Frankenstein 1
From Barbelith
"Uglyhead"
Barbelith thread: Frankenstein Lives! (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/22291/from/35#post520996)
| Table of contents |
Background and General Commentary
Synopsis:
The year is 1870 and aboard a speeding train in the American Northwest, Frankenstein's Monster has come to wreak vengeance upon Melmoth and his Circus of Maggots! A fiery crash seems to end the lives of all aboard... But you cannot kill that which does not live, ... nor that which cannot die! The year is 2005 and a bustling town has grown up over the site of the long forgotten crash, but the ridiculed schoolboy called Uglyhead may bring that all to an end when he discovers a maggoty infestation in the basement of a local shop for butterfly enthusiasts. Unfortunately for Uglyhead, Frankenstein's vengeance has only been delayed, and the Monster soon rises from his grave to mete out electric-powered justice. A school of maggot-infested teenaged zombies is cleansed in one fiery inferno, but Frankenstein's war on their Sheeda masters has just begun. Frankenstein Lives!
Annotations
| Featured Characters | Featured Locations |
|---|---|
|
Page 2
PANEL 2: "You cannot kill that which does not live, Melmoth."
Mister Melmoth has appeared previously in Klarion 3 and Klarion 4. He is the long-exiled King of the Sheeda. The Melmoth of 1870 looks much younger and healthier than the Melmoth of 2005. He still has all his hair and a more natural-looking complexion.
Notably 'You cannot kill what does not live' is also the catchphrase of Judge Dredd's archnemesis Judge Death (http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/sputnik/53/jdeath.htm).
Page 3
PANEL 1: "Death to the Circus of Maggots!"
Frankenstein shoots off Melmoth's head. Melmoth will survive this injury because the waters of the Cauldron of Rebirth flow in his veins, as he revealed in Klarion #4. However, it will leave a nasty scar, as seen in Klarion #3.
Page 4
PANEL 3: "1955"
The caption that reads "1955" should actually appear on panel four. Panels one, three and five show the train wreck as in takes place in 1870. Panels two, four, and six show a town growing up on top of the crash site over the course of the next 135 years.
Page 6
Uglyhead's ability to see thought balloons is the reverse of Max Thunderstone (The Filth), who could make his own thought balloons visible. Also: So far, this has been the only issue in the series to make a character's inner thoughts visible to the reader.
The entire subplot concerning Uglyhead and the emptyheaded kids is one which Morrison experimented with in New X-Men; the character Quentin Quire, a nerdy young telepath, creates his own posse so as to subvert the beliefs of Professor Charles Xavier, who he sees as a weak charlatan. Like Uglyhead, he was in fact under the influence of a higher intelligence - the sentient disease known as Sublime.
Page 8
PANEL 1: "Excalibur Fantasy Butterfly World"
This "butterfly specialty shop" resembles many real-world "comic book specialty shops" that also have extravagant names and garish posters displayed in the windows.
Page 9
PANEL 5: "Are you ready to change?"
The creature on Uglyhead's back is a Sheeda spine-rider.
Page 10
PANEL 4: "I -- I chat with other collectors. What's it to you?"
The creature attached to the back of the blonde girl's neck is a Sheeda spine-rider similar to the one that controlled Mo Colley in Guardian #4. Like Mo, the girl is able to regain control of herself just long enough to make a plea for help.
Page 15
PANEL 1: "Iiiiill lliiiii - eeohauh - oh!"
This would seem to be reminiscent of Captain No-Beard's secret password in Guardian #2, but it doesn't seem to mean anything...
PANEL 5: "Daehylgu. Daehylgu."
Daehylgu is Uglyhead spelled backwards. This may be because Uglyhead is behind Kim and her thought balloons are positioned for him to read, or Kim may be attempting to use the same kind of magic practiced by Zatanna and Misty Kilgore, which involves backwards incantation...or just attempting to avoid angering Uglyhead even further.
Page 16
PANEL 3: "Was... ...Something... Left... Undone?"
The ghosts of the dead are thought to linger in the world of the living when they have "unfinished business." Frankenstein is, of course, dead.
Page 17
PANEL 1: "...This Brave New World..."
"Oh Brave New World, That Hath Such People In't!" is the line spoken by Miranda, daughter of Prospero, in Shakespeare's The Tempest upon meeting human civilisation for the first time in her life; the quote is famously used to describe America, discovered during Shakespeare's time.
"And There's Still So Much...Evil."
Morrison's Frankenstein is very similar to Morrison's Superman, most especially as written in his groundbreaking series, All-Star Superman. As established by both of their previous authors, the characters have suffered under supreme misery for a large part of their lives before we meet them, and that misery defined their moral code; the only difference is that Superman practices mercy and a code against killing. This morality is uniquely demonstrated by the characters via subtle implication. Superman, in All-Star #10, expresses the change in the world's viewpoint where he saves a young goth woman from killing herself...and then hugs her. Frankenstein, in this panel, soaks up electric information about our world like a sponge, and turns to us - the reader - with a disappointed face. "Why Is There Still So Much Evil?", he's asking. Why indeed.
PANEL 2: "Ahhh... Electricity."
Doctor Frankenstein harnessed the electrical power of lightning when he first brought his monster to life. Here, electricity first re-awakens, then recharges The Monster.
Page 19
PANEL 1: "O miserable mankind, to what fall degraded, to what wretched fate reserved..."
This is a quote from Paradise Lost (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost) by John Milton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton), Book Eleven, lines 500-501. Paradise Lost recounts the fall of Lucifer from heaven and the first fall of Man to temptation. Milton lived 1608-1674 and published Paradise Lost in 1667.
The Monster's fondness for quotations from Paradise Lost is not an invention of Grant Morrison's. In chapter 15 (http://www.literature.org/authors/shelley-mary/frankenstein/chapter-15.html) of Mary Shelley's original novel, the Monster relates how he discovered a discarded portmanteau containing several books (Paradise Lost, Plutach's Lives, and Sorrows of Werter) from which he taught himself to read. He assumed the story to be true history of the world and tells Dr. Frankenstein that he identified more with Satan, despised, outcast and envious, than with Adam, who still enjoyed companionship and the sympathy of his Creator.
PANEL 4: "Michael's sword."
Michael is Saint Michael the Archangel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_%28archangel%29). In Paradise Lost, Michael commands the army of angels loyal to God against the rebel forces of Satan. Armed with a sword from God's armory, he bests Satan in personal combat, wounding his side.
Page 22
"FRANKENSTEIN LIVES!"
The issue ends with a page expressing the polar opposite of its beginning. Frankenstein walks away from us; he's walking calmly; his job here is done; he's speaking to someone off-panel, rather than vice-versa; he's expressing that he's alive, rather than dead. It's also symbolic of how at the beginning of the issue, he ran towards us, entertained us as we read the issue, and is now walking back out, off to carry on with his own life.
Back to Frankenstein
Back to Seven Soldiers Annotations
