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The Prometheite (2022)
The Prometheite is a spiritual remake of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s not an adaptation or even a reimagining. Creator Ari S. Mulch breaks apart pieces of the novel and general Frankenstein pop culture lore, examines and considers them, then reconfigures some for use, some for discarding. So The Prometheite is entirely its own piece, albeit wholly dependent on Big Frank.
Mulch also adapts the original novel’s narrative layers, duplicating most of Shelley’s original layer shifts. Violet to “The Creature” to Violet to “Creature” to Violet to “The Creature.” I mean, there’s no sea captain, but the moves are all very beautifully executed. Mulch figures out a new way to present them, mixing text and image to create visual pacing in the way only comics can.
Violet is the Frankenstein (Victor to Violet, but not Frankenstein) analog. She’s an anatomy student surrounded by dumb, sexist men who escaped to university after convincing her parents trying to marry her off wasn’t worth the trouble. Not long after arriving, Violet’s pal, Henry Clerval, introduces Violet to his sister, Aveline. Aveline and Violet form a fast, deep friendship, while Violet immediately develops deeper, socially impossible feelings for Aveline.
The courtship scenes, which include a very tense poetry reading from Aveline, are where Mulch immediately distinguishes Prometheite. Frankenstein is unromantic. When Victor resurrects Elizabeth, he’s not bringing back his love interest; he’s bringing back his possession. Regardless of mature devotion, Victor grew up thinking Elizabeth belonged to him.
And we never see the Victor and Elizabeth courtship. Not even in the movies, really; because he’s marrying his little sister.
Anyway.
Violet is not interested in marrying her parents’ ward, she’s interested in Aveline, and just when it appears Aveline’s ready to act on her mutual feelings… she falls seriously ill. And her parents won’t let Violet visit her.
Aveline’s death scene turns out to be Mulch’s next great sequence. Prometheite’s about a hundred pages, and sometimes Mulch will spend beau coup pages on a scene. Four to six pages, building tension, focusing on some character detail. It’s often exquisite.
The tragic romance overshadows the next bit, where a grieving Violet discovers she has the means and will to attempt to resurrect Aveline. There are a lot of unanswered questions about Violet’s medical science, even for a Frankenstein. I think Frankenweenie gets more into the details.
Suffice it to say, the experiment’s a success and Aveline’s resurrection. She just happens to have some stitches she can never have out, and she’s not allowed to leave the house. Ever.
At this point in Prometheite, the comic entirely diverges from Frankenstein for a long while. Except in how Mulch tells the story, which quickly shifts to Aveline’s perspective, just like the Creature narrating in Big Frank. Everything’s such a change—it’s a macabre romance, with Aveline worrying about rotting and Violet getting madder about her science.
The action builds to a major confrontation, probably the act two break, and then it’s back to Frankenstein for the finish. However, when it turns out Mulch is going to do a repeated Frankenstein nod for the ending, it’s a surprise. Prometheite had gotten out on its own so much it didn’t seem like Mulch would bring it back.
The ending works. It’s a devastating, depressing love story.
Mulch’s art is good. Lots of great work on expressions; Prometheite is lots of talking heads and reaction shots.
The comic gets more impressive the more you think about it. It’s a good, engaging read, but backtracking through Mulch’s plotting and pacing, The Prometheite reveals itself quite superior.
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Swamp Thing (2019) s01e09 – The Anatomy Lesson
Asterisks about Writer’s Guild credit rules, I knew when Mark Verheiden’s name came up on this penultimate episode’s opening titles, The Anatomy Lesson was in trouble. It’s not a lot of trouble, but there are definite backslides. The script’s not interested in Crystal Reed’s experience at all; on the one hand, she’s the action hero rescuing her kidnapped love interest, so it’s not primed for character drama. On the other hand, Ian Ziering gets that action hero arc without any stakes whatsoever, just to not be a selfish white surfer bro.
It’s a packed episode, with three main plots, then three subplots. Reed and Maria Sten team up like it’s seventh grade to track down kidnapped swamp monster Derek Mears. Kevin Durand and Will Patton are going to dissect Mears. Ziering gets a visit from still not Kevin Smith Macon Blair, who tells him to (blue) devil up and save the day. Subplots are Selena Anduze’s Alzheimer’s getting worse while Durand’s busy on his supervillain origin story and then Henderson Wade being mad at mom Jennifer Beals. Beals isn’t in the episode, though, and Wade doesn’t have anyone to talk with, so it’s not clear why he’s mad. Is he angry because she didn’t tell him Patton was his real dad, furious because she got mad when he killed someone to stop Patton from blackmailing her, and just sad he’s a murderer? Doesn’t really matter, it’s the second-to-last episode, and Wade’s got a comics-ordained arc to complete. Then Patton has to get his revenge on wife Virginia Madsen, who hopefully gets a better send-off next episode.
Speaking of comics-ordained, this episode takes its title from Alan Moore’s famous (second) issue of Saga of the Swamp Thing. It’s not a direct adaptation (unfortunately), but it’s got the same basic reveals. The episode focuses on Durand, not Mears, which… might work out next episode or might be a missed opportunity. The episode’s got some big reveals and some reveals pretending to be big, but no reason they won’t be able to land it. Might be nice if Reed got something to do.
One last thing: director Michael Goi. Not good. Gets Sten’s worst performance in like four or five episodes, which is back when Verheiden was getting credits too. Once the action oscillates away from Reed and Sten, Goi’s direction improves, but every time it returns to them, it flounders. It’s impressive the show’s got the momentum to get through it, but it does. Good work from Durand, Anduze, and Ziering. Mears and Reed are fine but barely get anything to do.
Let’s see what happens next time.
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The Steel Helmet (1951, Samuel Fuller)
The Steel Helmet is an admirable effort from writer, director, and producer Fuller. However, from the start, it’s clear some of the film’s successes will come with qualifications. Fuller, for example, has a great shot a quarter of the time, a terrible shot a quarter of the time, and okay shots half the time. Lousy shots always come after the good ones to emphasize the downgrade.
Fuller, cinematographer Ernest Miller, and editor Philip Cahn have a terrible time putting sequences together, especially when they’re going from set to location. For example, the climactic action finale looks like it’s reused footage from another war movie; it’s not; it’s Fuller; it just looks nothing like the rest of the film.
It’s not just for the action sequences, either. The problem’s present in the first scene and every one after.
There are unqualified successes, of course. Many performances are fantastic, even when Fuller’s script loses track of his protagonist. The film opens with tough sergeant Gene Evans surviving a North Korean ambush. The bullet went into his steel helmet and looped around, leaving only a minor cut. A South Korean orphan, played by William Chun (as “Short Round,” which is apparently where Spielberg got it from for Temple), finds Evans and frees him. They quickly become pals.
On their trip through Oz, they soon meet medic James Edwards. Edwards is Black, Evans is white, and Chun is Korean. There are scenes between Evans and both new friends about race, with excellent character moments for each of them.
Instead of finding the Cowardly Lion, the trio finds a lost squad. Led by officer Steve Brodie, they’re supposed to set up an observation post in a Buddhist temple nearby. Evans knows Brodie and hates him; Brodie’s a dipshit officer. Evans also knows Brodie’s sergeant, Richard Loo. Loo’s Japanese American; Brodie doesn’t listen to him because he’s not white. Fuller, with a lot of gruff and bravado, drags the racism out of its hold enough to look at it in the light before letting it scurry back in.
He’ll spotlight it later when a North Korean officer (Harold Fong) tries to sway both Edwards and Loo away from the actively racist U.S.A. Both attempts are protracted, and neither comes to a substantial conclusion (outside an awkward scene for the actors); however, it was enough to get the FBI investigating Fuller.
The second act is the squad hanging out at the temple, with Evans as the de facto lead, but the focus widened more towards an ensemble piece. Besides Brodie, whose inevitable “dipshit officer redeems himself at the end” arc doesn’t take up a lot of them, there’s also Robert Hutton, Sid Melton, Richard Monahan, and Neyle Morrow in the squad.
Hutton gets the most to do, though Melton’s the most memorable.
Everything’s generally fine until the third act when Fuller tries taking the focus away from Evans and spreading it out. Then, just when he seemingly manages to widen it, he tightens back in on Evans for a lackluster postscript.
Great performances from Evans, Edwards, Brodie, and Loo. Fong’s a little much—Fuller’s script walks a fine line of anti-Communism, anti-officer, pro-infantry, pro-progressive but armed U.S.A.—and Fong gets the worst of it. The mumbo jumbo also screws up Evans’s performance a little, leaving him in limbo as far as his character development.
Still, it’s impressive as all hell, with a great score from Paul Dunlap, and when Fuller hits, he hits. It’s even more impressive given the meager budget; Fuller knows what he’s doing, but there’s just not enough money to realize it.
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Tomb of Dracula (1972) #21
Writer Marv Wolfman has been working on his Doctor Sun subplot since he took over Tomb of Dracula, with the arc running at least ten issues. So, it’s too bad it’s got such an underwhelming finish. It’s a Bond movie conclusion, only with the “good guys” literally inert the entire issue instead of just being dramatically inert.
The issue starts with Dracula, Frank Drake, and Rachel Van Helsing held in a stasis beam. Vampire Brand tells Dracula the origin story of Doctor Sun, presumably because it’s supposed to be interesting to someone—Doctor Sun was a Chinese scientist who lost the Party’s trust, so they took his brain out and put it in a computer. They even made his own son—Doctor Sun’s son—do the dirty work. There are a couple entirely pointless digs at “Red China” in the comic; strange how Wolfman wasn’t concerned about inequities in the West.
Though it tracks given the now dead Harker daughter was straight-up racist about Blade.
Speaking of Blade, he and Quincy Harker have another entirely pointless check-in scene to remind readers if they hang out long enough, the story might someday get back to hip, Black vampire hunter Blade or decidedly un-hip old rich white guy vampire hunter Quincy. Wolfman covering all the reader bases there.
The rest of the issue is Dracula and Brand vampire-fighting in a Bond lair while Doctor Sun monologues about his master plan: create a vampire more powerful than Dracula and transfer Dracula’s memories to this new super-vampire. But, see, Doctor Sun’s computer circuits run on human blood (Wolfman never reveals why the Red Chinese designed the hardware to be blood-dependent, though, again, Occam’s razor), and the only way he can figure out how to get a steady supply is to get a vampire to bring him victims.
Since Frank and Rachel are in stasis for most of the issue, it’s unclear if they understand they’re pawns in a living brain’s plans. They may not even hear Doctor Sun communicating; they give no indication they do, but, again, they’re in a stasis field, so who knows.
In other words, no one comments on Doctor Sun’s plan being insipid and not the work of a genius human brain-powered supercomputer. The plan’s not even good enough for a seventies comic book.
Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s art continues to be magnificent and make the book more than worthy, but, wow, does Wolfman’s first big long arc fizzle.
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Swamp Thing (2019) s01e08 – Long Walk Home
All right, the show’s definitely intentionally traipsing into the endgame, which is a hopeful sign they’ll be able to wrap it in the remaining ninety minutes.
Crystal Reed returns to Atlanta with the sample of “the rot” and finds best friend Leonardo Nam less supportive than expected. And Reed’s got a new boss, Adrienne Barbeau, who isn’t impressed to hear Reed’s been hanging out in the swamp instead of doing case studies or something. Suddenly, the show’s about CDC bureaucratic procedure and minutiae, but really just to set Reed up with some personal conflict.
It’ll turn out that she doesn’t need the personal conflict, but it’s nice for her to get some character development on the professional arc. The show hasn’t been about Reed as a hotshot, globe-trotting scientist since episode two at the latest.
Meanwhile, Will Patton is hallucinating his way through the swamp, including flashbacks to his origin with his dad. We find out why the swamp hates Patton and Patton hates the swamp. Despite that hostility, Swamp Thing Derek Mears isn’t willing to let Patton bleed out, so the two have a moment. Thanks to Mears’s field dressing, Patton doesn’t get so woozy he’s going to reveal any of his own secrets. It’s a surprisingly good scene. I’d thought Patton had run out of mandibles to chew at “Swamp Thing,” but he’s got another set.
And Mears is successful in his first significant scene opposite anyone but Reed.
The episode keeps another couple of subplots percolating. Henderson Wade’s not feeling great about his recent actions and discoveries; mom and boss Jennifer Beals’s constant reminders to buck up and get through are wearing thin. It’s treading water but not bad.
Finally, there are more machinations with Michael Beach’s malevolent venture capitalist, including his continuing team-up with Kevin Durand. No Virginia Madsen at all this episode, which is a bummer. Hopefully, they’ll get that thread resolved okay.
I already wish “Swamp Thing” had another episode to finish up. This episode’s mostly getting the pieces back into place; it does rather well, functionally, with the now separated leads in their own respective dangers, making for a compelling forty-five minutes.
But this episode’s pacing being successful is contingent on next episode having enough time to get things done.
Fingers crossed.
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