Written by: Graham Nolan & Chuck Dixon
Art by: Graham Nolan & Gregory Wright
Publisher: IDW
Joe Frankenstein is an interesting skew put on Mary Shelley’s work, in the graphic novel Frankenstein goes through with creating a bride for the creature and the bride turns out not to have the horrifying visage that the creation has and so is lauded about as the success Frankenstein dreamed his original creation to be. Seeing his wife stolen from him, the monster goes into a fit of rage which eventually leads to him murdering Frankenstein and then fleeing to a remote chapel where a blind priest soothes his inner beast, allowing him to become a man rather than a monster.
I did enjoy that the bride was supposed to be quite beautiful but horribly cruel as it showed what the original book was expressing with actions meaning more than appearances fantastically, especially when contrasted against the monster. What I didn’t enjoy was that the bride was seemingly evil from the beginning as this went against the original work’s message of how labelling theory can lead to a self-fulling prophecy (i.e. the creation is called and shunned as a monster so he acts like one and therefore becomes one yet the bride is treated as a celebrity yet is a monster from the get go). What I thought was brilliant though is the lesson of having to take responsibility for your actions, both those that are successful and not, that is the arguably the crux of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is changed considerably wherein it is not Frankenstein that is having to take responsibility but rather his creation for the scientist’s death. Nowhere near as much emphasis is pushed on this idea as in the original version, as Joe Frankenstein is not an overly serious book, but the fact that it was there in some sense made me quite happy and causes me to rate this adaptation as being surprisingly faithful to the essence of the original, despite it not being a horror book.
The themes and matters that I’ve mentioned above only really matter in the prologue, which does a good job of setting the stage for the rest of the book that is a complete departure from Mary Shelly’s story. The creature lives on, thanks to Frankenstein’s gift of immortality, and watches over his creator’s descendents as an invisible guardian, using the resources that his company (Lazarus Corp.) to protect them.Fast forward to present day and the last surviving member of Frankenstein’s lineage, Joe, whom the creature has put into foster care for protection. The bride of the monster lives on to this day, through organ transplants etc., and has been trying to hunt down members of Frankenstein’s family and the creature so that she can gain the immortality that Dr. Frankenstein did not give her (not wanting to take another chance after the disaster of his first creation).
The story repeatedly reminded me of Terminator 2 where Joe was John Connor and the creature was the T800, this was especially linked for me when the villains had tracked down Joe’s foster home and were holding his foster parents hostage. There’s nothing wrong with this connection, and it certainly doesn’t hold for long, but it does give the story a bit of a schmaltzy feel, where you can predict what events will happen when. Speaking of T2, remember how annoying John Connor was in that? Well Joe isn’t quite as bad but he’s pretty grating at times, all he seems to do is complain or whine and rarely offers advice or meaningful help in situation. The bride employs a variety of ghouls and goblins to attack Joe and the creature although vampires are the most common enemy we see which is a bit dull when you consider the large range of monsters she had to choose from. One of the highlights for me is the creation’s appearance, he never tries to change how he looks (while the bride is having surgery so she looks young every other day) despite his vast wealth and his hideous appearance which he is VERY aware of, living only in secluded areas, this brings across a quiet humbleness to the character, while his need to keep up with fashion and wear trendy clothes does show a sense of vanity lying within him that I enjoyed as it’s a small detail that brings some depth to the character.
The Bride unfortunately is a very bland villain, she’s just evil, wants eternal life and nothing’s going to get in her way. It’s not like any of the other characters are particularly interesting either, they never seem to have enough time to develop in any meaningful manner and the pitch of the story is by far the most interesting thing about the book. The problem is that while I think I’ll always remember Frankenstein’s monster from this version of the story, in some way or form, I’m likely going to have forgotten everything about his bride by next week. The worst bit of grit under my nails placed by this book is that halfway through, the bride is shown to not even be the big villain, she’s part of some evil league which has a boss above her. Completely diminishing everything Joe, the creature and the others are fighting for. The book spends most of it’s time showing off the bride (who does have a connection to the Frankenstein lineage) as the Big Bad but every so often a character will come along and go, ‘No, no, no! The REAL villain is this absolute noname who has nothing to do with the original Frankenstein story and has no personal grudge against the creature or anything but just wants immortality,’ (assuming it’s not somehow Dr. Frankenstein himself or a descendant, which would be cool).
The book does have a lot of jokes and references in it, most relating in someway to monster stories or lore, and although some are pretty good, such as using pizza to fight vampires because of the garlic in the sauce, allot of the time they just fall flat and read pretty awkwardly. There are also some oddities in some of the things that happen in the story, these are mostly nitpicks but I’ll list them here:
– To kill vampires a character fires wooden bullets from a semi-automatic pistol. Would that work? Would the bullet not just shatter in the chamber? Myth Busters needs to get on this.
– When the creature tries to take Joe away, for his protection, Joe’s foster parents are weirdly on board with it all, they agree with almost no questions and they are talking right to the creature’s face, head bolts and all. Should they not be more concerned, or at least confused, with what’s going on and how are they going to explain this to the foster agency?
– Why does the creation live in a run down factory in the middle of nowhere? He did up the inside as a mansion so why not just build a mansion? Surely no one would overly question a secluded eccentric tycoon?
– Why did the creature take on his werewolf chauffeur? What good is a driver who can’t do his job when the moon’s rays touch him?
Aside from my nit picking I did actually enjoy reading Joe Frankenstein, the characters were ok and although the setting was probably the highlight of the book, Graham Nolan and Chuck Dixon definitely try to do interesting things with it and for the most part, succeed. I’m not sure if i’m happy with the fast-paced, action packed approach that was taken with the book and think that a slower pace would’ve been superior in order to get to know the characters better than we did.
