Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein

(DC, 2006)
™ and ©2006 DC Comics, Inc.

As part of DCs “Seven Soldiers” series, this story takes Mary Shelley’s classic creation of horror to a new level by the prolific Grant Morrison. The Frankenstein monster here is represented as a lucid defender of what is right and good, similar to how the Terminator changed from bad to good in the second film of that popular series. Purists may complain that this Frankenstein monster is nothing like the Karloff version of yore, but even that version isn’t true to the book, so look at it as yet another variation of the theme and enjoy.

— Mark Arnold

From the Comics Buyer’s Guide:

An incredibly ugly teen everyone calls Uglyhead is manipulated by horrible forces from beyond Earth to turn his high-school prom into a killing field; the only thing capable of stopping him—the newly resurrected Spawn of Frankenstein.

If you’ve resisted trying any of the Seven Soldiers titles for fear of being sucked into its larger interconnected story, this is the one to try, because all you need to know is in the above summary. You don’t even need to know who the obscure Spawn of Frankenstein was.

The story is full of lovely moments, as when Uglyhead reads other characters’ thought balloons or when, after Frankenstein rescues someone, she declares she wants to be his sidekick, “Girl Frankenstein.” While this monster-fighting Frankenstein shares a surface similarity with Doc Frankenstein, this monster has a touch of elegance somewhere in his many borrowed body parts. Not only does artist Doug Mahnke produce one of the strongest covers of the year, his remarkably reserved art on the interiors shines when depicting the ordinary.

— S. A. Bennett

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