Frankenstein Agent of SHADE #0

Doesn't everyone already know Frankenstein's monster's origin? A crazy doctor sends his disfigured assistant to get body parts. The doctor sews them together while a bunch of zany things happen. Then he puts the body on ice for awhile while he tends to his second job as a candy maker. Then he returns to zap the body with lightning and his creation comes to life. Then his creation meets these two buffoons and more wacky hijinks ensue. There might also be something about Niagara Falls and some poorly named baseball players at this point in the story. Then the monster kills a little girl out of kindness and he's chased by a mob into the arms of Elvira. And right around there he's approached by some three month old named Father Time that recruits him into S.H.A.D.E. which stands for Some Hackneyed Acronym, Disappointing Everyone.

Frank is partially made from Bunny Rabbits just like Resurrection Man. Is this a trend in comics today?

Frankenstein's monster was brought to life by something called the Soulgrinder. Dr. Frankenstein kidnapped inmates from an asylum and threw them in the Soulgrinder which powered the machine that would bring his monster to life by consuming their very souls!

*CRACK OF LIGHTNING! MANIACAL LAUGHTER!*

It took fifty inmates to bring Frankenstein's monster to life which means Frankenstein's monster has the crazy memories of fifty asylum inmates rattling around in his corpse brain. I think the rest of Frankenstein's monster was created in the old fashioned way with Igor digging up corpses and sewing them together into a big, green monster that retained only a nagging sense of its own humanity. And maybe the monster retains the memory of the corpses he's made out of instead of the inmates but I doubt that after seeing the crazy memories that have been plaguing him lately.

SHADE had been monitoring Dr. Frankenstein for potential recruitment into SHADE. But they noticed that anybody willing to throw living people into a fiery pit to use their souls as fuel to bring a corpse back to life was probably a little bit too insane even for their Machiavellian machinations. But they did see potential in the reanimated corpse!

If that top panel were narrower, I'd turn it into the new banner for EEE! Tess Ate Chai Tea!

Frankenstein's monster had escaped into the world. Where he went and what he did next remain a mystery. Well, they're a mystery to me since the comic book doesn't depict any of it. But it does show what Dr. Victor Frankenstein did next! He became a Pirate Bounty Hunter and Leader of an Army of Corpses!

Why can't the Doctor be happy with these monstrosities? Have they only been fueled by one or two souls each and rendered permanently mentally handicapped?

Since leaving his home, Frankenstein's monster had walked across the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and arrived in the Amazon rainforest where he met a group of natives living in the vicinity of a baby-stealing Great Old One. The natives appealed to Frankenstein's monster for help and he granted it, proving to SHADE that Frankenstein's monster was not a monster at all. He was simply Frankenstein and he had indeed retained his humanity.

Frank learns a valuable lesson in self-sacrifice and helping others. This message brought to you by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Soon after Frankenstein's celebration with the natives, Dr. Frankenstein catches up with him. His steampunk corpse pirates destroy the village and kill everyone within it. Except Frankenstein. Frankenstein they have a little bit of trouble with. Both physically and philosophically.

Just another guy with severe daddy issues trying to prove himself to the world. Could you be more cliche, Frank? If you'd been female, you'd have been a stripper.

Frank and the Doctor have a good old fashioned knock down drag out fight over a cliff and down a raging river and over a waterfall before they have their final confrontation. I think it's probably done perfectly but I might be biased since I just called out the whole daddy issue thing.

I like how the confrontation is built up by Victor as this grand God versus creation thing when it's really just father versus son. And Frank brings it right back down to that level with the simplicity of striking out and a tantrum-like "Shut up." This is how anti-climactic can be done excellently.

After this fight, the final scene that I'm going to scan plays out. After that scene are a couple of pages of Frank fighting enemies across the years and those pages are pretty great. Seriously, this comic book has style. And if this is the kind of story that Matt Kindt can write, I'm all aboard for his future stories of Frankenstein. And I hope Alberto Ponticelli continues to do art for it. His style matches perfectly with the feel of this book. So, finally, here's that last scene.

When is Father Time going to be a kitten?

Frankenstein Agent of SHADE #0 Rating: Literally epic.