I detect a pattern with issue #3 of Universal Monsters: Creature From The Black Lagoon Lives!, and I don’t know if it’s a good one. Because the first issue was truly great, as writers Ram V and Dan Watters laid the foundation for a novel enough take on the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Meanwhile, issue #2 was the equivalent of bobbing in the water, with plenty of ups (Kate Marsden developed perfectly in her role as revenge-seeking badass) and some corresponding downs (an increasingly hokey sheen, especially with that intro).
Issue #3 than feels like another instance where there’s good and bad, but now it’s starting to feel like the bad may pull us under for good.
Perhaps the biggest issue, as I’d touched on, has everything to do with the encroaching sense of cheesiness that’s impacting this book. This time around, it wasn’t nearly as subtle as it really felt like the book is taking on a real action movie-esque vibe. Sure, that makes sense as the book moves closer to its confrontation between Marsden and the nasty serial killer Collier, as well as the increasing emergence of the actual Creature from the Black Lagoon.
But I think this spin or sheen has a number of much more significant consequences. Like, how it hampers or makes less room for #3’s intro, which had some interesting character development from Marsden as well as some larger thematic exploration of the dangers of revenge, how perception dictates reality, and even how easy it is to become monsters of our own accord. But then the action movie dialogue and narrative arc happened hard, and what we got was mostly an excuse to talk about guns, hunting the fish-man, and Marsden basically being blinded by her own rage despite the fact that she’s meant to know better.
Main cover by Dave Stewart. Courtesy of Image/Skybound.
Similarly, these hugely machismo vibes also take this book away from the realm of horror, and while that’s a seemingly small but perhaps potent decision, it renders a lot of the mystery away from our fish-man as the creative team make more room for the book’s increasing interest in being all guns blazing and no subtlety. That very arc takes away from some of the ways the Creature from the Black Lagoon is regarded here; he feels more and more like a plot device and less like a solid B player in his own story.
Complicating the entire issue is the art in this issue (from artist Matthew Roberts and colorist Trish Mulvihill). As you’d expect with the action-centric bent, we get lots of intensity and energy permeating the page, and that does heaps to grab the eyes even if I’m not entirely sure if it’s working from a narrative standpoint. There’s one part where Marsden and one of her guides in the Amazon sit atop a roof talking about the creature as the forest burns around them. And it’s this really great moment where the imagery (we are killing ourselves) is contrasted nicely with the guides talk about having malaria as a kid and how the disease just had to burn through his body.
It’s a potentially powerful moment generally ruined by Marsden’s subsequent outburst and overly simplified reaction that destroys the nuance and subtext for something annoying and blatant. It’s like, context is everything here, and that brazen intensity only works to ruin what could have been a solid moment left to resonate exactly as it was. It seems like more and more that this book just does too much or tries to be super overt in its anger and passion rather than let the story be the temperature and pace that works to really nail its many layers and unique set of goals.
Variant cover by Julian Totino Tedesco. Courtesy of Image/Skybound.
Plus, I liked this issue most when the action vibes went away and we got something all the more metaphysical and intellectual in nature. I mentioned/hinted at earlier this monologue from Marsden where she’s talking about drowning and her own uncertain perceptions about herself, Collier, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. And the art there feels so powerful; Mulvihill’s colors, especially, just give off this slight sense of psychedelic vigor, like some vaguely ’80s Swamp Thing.
That space is exactly what I wanted from this book: it encapsulates the overt weirdness of the concept and respects the slower pace and added loops that make a book like this one (woman hunts a killer and has a kind of entanglement with a fish-man) work and absolutely respect it for all those wonderful but specific energies. Yet it doesn’t last, or isn’t given the room to develop, before other ideas overpower it and crowd out the subtlety and nuance that really makes this story feel like this proper combination of horror and action. It’s no longer a story that can really feel exciting and provide the groundwork for these contemplations about reality and our connection to this weird, wild world. And it just feels so annoying when the book nails these quick but powerful moments and tries to be something it’s not when it’s already so much more.
Yet all of that uncertainty in the face of real potential here is nothing compared with how I feel about this issue’s ending. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but it does feature a Marsden-Collier confrontation, which is a move I like happening this early on to keep us on our toes. And, from a wholly visual standpoint, it does bring us back more horror-centric confines, which is not only pleasing but feels extra satisfying as the book could just be playing with us to achieve maximum effect. Yet there’s a kind of added heavy-handedness to this “cliffhanger” — a sense that all subtext has truly gone out the window in the face of something shocking and compelling.
Variant cover by Anwita Citriya. Courtesy of Image/Skybound.
And, sure, it does work to throw us off guard, but only momentarily until the true weight (or lack thereof) of this moment lands and we’re left to consider how deeply cheesy it is as the moment bashes us squarely in the face. It feels like the team thought more of this scene than what’s actually there, and all that mattered was the shock value and not how it, for instance, just went and did something super tacky with this book’s central question about men versus monsters and who really occupies what role. I really wanted way more show and not tell, and we still got less tell and more scream it directly into our faces.
To some extent, I did think Creature from the Black Lagoon had the hardest work of all the Universal stories released thus far — I mean, Dracula is always cool and sexy as just a baseline. But what we’ve gotten so far from the team is generally good but wholly uneven, or something with great bones that can’t always execute accordingly.
I’ll give this to the team: after this issue, they’ve clearly made some big decisions as they prepare for a wholly unique and singular take on the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and one that could be big if they can give us some depth to go with all that madness and color. Otherwise, all my uncertainty as colored with genuine optimism is going to sink into the deep, deep dark.
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