I sometimes wonder if Mary Shelley had any idea just how popular her monster would become. Did she have an inkling that its blend of science-gone-wrong and horror-done-right would earn its place on everything from t-shirts to trick-or-treat bags (along with everyone confusing the monster’s name with its creator Frankenstein). Perhaps not, but even if the story was born simply out of a gathering of writers telling stories, no one can deny what it’s eventually grown into, especially as many writers take their turn deconstructing and rebuilding the monster. One such writer is Mike Mignola who reconstructs the monster into a sort of antihero in his book Frankenstein: Underground.
Frankenstein’s monster has just escaped a battle with Mignola’s most famous creation Hellboy and has escaped underground. Looking for a chance to be left alone while recovering, he soon tumbles headlong into an adventure featuring a race of underground dwellers, a temple full of the not-quite-dead, and a demon who’s looking to destroy everything. It’s enough to make this monster go right back to the lab in Mexico and ask Hellboy to punch that Right Hand of Doom into his rebuilt face.
Mike Mignola fans should be quite familiar with Mignola’s art style as well as this book’s action-adventure format: throw several mythological monsters into a blender, throw in a hard-to-kill protagonist, and set to puree. However, I am hesitant to simply say that Hellboy can be switched out with the monster, and it pretty much be the same story. Mignola also understands what makes Frankenstein’s monster so popular. Shelley showed this monster both as a murderer and as a misunderstood creature, but at its core is the desire to belong. The more poignant moments in this book are when the monster states how it simply wants to rest, to not be. Hellboy at least had friends to help him. The monster becomes a hero despite being a complete outsider.
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