Welcome to the table,
There is a quote from A.C. Clarke that I have always liked.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
It conjures up a realm where sword and sorcery rein, but beneath the surface lies the bedrock of an even more ancient, forgotten world. A world that was once bathed in the glow of technological grandeur and sciences that boggle the mind. The rise and fall of civilizations, or worlds, of ages, of eons, becomes this brilliant cycle of death and rebirth of not a single entity, or even a bloodline, but of histories, or timelines, or existences.
Frankenstein: New World feels like a fresh chapter of this cycle in the Mignola-Hellboy Universe.
The story picks up with Lilja, one of the last remaining remnants of the human species after the events of Ragnarok. She along with her community are living in an almost idyllic “Garden of Eden” like are tucked away inside the hollow earth.
Lilja begins to have visions of a goddess-like entity and seeks out the counsel of The Oracle, who happens to be the entity once known as Frankenstein. Frankenstein listens to the child and after gathering an ancient weapon that many fans of the Hellboy stories will recognize instantly as the Hyperborean sword heads off to find where he feels he is being led by the Star Lady of Lilja’s visions.
However, as such stories go we can not have a hero on a quest without an opposite force and Frankenstein gives us a great foe with this hungering beast known as Muck. For everything that is noble and reflective in Frankenstein, Muck is a beast that consumes with no regard for anything else. This entity of boundless hunger and destruction creates a looming threat that slinks its way through the mushroom forests of the Hollow Earth creeping ever closer as our Heroes journey forth on their quest.
Frankenstein and Lilja encounter all manner of amphibious entities as they journey. These entities seem like various evolutions or de-evolutions of a line of beings that could have seen life begin as the frog creatures in Hellboy #1, hunched, primordial, and feral, to the keen and cunning hero that the world would come to know as Abe Sapien.
Frankenstein continues to try to lead with kindness and passive logic but when his hand is forced and there are no other options he displays why he is a feared opponent.
Frankenstein: New World feels like a glimpse of a far-flung future and the ancient and distant past at the same time. With an ending that is brilliantly fulfilling and still open-ended enough to make me hope for new adventures in the strange and wonderous landscape that is new long after the world has fallen to ruin.
Dark Horse Comics’ Frankenstein: New World, from Mike Mignola, Thomas Sniegoski, Christopher Golden, artist Peter Bergting, and colorist Michelle Madsen and collects the four-issue miniseries into one beautiful tome complete with some delightful behind the scene notes and sketches. If you are a fan of strange fiction then you will for sure want to add this to your list.
Until next time, everything that is new was old at one time.
Welcome to the table, There is a quote from A.C. Clarke that I have always liked. Any sufficiently advanced technologyCOMICONRead More