DOC FRANKENSTEIN #2
© Burlyman Entertainment

Mania Grade: B
Issue: 2
Authors: The Wachowski Brothers, Steve Skroce, Jason Keith
Publisher: Burlyman Entertainment
Price: $3.50

Related Links

0

DOC FRANKENSTEIN

From a "technical standpoint" (term applied somewhat liberally), DOC FRANKENSTEIN is a beautiful comic book. The Wachowski Brothers (if you don't know who they are, you don't deserve to have it explained to you) are perfecting the form of "movies on paper" with this series and with their other offering from their own Burlyman Entertainment, SHAOLIN MONK. Steve Skroce's art is as good as I've ever seen it and Jason Keith's colors make the whole thing look like a photoplay novel of a badass animated flick. This book is simply gorgeous, and that reason alone will keep me reading.

Here's the "but" you were waiting for: the Wachowski Brothers have crafted a tale that, thus far, could easily be retitled "DOC FRANKENSTEIN VS. EVIL FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS." Since the events of Mary Shelly's masterpiece novel, the man made from the dead by Victor Frankenstein has committed his unnaturally long life to assisting humanity (and became a doctor along the way, in every sense of the word). The guy's just a big old blue philanthropist. But, seemingly every step of the way, the forces of fundamentalist Christianity are there to thwart him by any means necessary. Frankenstein cites a series of events in history in which during his efforts to assist mankind, said evil forces thwarted him (trying to prevent Lincoln's assassination because the Bible says slavery is okay; trying to help John Scopes, who was on trial for teaching evolution; and his public approval of the Roe vs. Wade verdict, combined with his own efforts to develop more effective birth control). Now, said fundamentalists are storming Doc Frankenstein's utopian compound that houses society's misfits in fighter jets with crosses painted on them.

Without revealing my own political leanings on any of the above issues or their portrayal therein, I'll say first say this: I am not a Christian. That said, this book steps over the line between evocative symbolism and layered subtext into a didactic work that beats you over the head with its message. I'm a proponent of works that make people think. Books like this alienate people ("The only good zealot is a dead zealot." Come on.) and accomplish very little for the people that need to learn from them the most the same men the book chastises. Telling fundamentalists they suck by having them fight a perfectly enlightened, utterly brilliant Doc Frankenstein isn't going to win any hearts and minds. This book isn't commentary and it isn't subtext it's an attack. And, it leaves very little room for disagreement.

But, it's a beautifully constructed attack. I haven't seen a book look this good in a long time, so I'll keep reading. Your choice to do so or not will depend entirely on your own views and whether you feel you're being attacked, vehemently agreed with, or somewhere in between.