“30 Days of Night†creator Steve Niles returns to his other series “Criminal Macabre†with “Criminal Macabre: They Eyes of Frankenstein” and sadly, his charm is absent in this new outing.
Cal McDonald is a former human turned ghoul who is not adjusting to his new sickness well. On top of that there is a disease going around that is killing off ghouls at an alarming rate. Cal also meets Frankenstein’s Monster who prefers to be called Adam and his eyes are failing. Cal now must visit a scientist named Jason Hemlock who knows how to fix Adam’s eyes.
The story is all over the place. There’s Cal’s sickness, the ghoul killing disease going around and Adam’s eyes. All those take a back seat to Adam’s eyes. This plot is interesting and a nice breakaway from the typical horror story of this type. Not to mention Niles gets the name of the creature and his personality right, unlike many other writers.
The problem stems from how the plot is executed and how all these plots come together. The mission to get the eyes just screams not a well thought out plan that’s bound for failure. Also, Hemlock’s motivation for helping and what he does after the surgery make very little whatsoever. Also, how the disease came about, Cal’s illness and what happens to Cal at the end will leave people scratching their heads. The ending is obviously sequel bait in that it just ends abruptly with very little resolved.
The art by Christopher Mitten has its ups and downs. The ups are he makes the ghouls, Adam and other creepy things look brilliant. They feel real, are interesting to look at and are scary in a way. Monster they may be, Mitten brings a certain life and charm to them that says this is what he was meant to draw. The normal humans, on the other hand, are not as interesting. It seems like he got caught up in giving these monsters life that he forget to give that same life to the humans. It’s a good thing they only appear briefly in the story.
“Criminal Macabre: They Eyes of Frankenstein†has an interesting idea, but the execution is clunky and leaves readers empty. The art is better than the story but it has its problems, too. The sequel needs to one up this story and has a lot to explain in order to save this story.
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