Madam

From its setting to its storylines, “Madame Frankenstein” shows a real knack for adding layers and complications — to everything except its title monster. Though the combination of fairies, family drama and mad science is developing into an interesting world, the recently resurrected Courtney still shows a disturbing lack of agency. While on some level I understand that her treatment is supposed to bother the reader, she’ll need to show at least a glimmer of self-awareness for the story to get moving. I’ll start with the good: “Madame Frankenstein” has taken a unique blend of elements and made a many-angled, multilayered plot out of a straightforward Frankenstein story. Jamie S. Rich has crammed a whole lot of character development and backstory into only three issues, and he has a beautiful ear for vintage dialogue that doesn’t sound hokey. Getting to see past Courtney in this issue was a treat. With her snappy lines and command of a room, it was easy to understand how Vincent and

Jamie S. Rich and Megan Levens’ “Madame Frankenstein” #2 finds Courtney/Gail being educated (and physically repaired) by an emotionally damaged and drug addicted Vincent. Events that began badly are poised to end even worse thanks to the emotional abuse Vincent is both deliberately and inadvertently heaping onto Gail. The best thing Rich has going on for “Madame Frankenstein” is the way it feels like he mixes ideas together to create something with a bit more nuance and intrigue than just a typical Frankenstein-based tale. The book feels as much like “The Great Gatsby” as it does “Frankenstein” with its period setting and central female character that men project all their own emotions and desires onto. However, Rich has also weaved in an element of magic and real history through his use of The Cottingley Fairies myth. In 1920, the world was debating the existence of fairies thanks to two young girls that reported seeing them and offered up photograph evidence, which was later debun

When a fatal car crash robs him of his beloved, Doctor Vincent Krall turns to science, making a desperate move that is unmistakably foreshadowed in the title of Jamie S. Rich and Megan Levens’ “Madame Frankenstein” #1. With solid character building, Rich leaves readers with an enjoyable — if enigmatic — protagonist and a handful of accessible allusions to both literature and film while Levens contributes a beautifully clean and expressive style to the book with thick, dark inks. From the get-go, Rich spins Krall into a complex character with many layers — which is more than appropriate, since he doesn’t leave much time or space to dwell nearly as long on Krall’s assistant Irene and the creation. However, this tactic works well in that it decisively splits Rich’s characters away from the source material; Krall’s motives are emotionally — instead of intellectually — driven, and Rich quickly establishes some sort of prior relationship between Krall and his creation pre- and post-mortem

Books come and go, and with the comic book market more fickle than it has ever been before, I figured it wasn’t long before “Madame Xanadu” disappeared from the regular monthly pile. After all, “Madame Xanadu” is a critically acclaimed series and one that I quite enjoy. Traditionally, those books just don’t seem bound for longevity. This issue, like many before is a magnificent read. It balances Madame Xanadu’s past with the promise of a heroic age in the future, an age that will bring, “a new speedster, and a green guardian. A micronaut and a sea king. An archer and his siren. Even. . . a Martian.” Rather than dredge along as the final issue of this series, it floats about as though it were the inaugural issue. It’s far from being a light-hearted tale, but it also isn’t a total downer. Wagner’s story has run its course, for now, and this issue is simply the final chapter in this volume. Part of the problem with Madame Xanadu is that the character – in many of her appearances outsi

The summer heat snuck in shortly before I sat down to get going on this review. I fired up the laptop and realized I didn’t have the comic itself for reference as I typed. Confident that my children have much more energy than I, I asked my youngest daughter (she just turned 8) to bring the comic to me from the next room. She did, and as she handed it to me, she said, “Looks creepy.” “It is sweetie. It is.” The creepy cover of this issue, the first of a series of sensory themed chapters in this new storyline, depicts some zombified folk riding a subway train as a young lady shields her eyes from the horrific visuals. Those visuals make up this story, as Rosy Mays, a department store clerk finds herself “gifted” with the ability to foresee the demises of those in proximity to her. Playing up the setting of Harlem in 1963 and the young African-American clerk, Wagner quickly draws some stereotypical circles back through with this story. That’s not to say Wagner himself is being stereot