Frankenstein Agent of SHADE #9

Ha ha! The Rot is coming to reclaim your body, dead boy!

Last night I dreamt that I was playing Call of Duty. The game was Capture the Flag on Oasis. As far as I can tell, the dream began with me lying on some stairs looking at the enemy flag. An enemy player dove on the stairs beside me (like in Black Ops! I miss being able to dive.) and I turned to shoot him with my MP40 (like in World at War!) and the gun would only shoot one bullet and freeze up. So I panicked and began yelling to my team that my gun wasn't working. I got up and jumped around and rand out of the building and dodged about bushes until I was safely hiding. Then an enemy approached me with a Riot Shield. My gun finally started working and I shot him. I approached the flag with two enemies in the distance who didn't notice me. I grabbed it and ran, screaming to my team, "Behind me! Behind me! They're coming!"

That's me, The Red Lizard, diving!

I made it back to my base without incident and noticed that our base was overrun by skeletons. My teammates were busy battling them and I ran through the brouhaha toward a woman in gold chains and silks standing near our flag. She had summoned the skeletons yet I hesitated to shoot her. I scored the flag and she began telling me that, "The Rot was coming. You need to help him." It gets fuzzy right about here but eventually I was running about with Frankenstein and trying to help him fight The Rot. But that part isn't clear anymore.

If I were a super villain written by Scott Lobdell, I'd say, "That was part of my plan!"

I had a sinus headache all day yesterday and wasn't able to read Frankenstein but I guess the cover image stuck in my head. And I fell asleep right around when I was planning on playing some Call of Duty, so that was stuck in my head as well.

On to Frankenstein #9: The Ant Farm currently hovers over the San Diego Zoo investigating the disappearance of Animal Man. Why the disappearance of Buddy Baker would be on anyone's radar, I have no idea. Frank only agrees to investigate because of the detective that also went missing at the same time, Krenshaw (the guy that The Rot took over). Father Time seems to be interested because of the report of zombie pets. He wants one! To experiment on, not to hug and kiss and lover forever.

Frank and Nina wind up at Animal Man's mother-in-law's farm in Sacramento investigating the weirdness. That's where they find Krenshaw.

The colorist does a good job approximating the lousy coloring of Animal Man.

Frank and Nina investigate the body and it comes to life, briefly possessing Nina when she touches it. It decides it's going to possess these new creatures and bring them into The Rot as well.

I guess I was wrong! The Rot can't even sense Frankenstein since the process that created him needed to make his dead flesh incapable of decay.

DC Comics is doing a lot of this casual crossover crap. I like the idea in theory. That all of these superheroes exist in the same world and their stories should make waves in the stories of other heroes. But I have yet to seen it executed very well. They all seem a bit forced, as if the editors are sitting in a room and drawing the names of two different titles out of a hat and declaring that they need to crossover. It all just seems a bit too random and chaotic.

Frankenstein finds he can't kill The Rot. He can't burn The Rot. The Rot just becomes more Rot. So what he ends up doing is having Father Time secure the area with a Firewall and then dropping a Blackbomb within the Firewall. It atomizes every living thing. But it doesn't kill Frank and it doesn't kill Nina because Frank lies on top of her. They win! But then Frank feels depressed because even the Blackbomb couldn't kill him so he must be an aberration and a freak and an abomination and a monster (he is! He's Frankenstein's Monster!). But Nina holds his hand and says he's more than everyone and he's okay again. The end.

This ending sucked! The Rot can be destroyed by atomizing the organic material which it infests. But shouldn't fire have done that as well? I guess the fire couldn't do it quickly enough and The Rot could just move to other organic things as well. I think they should have brought in some jackals and vultures to devour The Rot! Scavengers should be immune from The Rot possessing them since they spend their whole lives feeding on decaying matter.

The rest of the comic that wasn't the ending also sucked. These casual crossovers need to pick up their game if this whole "building a universe" thing is ever going to work well. Just let the writers stick to their own stories and build their own worlds. But hey! Look at the bright side! All Animal Man and Swamp Thing need now are a few Blackbombs and they can destroy The Rot! As well as The Green and The Red! Just do away with them all and turn Earth into a big steaming rock.

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #9 Rating: -1 Ranking. I didn't need a story to make me feel like Frankenstein and Animal Man were existing in the same universe. We already has the Ray Palmer link to clue us in, right? And Frank already fought OMAC and that tie-in sucked as well! DC would be better off just letting each individual title do its own thing and build its own story instead of concentrating on linking them all together.