Comic book reviews: Neal Adams Monsters

With the hurricane having shut down a lot of NYC, and the subways out of service for the next few days, it looks like my Halloween is pretty much going to be confined to watching horror movies and reading graphic novels at home.  So here’s another good spooky read:

Neal Adams Monsters is, of course, the work of legendary comic book artist Neal Adams.  Here he also takes on the role of writer.  Originally serialized in the Echo of Future Past anthology published in the mid-1980s by Continuity, the material in Neal Adams Monsters was collected together in English for the first time in 1993 by Vanguard Productions.

Neal Adams Monsters

In his introduction to the volume, Adams writes of his childhood fondness for monsters, stemming back to the old Universal Studios films.  One of the things Adams speaks of is his disappointment that there never was a genuine all-out battle between Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, and the Werewolf in any of these movies.  He cites Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man as a half-hearted attempt that ultimately failed to deliver. 

I have to admit I agree with him on that point.  I watched that movie on television years ago.  I don’t remember very much about it, but I do recall the promised grudge match between the two creatures did not materialize until the very end of the movie, when the pair sort of grappled around for about two minutes, only to be interrupted when the villagers blew up the local dam, flooding them away.  It was quite disappointing.  So I can certainly understand how a young Neal Adams, watching this, thought to himself that he could do better.

What Adams has set out to do in Monsters is to deliver a story in the tradition of the Universal and Hammer Studios films, yet one that is unencumbered by budgetary and special effects limitations.  One of the extraordinary strengths of the medium of sequential illustration is its potential to depict literally anything, no matter how fantastical or ambitious.  The only limits are the imagination & the abilities of the artist.  Adams clearly recognized that when he originally wrote & illustrated the Monsters story.

The writing on Monsters is, admittedly, not nearly up to par with the art.  I have always felt that Adams was a much stronger artist than writer.  That is not to say his writing on Monsters was bad, though.  It was just that I felt certain elements did not come together nearly as well as they might have.  Nevertheless, Adams’ plotting on Monsters achieves the requisite task of putting all of the characters & elements into place for a huge, cataclysmic confrontation.

Whatever any weaknesses of his writing might be, Adams artwork is absolutely magnificent.  He is such an amazing storyteller, utilizing dramatic layouts & panel designs.  His eye for detail is superb.  There are a number of intricately illustrated sequences that are simply breathtaking.

The aforementioned climax is spectacular.  There is perhaps the problem of the Werewolf being sidelined for most of this sequence, but I can forgive Adams this oversight, as the struggle between Count Dracula and Frankenstein’s Creature is incredibly dramatic, a brutally stunning action sequence.  As Adams no doubt intended, he very much achieved his childhood goal of having the classic monsters of Gothic literature and horror movies meet up in an unforgettable battle to end all battles.

I would be remiss if I did not cite the vivid coloring by Louis Douzepis, Cory Adams & Zeea Adams.  The colorists’ work is extremely effective & vibrant.  It really helps to bring Neal Adams’ line work to full, dynamic life.

There are several extra pages to the Monsters collection, featuring concept designs that Adams produced for several movies, as well as his work as a cover illustrator on Marvel Comics’ horror magazines in the 1970s.  I would have liked to have seen more of this bonus material.  What I found most fascinating were Adams’ designs for an unrealized film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End.  Viewing these, this is one project that I’m sorry never materialized.

Neal Adams is almost exclusively thought of for his work on such superhero titles as Batman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Avengers, and X-Men.  What is often forgotten is just what a great horror artist he is.  He did a superb job in the early 1990s for an issue of Now Comics’ Twilight Zone series, illustrating the Harlan Ellison story “Crazy as a Soup Sandwich.”  That was a great issue.  And, of course, with Monsters now collected and available from Vanguard, one can see another fantastic example of Adams’ work in this genre.  It’s a fun, brilliantly illustrated read, and I highly recommend it.