MONSTER WAR
Written By Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegowski
Art by Joyce Chin & Vitor Ishimura
Many, many moons ago Hollywood knew what to do when their old monster movies
had run dry. They threw them all into features like HOUSE OF DRACULA and HOUSE
OF FRANKENSTEIN. We still get that today with the likes of ALIENS VS PREDATOR
and FREDDY VS JASON. It's fun for the fans to see their favorite characters
battle it out and see who is the toughest.
You can tell that MONSTER WAR gets it's inspiration from this concept. In one
corner we have Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Frankenstein and a whole bunch of Wolf Men.
In the other are the comic characters Witchblade, Tomb Raider, Darkness and
Magdalena. Seems that the old story of Jekyll and Hyde got it wrong. Henry Jekyll
didn't turn into Hyde. The formula actually separated the two into polar opposites
of the same coin. Now Hyde wants to bring the chaos lords back to Earth to rule
over us all. To make it easier he has recruited the help of Dracula and Frankenstein.
Dracula can convert people into vampires. Jekyll then contaminates said vampires
so that when they bite their victims the person splits into two entities. One
a vampire that will spread the disease and one that is a monster capable of
mucho violence. Oh, and Frankenstein's monster? He just wants sweet oblivion
that Hyde has promised by making him the portal for the chaos lords. The process
will tear the monster to pieces that will never reanimate no matter how much
lightning you shoot through his sorry butt.
Sound confusing? Not really if you've cut your teeth on this stuff. It's not
nearly as convoluted as a lot of stuff that Marvel and DC blast at us every
single month. Can you say 52 and Civil War?
This is a blast from the past of good old fashioned monsters, chicks with really
big boobies and lots of death and violence abounds. I don't read a lot of Top
Cow stuff, but that's because a lot of it just seems to come across as eye candy.
This had some substance and it made me think twice about future comic purchases.
Especially that Magdelana. She is quite hot for a church going lady.
---Douglas A. Waltz