Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. is still one of the quirkiest books I buy each month; in fact, it’s fair to say that its quirkiness is one of the reasons it stays on my pull list. I must confess that I worried when Jeff Lemire left the title, despite his assurances that Matt Kindt would continue telling weird and wonderful tales in the same vein as Lemire himself had done, but I needn’t have worried at all. Kindt is more than adequate to that task, and as a bonus, he tells a fairly compelling story, to boot. I enjoyed the pacing of this book, but found it to be rather exposition heavy. I’m not sure having Father Time narrate the artwork while keeping the dialogue comparatively thin was a good approach for this issue, but Kindt still managed to make it work. Alberto Ponticelli’s artwork has grown on me, and though Wayne Faucher’s inks made the art seem darker than that to which I am accustomed, the change seemed appropriate to the tone of the story.

My only major complaint about Kindt’s run so far is that he has finished the last two issues with cliffhangers that seemed to come out of left field. It would be like Scott Snyder’s “Court of Owls” storyline ending with Santa Claus walking into Wayne Manor with a bag of toys, and a teaser line that reads: “Next: Take me out to the ball game!” I have no idea how to connect the cliffhanger and teaser at the end of this issue with anything that I’ve seen in Kindt’s run so far. Aside from that–crazy sci-fi elements, good story, good art. I’ll be happy to stick around and find out what comes next.