. Though Wells crossed many boundaries for his day, Rodriguez takes the imagery a little further than a writer from the late 19th century was allowed to. Moreau’s creations are drawn exactly as they should be, and if nothing else, Rodriguez’s artwork makes this adaptation worthy of a read.

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Nelson Daniel’s (Judge Dredd) colors are nothing short of powerful and all encompassing. Between his and Rodriguez’s work you will fall into the visuals of this work. The way he can make most pages look brightly lit, yet still menacing is perfect. Once the secrets of the island come out of the shadows, as does the the artwork, showing us every horrific detail that Ellie stumbles across. His inks and colors are perfect for this book. Like Rodriguez, his knack for visual storytelling is at full strength here. They work beautifully together and it’s this team up that saves the book overall.

“The Island of Dr. Moreau” is a tale of one man’s hubris getting out of control and it is the first story to ever delve into “uplift” science fiction. This is the motif in which a more advanced species uses technology to intervene in a lesser species’s evolution. This premiere issue barely touches on these themes as we are still only getting into the story, but to flesh out the characters, events, and get into philosophy, moral responsibility, and man’s environmental interference is going to be a tall order that I do not think they can fulfill.

Full disclosure, “The Island of Dr. Moreau” by H.G. Wells is one of my all-time favorite horror classics. My opinion of the original book did sway my opinion on this, but both in positive and negative ways. It is flawed, but I enjoyed this issue for what it is, though, the plan to cram the entire novel into two issues seems ill-advised. It is a fairly short novel, but the minimum for an adaptation of this sort should have been six issues. We need more time to bask in not only the scary and action moments, but the quieter psychological beats as well. As of now this first issue seems to be setting up a version that will make for a decent companion piece to the novel, rather than an adaptation that can stand on its own for those who have never read the novel.

Final Verdict: 5.5, A somewhat faithful script is rushed, greatly shortened, unfortunately losing a lot of the story’s original power, but gorgeously designed artwork honors the world that H.G. Wells created 123 years ago.


Christopher Egan

Chris lives in New Jersey with his wife, daughter, two cats, and ever-growing comic book and film collection. He is an occasional guest on various podcasts, writes movie reviews on his own time, and enjoys trying new foods. He can be found on Instagram. if you want to see pictures of all that and more!

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