Carl Laemmle was the only old school Hollywood mogul who denounced Hitler and the
National Socialists prior to WWII. Fittingly, most of his Universal Monsters
hailed from Old World Europe. The Mummy was the exception in 1932. His
origins were in the Middle East. Again, that was fitting. Originally intended
to be a film about Alessandro Cagliostro, it morphed into tale of intrigue from
the ancient Egyptian past, inspired by the discovery (and curse) of Tut’s tomb.
Half-English and half-Egyptian Helen Grosvenor was a woman caught between worlds,
but that makes her more vulnerable to uncanny peril in writer-artist Faith Erin
Hicks’ Universal Monsters: The Mummy, Image Comics latest retelling of
the classic horror films, which releases today in a bind-up edition.
Like Universal Monsters: Frankenstein, Hicks shows readers the events of the film from a
different perspective. This time around, we see much more through Grosvenor’s
eyes. In fact, we are fully immersed in her head, where the High Priestess Anck-es-en-Amon
has been cohabitating all Grosvenor’s life. She always considered the voice in
her head a friend. However, when Imhotep reawakens Anck-es-en-Amon’s passion, she
belatedly recognizes the high priestess is a threat to her own bodily autonomy.
Ironically,
Hicks’ retelling allows much less time for Imhotep and even less for his
titular Mummy appearance. However, it adds a sinister dimension of
psychological terror. Yet, it also makes Anck-es-en-Amon a less sympathetic
figure, so terms like “feminist revisionism” really do not apply (and nobody is
complaining about that).
No
movie makeup will ever become as iconic as the monsters Jack Pierce created for
Universal. Thanks to Pierce and the legendary (but often uncomfortable) actors who
endured his applications, including Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Lon Chaney
Jr., Universal’s Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Man, and Mummy became the ultimate
gateway drugs for the horror genre. Image Comics has re-imagined several
classic Universal Monster movies, illuminating hidden dramas and depicting beloved
scenes from different perspectives, including Michael Walsh’s Universal
Monsters: Frankenstein, illustrated by Toni Marie Griffin, which releases
this Tuesday in a hardcover bind-up of issues 1-4.
The
death of poor Paul’s left him an inconsolable orphan. Watching Dr. Frankenstein
and his hunchback assistant Fritz plunder his father’s grave left him angry—angry
enough to stowaway on their horse-drawn hearse back to Frankenstein’s castle-laboratory.
Throughout
Walsh’s companion-alternate narrative, Paul watches the events of the beloved
film unfold. Initially, the monster horrifies him, but Paul eventually recognizes
the miserable creation is a victim, just like he is. However, Elizabeth
Lavenza, Henry Frankenstein’s childhood friend and fiancée, tries to protect
Paul and show him compassion, even though the crusty old Baron only sees a
street urchin.
Walsh
nicely fleshes out Lavenza’s character, while leaning into the Monster’s
pathos. Telling the story from Paul’s perspective heightens the tragic vibe, which
is very definitely in keeping with the tone of the vintage Universal films. If
any character suffers from Walsh’s treatment, it would be Henry Frankenstein, who is defined here by
his hubris (which is fair enough, considering he makes the exact same mistakes
all over again in Bride of Frankenstein).
