Wow! Last fall, if you had told me that Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE would be one of my favorite books of the relaunch, I would have thought you were crazy. I love old monster movies and picked up the first issue more becuase of my love for James Whale and Boris Karloff than my love for Jeff Lemire and Alberto Ponticelli. This is pretty much a contained single story involving Frankenstein and Lady Frankenstein's search for their long-lost son, whose death (it gets explained, kind of) is what drove them apart and ended their marriage. The characterizations of both of them are simply marvelous. Both seem more human when interacting with one another and the reader really feels his love for her. Lady Frankenstein's exit from SHADE at the end of the book and the sorrow that this will bring our main character was moving writing and I'm amazed that so much could be said in such a short period of time. I feel like Lemire's run on this series has been overshadowed by his success on Animal Man, but this is one of the two or three books that I most look forward to each month. Ponticelli excels a drawing horrible monsters and crazy battles and the entire series has been full of them. His art in this issue feels much tighter than in previous issues, one commenter on the issue mentioned that new inker is probably the reason for this, and I'm inclined to agree, although both looks are great for the series. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I can’t recommend this book highly enough if you’re into sci-fi, adventure, or old monster movies (and if you’re not into any of those things, I feel really bad for you).