I know.  The premise seems ridiculous right.  Frankenstein super spy?

Frankenstein’s monster is now the lead team member of the SHADE agency.  It was a clever way to bring back the Creature Commandos.  The writing has some clever bits.  Just when I think it just a straight up monster book, Lemire ads in some twisted story about the Bride of Frankenstein.  Or how Ray Palmer (the Atom) is just a scientist supporting SHADE.  Or whatever is going on with the mummy?

All pretty clever.  But I didn’t care for the art.  I’m sure there will be some fans of it.  It’s all moody and hazy, but to me it feels like the inker was doing his job with a house painting brush.  All thick and dark.  It muddied any detail that might have been in the pencils.  I don’t think he should ink his own work.

Fun and interesting.  B    —- Don

Another carry-over from Grant Morrison’s “Seven Soldiers” series, Frankenstein joins up with the current version of the Creature Commandos and some background story elements from the Freedom Fighters series (another book based on Morrison’s fabled “notebook”). On its own, it’s an interesting and entertaining enough story, but the art is on the bland side and the muddy coloring and inking don’t help much. Since there was probably a lot of lead time on all of these first issues, this doesn’t make me hopeful for a lot of improvement unless there are some changes.

If this was a straight-up monster or “weird war” book outside of the bounds of the DCU, it might stand on its own a bit better, but as a weirder corner of the mainstream DCU, it’s overshadowed by more effective mixes of Vertigo and superhero style like Animal Man and Swamp Thing. By trying to do a little of everything, this book just comes across as average and is easily drowned in a sea of other titles.

C+  —- Ed