Review: ‘Frankenstein: New World — The Sea Of Forever’ #1

Welcome to the table,

The Hellboy Universe brings me boundless joy. Something is so baked into my DNA that I genuinely get excited whenever there are new stories set in this folklore-laced landscape that Mike Mignola created. Needing an escape in the current age of uncertainty and dread, I find myself sinking into one of the newest offerings from Dark Horse Comics, Frankenstein: New World — The Sea of Forever.

The far-flung future tale picks up shortly after the events of Frankenstein: New World. The sentient flesh golem Frankenstein and his human companion Lilja have traveled from the relative safety of the Hollow Earth. They fins themselves on the surface of the planet and are now exploring the world above.

Mignola and collaborators Christopher Golden and Thomas Sniegoski, along with artist Peter Bergting and colorist Michelle Madsen, set the journey of our timeless traveler and his young companion off in a quiet way.  Readers join the story on a beach where Frankenstein and Jilja are discussing what oceans are. Peter’s art is spectacular and Michelle’s colors are moody and set the tone of this story so perfectly, giving the entire story a grounded, yet somehow otherworldly, feeling.

**Spoilers Follow**

The two travelers cross paths with a seafaring people who explain a bit about the new earth biomes that they inhabit and the creatures they have a symbiotic relationship with.

This books shines. It is able to provide a quiet story that also manages to capture the sense of discovery that you would have while exploring and learning about a strange new landscape. The books about alien species and fantasy worlds I would read as a kid come to mind as I flipped through this first issue.

All is not well in the lands above, though. There is an insidious and timely evil looming. A hungering beast who has grown from the Hallow Earth and is now loose upon the land. The evil is known as the Murk and it is especially terrifying because it feels powerful and ignorant.

It is learning the world and corrupting things as it trundles along. It’s a consuming force and that feels very much in line with the essence of evil that frightens me to my core. That greedy, foolish, stumbling evil that only cares for it’s own needs and will senselessly destroy whatever it wants if it scratches whatever itch it has at the time.

Frankenstein and Lilja build and board a boat and set off into the sea where they are soon attacked by a flock of flying dinosaur-like bird creatures. During the fray the most interesting thing happens. Frankenstein gets a vision of the world being ended in ages long past, and issues long past as this is the fall of humanity seen in B.P.R.D. and Hellboy, and sees the fall of Vampires and their eventual return to the blasted earth in the form of none other than the looming blight upon the land we have come to know as Murk .

This is the thing that I feel like only happens in the Hellboy Universe. You get two pages of a flashback, or a a handful of panels of a vision or stone statue or something and instantly anyone who absorbed this lore like a sponge is locked into a deep landscape that makes you feel inextricably connected to this ever-winding story.

There is no reboot, there is no retcon or retelling or “Ultimate Hellboy”, there is just the line of time. Wherever these stories take place, you find yourself learning more and more about the events as they play out.

The issue ends with Frankenstein and Lilja landing on strange shores with multitudes of eyes looking at them from the shadows.

I’m constantly impressed by the talented team behind these books and their ability to craft something that feels both timeless and timely while retaining the shape of things as fantastical as ancient weapons being wielded by dead flesh given life by strange scientists in days long past.

I can’t wait to read the next one!

Until next time, Frankenstein: New World is one of those titles that is exactly what I am looking for. This is my kind of comic cover to cover, from the art to the story to the world building it hits every target in the best possible way.