one of my all time favorite jobs I ever worked was when I managed a video store. This back when before Netflix so business was good. I got paid to talk about movies all day, how cool is that! And being manager I got to do all the hiring – this resulted in being able to hire my friends. Work was awesome, movies, friends, renting porn to hot chicks, ahh the good old days. Speaking of hot chicks, when I was not hiring friends I was hiring hot chicks. Hey don’t judge – I was young and single. But occasionally this douche bag practice of hiring the cute girls over the ugly ones would backfire on me, and I would be stuck with a really horrible employee. I guess when someone fills out their application and writes in for their last 3 jobs “Babysitting” they may not be the best for running a register and working a computer. What does this chauvinistic fable have to do with Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E #1 you ask? Well, sometimes you can hire the wrong person for the job. Case in point: Artist Alberto Ponticelli. We’ll come back to Al in a bit.

But first, the story for Franky #1 , written by the very talented Jeff Lemire who knocked it out of the park with Animal Man #1, was decent and enjoyable, but just not quite at the same level as Animal Man. Franky is still a fun read and there is a lot more action then in A-Man and more guns too (if you like that sorta thing). I’m thinking AM is the child Lemire loves more and Franky is the adopted undead child has to fight for attention. Basically Frankenstein is more of a straightforward comic book, still, coming from talent like Lemire it still reads better then most dreck out on the shelves these days.

But what really keeps this comic from soaring, is the art. Now normally I don’t mind if the art isn’t really my cup of tea, if the story is good I can look past it and still enjoy the comic. BUT, the art in Frankenstein is just ALL WRONG for this book, and it took me out of the story. Alberto’s art is completely and utterly wrong for this title. It’s not that it hurts my eyes to look at it, in fact I can see this style of art being great a comic like Walking Dead or another DC titles like Men of War or Demon Knights, there it would feel “right”. Here, in a story with state of the art machinery, huge computers, devices that teleport and shrink you into a floating sphere above Manhattan, and high-tech weaponry Ponticelli fails in every way.

This good be a great title, this could be the next Hellboy, but the art kills it for me.

STORY: 3 and 1/2
ART: minus 1