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The Last Mechanical Monster: A Graphic Novel
From Brian Fies, the multi-award-winning, acclaimed graphic novelist of Mom’s Cancer , Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? , and A Fire Story , comes a classic comic book adventure for all ages.
Decades after being imprisoned for threatening his city with an army of giant robots, an elderly scientist reenters society, only to discover he needs help navigating life in the 21st century. Experiencing real kindness and friendship for the first time, his new relationships challenge the inventor’s single-minded devotion for vengeance—just as his plans threaten to spiral out of his control. The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies is a story about ambition, creativity, mortality, friendship, and legacy. But it is also a story about how we want to be remembered, and what we leave behind.
This latest graphic novel from Brian Fies already has a fan base and a considerable history of accomplishment. Initially published online as a webcomic, it was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic. It is also a pivot from Fies’s more serious graphic novels, created at a time when he was between large, demanding projects, and needing to remind himself that comics could and should be fun and provide a joyful escape—something we can all use a little more of these days.
Includes a four-page removable paper toy on card stock for readers to create their own mechanical monster
Decades after being imprisoned for threatening his city with an army of giant robots, an elderly scientist reenters society, only to discover he needs help navigating life in the 21st century. Experiencing real kindness and friendship for the first time, his new relationships challenge the inventor’s single-minded devotion for vengeance—just as his plans threaten to spiral out of his control. The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies is a story about ambition, creativity, mortality, friendship, and legacy. But it is also a story about how we want to be remembered, and what we leave behind.
This latest graphic novel from Brian Fies already has a fan base and a considerable history of accomplishment. Initially published online as a webcomic, it was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic. It is also a pivot from Fies’s more serious graphic novels, created at a time when he was between large, demanding projects, and needing to remind himself that comics could and should be fun and provide a joyful escape—something we can all use a little more of these days.
Includes a four-page removable paper toy on card stock for readers to create their own mechanical monster
192 pages, Hardcover
Published October 18, 2022
1 person is currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Brian Fies
7 books64 followersBrian Fies is a science writer, illustrator, and cartoonist whose widely acclaimed first graphic novel, Mom's Cancer, won the 2005 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic (the first web comic to win the award and inaugurate this new category), the Lulu Blooker Prize for Best Comic, the Harvey Award for Best New Talent, and the German Youth Literature Prize, among other awards and recognition. He lives in northern California.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 21, 2024
A savvy take on a sequel to the 1941 Superman cartoon “The Mechanical Monsters,” originally captured by superman, the villain gets out from prison in 2005, after finishing a sixty-four year sentence for the crimes of using giant robots to steal gems.
Why didn't he become famous for inventing his robots? Two weeks after he was arrested the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He regards this as a personal insult. He survives on"rage, and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance."
Despite being 99 years old, and all of his robots remaining trashed in his old lair, "Sparky" is determined to recreate one last robot to carry out his revenge on society.
But first he needs to figure out how to get vacuum tubes on store credit.
4/5, more nuanced than I thought, ending made me smile without realizing it. Job well done.
Why didn't he become famous for inventing his robots? Two weeks after he was arrested the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He regards this as a personal insult. He survives on"rage, and an unquenchable thirst for vengeance."
Despite being 99 years old, and all of his robots remaining trashed in his old lair, "Sparky" is determined to recreate one last robot to carry out his revenge on society.
But first he needs to figure out how to get vacuum tubes on store credit.
4/5, more nuanced than I thought, ending made me smile without realizing it. Job well done.
August 29, 2023
Public Domain Superman!
Well, actually, Superman only appears once and only as a name in a microfilm image of a Daily Planet newspaper headline halfway through the story. That's the moment when I stopped reading and started researching. And indeed, I found that this book is a sequel to "The Mechanical Monsters" cartoon produced by Max Fleischer back in the 1940s as part of a series of Superman animated shorts that were later allowed to fall into the public domain when their copyrights were not renewed. I must have watched this decades ago, but it had slipped from my mind, so I refreshed my memory by finding a version on YouTube. This connection is not mentioned anywhere on the cover, but it was mentioned on the blurb page that I had skipped, and it also turned up in the acknowledgments at the end.
Doing my homework gave the book an extra layer, but it didn't add as much depth as I expected since the cartoon is just a jumping off point for Brian Fies examination of aging and legacy. The villainous inventor who made the Mechanical Monsters in 1941 has spent six decades in prison, and upon his release he returns to his secret lair and resumes his evil plans with the single robot he is able to cobble together from the parts Superman left scattered about when he took down the whole robotic army.
Gathering the resources needed for his evil plans and day-to-day needs forces the aged inventor to interact with various members of the community near his lair as they help him play catch-up with the changes that have happened in the world during his absence. And like the Grinch coming down from the mountain, he finds the the size of his heart changing size.
I liked the fable aspects of the story, but I did get distracted by some bits that just didn't make much sense, like the length of his jail sentence, the fact that prison is treated like it exists in a vacuum with no access to outside news, and that the U.S. government while militarizing for World War II ignored the weaponry potential of the Mechanical Monsters. The officials who scooped up Nazi scientists with Operation Paperclip at the end of the war would have certainly implemented a work-release program for prisoners who could contribute automated fighting machines to the war effort.
And then the big finale just fell flat for me as the inventor's support network inevitably comes together to help in the moment of crisis as fire fighters and policemen just stand around twiddling their thumbs. Events unfold in increasingly unlikely ways to the point of being ridiculous.
It's a pretty decent book, but I just couldn't let myself go with the flow of it.
Well, actually, Superman only appears once and only as a name in a microfilm image of a Daily Planet newspaper headline halfway through the story. That's the moment when I stopped reading and started researching. And indeed, I found that this book is a sequel to "The Mechanical Monsters" cartoon produced by Max Fleischer back in the 1940s as part of a series of Superman animated shorts that were later allowed to fall into the public domain when their copyrights were not renewed. I must have watched this decades ago, but it had slipped from my mind, so I refreshed my memory by finding a version on YouTube. This connection is not mentioned anywhere on the cover, but it was mentioned on the blurb page that I had skipped, and it also turned up in the acknowledgments at the end.
Doing my homework gave the book an extra layer, but it didn't add as much depth as I expected since the cartoon is just a jumping off point for Brian Fies examination of aging and legacy. The villainous inventor who made the Mechanical Monsters in 1941 has spent six decades in prison, and upon his release he returns to his secret lair and resumes his evil plans with the single robot he is able to cobble together from the parts Superman left scattered about when he took down the whole robotic army.
Gathering the resources needed for his evil plans and day-to-day needs forces the aged inventor to interact with various members of the community near his lair as they help him play catch-up with the changes that have happened in the world during his absence. And like the Grinch coming down from the mountain, he finds the the size of his heart changing size.
I liked the fable aspects of the story, but I did get distracted by some bits that just didn't make much sense, like the length of his jail sentence, the fact that prison is treated like it exists in a vacuum with no access to outside news, and that the U.S. government while militarizing for World War II ignored the weaponry potential of the Mechanical Monsters. The officials who scooped up Nazi scientists with Operation Paperclip at the end of the war would have certainly implemented a work-release program for prisoners who could contribute automated fighting machines to the war effort.
And then the big finale just fell flat for me as the inventor's support network inevitably comes together to help in the moment of crisis as fire fighters and policemen just stand around twiddling their thumbs. Events unfold in increasingly unlikely ways to the point of being ridiculous.
It's a pretty decent book, but I just couldn't let myself go with the flow of it.
September 24, 2024
Okay I actually really loved this lol
November 12, 2022
I knew I would love the characters in Brian Fies's latest graphic novel because I read parts of the story online. I don't think I realized how *much* I would love them or how bittersweet this story was. And in hardcopy, I was once again blown away by Fies's stunning, immersive artwork.
This is a love story to Pulp-era comics, taking inspiration from an actual Superman storyline. In it, Fies explores the themes of growing old, of failing, and of human connection--using an aging ex-supervillain and his gigantic robot to tell the tale.
I defy you to read this without coming away with a couple new catchphrases for yourself, like "Don't mix up the buckets," or even, "I appreciate you."
I appreciate this book.
This is a love story to Pulp-era comics, taking inspiration from an actual Superman storyline. In it, Fies explores the themes of growing old, of failing, and of human connection--using an aging ex-supervillain and his gigantic robot to tell the tale.
I defy you to read this without coming away with a couple new catchphrases for yourself, like "Don't mix up the buckets," or even, "I appreciate you."
I appreciate this book.
November 27, 2022
i loved this this! Fies writing doesn't add an extra word or leave any out, his art is brilliant.
And, quite by accident, on the 100th anniversary of Charles Schulz' birth i read a novel in which the lead character is nicknamed Sparky.
This book has hope and redemption and a librarian and friendship and time travel. The time travel is the natural kind, aging. Sparky, the greatest mad-scientist you've never heard of and don't remember has finally been released from prison. He's had decades to plan his revenge and is decades away from the world he knows. Which leads to my favorite line, he demands of the librarian "Teach me to internet."
Fies never does the same book twice which makes him so enjoyable and surprising.
I'm looking forward to rereading this.
And, quite by accident, on the 100th anniversary of Charles Schulz' birth i read a novel in which the lead character is nicknamed Sparky.
This book has hope and redemption and a librarian and friendship and time travel. The time travel is the natural kind, aging. Sparky, the greatest mad-scientist you've never heard of and don't remember has finally been released from prison. He's had decades to plan his revenge and is decades away from the world he knows. Which leads to my favorite line, he demands of the librarian "Teach me to internet."
Fies never does the same book twice which makes him so enjoyable and surprising.
I'm looking forward to rereading this.
January 6, 2023
My son was home for Winter Break and came to the library with me while I returned some books. I asked him to take a gander at the "new" graphic novels, and this caught his eye. Not only is he in a robot phase of sorts, but he connected immediately with the reference to an old (1941!!) Superman cartoon that was clearly the inspiration/prequel to this.
That cartoon (in color, which surprised me) is easy enough to view if you e-search for The Mechanical Monsters, my son apparently is a fan of the Fleischer cartoon from long ago....the internet is pretty amazing for kids of all ages to pursue their anachronistic interests!
Anyways, Brian Fies uptake has very cleanly drawn images, felt like a CartoonNetwork animation being paged before my eyes. The humor also is clean, and comes with a nice message of "It Takes a Village" (to not raze a library). The villain/hero has his Grinch-like epiphany, with help from the world's kindest bus driver and a plucky female retired engineer.
The book includes homage to vacuum tubes over youtube, along with "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. So if you've got young kids who should have been alive in the 50's, this may be the book for them. My son, now 20, found it a tad too saccharine, but both he and I are curious to check out Fies' "Mom's Cancer" which I suspect will be tough, but tastefully done.
In a way this reminds me of Gene Luen Yang, very deft, very humane. Simple but poignant.
That cartoon (in color, which surprised me) is easy enough to view if you e-search for The Mechanical Monsters, my son apparently is a fan of the Fleischer cartoon from long ago....the internet is pretty amazing for kids of all ages to pursue their anachronistic interests!
Anyways, Brian Fies uptake has very cleanly drawn images, felt like a CartoonNetwork animation being paged before my eyes. The humor also is clean, and comes with a nice message of "It Takes a Village" (to not raze a library). The villain/hero has his Grinch-like epiphany, with help from the world's kindest bus driver and a plucky female retired engineer.
The book includes homage to vacuum tubes over youtube, along with "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. So if you've got young kids who should have been alive in the 50's, this may be the book for them. My son, now 20, found it a tad too saccharine, but both he and I are curious to check out Fies' "Mom's Cancer" which I suspect will be tough, but tastefully done.
In a way this reminds me of Gene Luen Yang, very deft, very humane. Simple but poignant.
February 14, 2023
This was a surprisingly sweet comic and a fun story. While it was a quick read, I thought that there was a lot packed into the story, and I genuinely enjoyed the character development for our MC.
That being said, I found a lot of the other characters around him to feel a little two-dimensional or flat. And I was especially irritated by librarian Helen, because any real librarian (unless they're talking about their personal collection at home) would never refer to the library as "my library," as in "get of out my library" to a patron. It's "your" library or "our" library, but never "my" library. The fact that she did this at least three times (that I counted) was borderline unforgivable and made the library feel like a very exclusive place.
That being said, it was still a fun book, I enjoyed it, and I'd recommend it (especially if you read it through the lens that an exclusionary librarian is the true villain here! Just kidding!)
That being said, I found a lot of the other characters around him to feel a little two-dimensional or flat. And I was especially irritated by librarian Helen, because any real librarian (unless they're talking about their personal collection at home) would never refer to the library as "my library," as in "get of out my library" to a patron. It's "your" library or "our" library, but never "my" library. The fact that she did this at least three times (that I counted) was borderline unforgivable and made the library feel like a very exclusive place.
That being said, it was still a fun book, I enjoyed it, and I'd recommend it (especially if you read it through the lens that an exclusionary librarian is the true villain here! Just kidding!)
June 15, 2024
this would make an incredible children's movie!! so cool that this is based off an older comic so the superman reference were fun. this was a really sweet story, and of course i love the robot (although i wanted more of it!). the main character here is very much giving bowler hat guy / goob from meet the robinsons, man with a sinister plan, slightly sympathetic, slightly evil, and he also has some great grumpy old man moments. interesting discussion here about legacy and what it means to be remembered
April 24, 2024
3.75/5
A sequel to the 1941 Superman episode of the pluralised name, this sees the mad scientist released from prison decades later as a bitter old man set on robbery and revenge. It's no spoiler to say things don't go as planned.
I was expecting this to be akin to A Christmas Carole or a punch to the feels like the start of Up. It was kind of sweet, but i would have liked it to be more so. It humanized the old man, but was more grounded and minor in his transformation.
A sequel to the 1941 Superman episode of the pluralised name, this sees the mad scientist released from prison decades later as a bitter old man set on robbery and revenge. It's no spoiler to say things don't go as planned.
I was expecting this to be akin to A Christmas Carole or a punch to the feels like the start of Up. It was kind of sweet, but i would have liked it to be more so. It humanized the old man, but was more grounded and minor in his transformation.
April 13, 2025
An absolute delight, from the first panel to the last. After decades in prison for his crimes, a mad scientist who built an army of marauding robots is finally released. His resources and abilities are a fraction of what they were, but he still has the ability to pursue the barest shadow of his old dreams of conquest. There are a few people, however, who recognize who he was and believe in his ability to redeem himself. Are new dreams possible, after a lifetime of obsession?
November 28, 2022
A collection of an engaging webcomic that was conceived as a sequel to one of the great old Superman serial cartoons of the 1930's.
The villain from that cartoon is released from jail many years later and immediately starts rebuilding his army of bank robbing robots, but finds he needs help from others to do it.
Really well done!
The villain from that cartoon is released from jail many years later and immediately starts rebuilding his army of bank robbing robots, but finds he needs help from others to do it.
Really well done!
November 20, 2024
A 30’s era supervillain is released from jail and is full of resentment - still wearing his tuxedo. He rebuilds his super-robot with vengeance in mind - vengeance against everyone. But at some point he discovers these people he’s meeting are actually nice, rather than just getting in his way. But things don’t go perfectly in his isolated lair…
January 18, 2025
I’m not sure who the audience of this book is supposed to be. It’s extremely clean, and the art is straightforward. But it’s not really a kid book because it’s not funny and the story is a long one about an old supervillain learning to change his ways. The whole thing is fine, and has a good message, but I think most would find it relatively boring.
May 1, 2023
Reading 2023
Book 58: The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies
Graphic novel reviewed for ages 8 and up. Story about an evil genius just out of prison hoping to resume his work. This was a good story and great art. My rating 4⭐️.
Book 58: The Last Mechanical Monster by Brian Fies
Graphic novel reviewed for ages 8 and up. Story about an evil genius just out of prison hoping to resume his work. This was a good story and great art. My rating 4⭐️.
April 23, 2024
Love this book! An entertaining yarn that grabs hold and keeps you turning the pages. Intriguing, sympathetic characters dealing with deep life issues such as aging, legacy and unfulfilled potentials — while never derailing the main plot involving an ex-con mad scientist and his robot. Brilliant!
May 6, 2025
Are you actually kidding me there's a friendly robot here and he's more morally complex than my uncle rodney who sells cocaine to 17 year olds but not in such a repulsive way.
Rodney, if you're reading this, take a look in the mirror mate.
Rodney, if you're reading this, take a look in the mirror mate.
November 28, 2022
4.5 stars
December 11, 2022
A delightful graphic novel with historical connections. I loved the characters, especially Lillian, the intrepid engineer. Great story of redemption with cliff-hanging drama.
June 26, 2023
Different story line. Loved the characters.
October 24, 2023
Docked one star for librarian pandering. Just don't.
September 19, 2023
No sé. Esperaba otra cosa. Hay partes que no he entendido.
Un malvado sale de la cárcel y quiere volver a hacer el mal. Luego cambia y decide que quiere dejar un legado. Todo eso, con el marco general de la inteligencia artificial.
Me hubiese gustado que se hubiese hablado más de los problemas del desarrollo de la tecnología y de cómo podría afectar a la sociedad.
Un malvado sale de la cárcel y quiere volver a hacer el mal. Luego cambia y decide que quiere dejar un legado. Todo eso, con el marco general de la inteligencia artificial.
Me hubiese gustado que se hubiese hablado más de los problemas del desarrollo de la tecnología y de cómo podría afectar a la sociedad.
September 18, 2023
Libro muy emotivo y buen final.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews