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Frankenstein Underground #3

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    Ian Jane
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  • Frankenstein Underground #3



    Frankenstein Underground #3
    Released by: Dark Horse Comics
    Released on: May 27th, 2015.
    Written by: Mike Mignola
    Illustrated by: Ben Stenbeck
    Purchase From Amazon

    Need to get caught up with the first issue of this mini-series? Click here! The third issue of Mignola and Stenbeck's Frankenstein Underground begins in 1956, appropriately enough… 'somewhere underground.' The monster laments his existence, the fact that he's been hunted by men for centuries eats away at him, despite the fact that it was a man who made him what he is. As his internal narration sets all of this up, we see him arrive, shackled by his captors, at an underground city.

    He fears he has been brought here to burn, and we all know how Frankenstein's monster feels about fire. That voice tells him to run. It takes him a bit of time but soon he does, not breaking free of those shackles but fighting his way out until he comes face to face with Annak, a behemoth of a man, and his hammer. Combat ensues, reinforcements arrive and the monster is subdued. Before he can be killed, a man in a mask that the monster identifies as the devil calls for him. He blacks out and awakens in the masked man's chambers. The man takes the mask off and assures him that despite how he may feel, he is not in Hell.

    The man's name is William, and he along with his assistant Doctor Lubistch is a self-described man of science. He tells the monster of his experiences in the American Civil War and how they haunted him for years and how these nightmares caused him to seek out distraction in J. C. Symmes' Hollow Earth theory. Obsessed with finding a world away from mankind, a world not corrupted by greed and violence, which led him to Reverend Blum's 'Church Of The Inner World!' It didn't pan out but he continued his search and was eventually taken in by the Heliopic Brotherhood, to whom he explained his terrible visions. Chosen to lead a migration underground in 1889, he did just that and he and his children along with a few others made an amazing voyage inside the Earth. Unfortunately it was not the paradise he had hoped, however they did find the city that the monster himself has since arrived in - a city that seems to have the power to resurrect the dead.

    After William's tale is told, the monster becomes angry at the mention of the word 'laboratory' - he's subdued, and then we're left wondering as to William and Lubistch's true motivations…

    The monster's quest for peace and redemption continues to take strange twists and turns as Mignola's story takes a high concept approach to his attempts to expand the Frankenstein mythos. So far so good. There are some great ideas at play here and working in real historic events and concepts into the plot helps to effectively anchor the more fantastic elements of the story. The monster is a creature of true pathos and his internal narration does a nice job of bringing us into his world and explaining his feelings on all of this. Adding William and Lubistch into the mix in this issue also opens a few interesting doors, the cliffhanger ending that we won't detail here pointing to some interesting and decidedly macabre events yet to come. All of this works quite nicely alongside Ben Stenbeck 'Mignolaverse' style artwork. He does a great job of drawing the monster but here he gets to expand on things a bit, doing a fine job of giving an interesting look to the costumed William when the character enters the story and doing some nice, detailed line work in some of the more historically oriented flashback panels.
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