Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Frankenstein Agent Of S.H.A.D.E #1
DC Comics
Lemire & Ponticelli
Frankenstein is one of DC's new books that literally is something completely different. It doesn't seem to have any connections to the normal DCU (beyond a reference to "supermen" and "batmen" and the inclusion of Ray Palmer) and it seems to have relatively little history or continuity. Lemire takes advantage of this in a big way by putting together a team of monsters while creating an interesting problem to solve in the first arc. As an individual issue the story is a fun one with some mild gore and some very interesting characters. Overall, this was a good start to this series.
Everyone knows something about Frankenstein, but Lemire presents him as kind of a smarter, slicker version of the classic character. He works for an organization that seems to operate in secret and has a ton of gadgets and leverages some highly advanced technology to achieve their goals. After some good banter with his talking computer and his "father" we launch into the problem: a group of ghouls are devouring a city.
The introduction to the book has perhaps the grizzliest image as Lemire tosses out a skinned dog when the monsters make their presence known. This helps the readers to understand the overall threat. The stakes gets raised because Frankenstein discovers his wife has gone missing investigating these events.
When Frankenstein arrives on the scene he gets to meet his team. The team consists of the usual assortment of monsters, but all with modern takes on them. Lemire rolls them out without holding back any information as he utilizes captions for the introductions and then some banter during the battle for the reader to get an idea of what they are all about.
The book is a good read. I was entertained and found the book to contain plenty of energy and creative characters. I suppose one of the drawbacks is that this book has the feel of having been done before. For example, Hellboy has very similar components, but with different "monsters". It's nice to see that DC is finding a place for books like this. While the book could go the horror route at times, sticking with more character driven stories and plots that are more of the Indiana Jones adventures could really end up being something very unique.
The artwork is good. I liked that the art sort of played with the presentation of the monsters. The style is certainly not the "house" DC style and it also veers away from the Lemire art style bringing something very different to the book. The book really hits its stride artistically when all of the monsters are battling each other. Overall the book matches the story very well.
Overall this is a very good first issue. We get some plot, character introductions and a decent story. Needless to say, this book is just not going to be everyone's cup of tea, mostly because it is not a super-hero book at all. However, Lemire writes a good story and when you allow creators room to stretch out like this the results are usually favorable. I like the long-term prospects for this book. I recommend picking this up and I think this could be a classic series in the making.
3 out of 5 Geek Goggles
