Frankenstein: New World

The World of Hellboy: Standalone Books

by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Thomas E. Sniegoski

Safely tucked away inside the hollow earth where humanity survived after Ragna Rok, precocious young Lilja receives visions of a new darkness taking root on the surface.

Defying her elders, Lilja awakens the timeless oracle—once known as Frankenstein—to investigate the warnings and, perhaps, even explore the new world above.

Frankenstein: New World, from Mike Mignola, Thomas Sniegoski, Christopher Golden, artist Peter Bergting, and colorist Michelle Madsen, explores a new chapter in the world of Hellboy!

Collects Frankenstein: New World #1–#4.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fantasy, Comic Book, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

112 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2023

About the author

Mike Mignola was born September 16, 1960 in Berkeley, California and grew up in nearby Oakland. His fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age (he doesn't remember why) and reading Dracula at age 13 introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore from which he has never recovered.

In 1982, hoping to find a way to draw monsters for a living, he moved to New York City and began working for Marvel Comics, first as a (very terrible) inker and then as an artist on comics like Rocket Raccoon, Alpha Flight and The Hulk. By the late 80s he had begun to develop his signature style (thin lines, clunky shapes and lots of black) and moved onto higher profile commercial projects like Cosmic Odyssey (1988) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989) for DC Comics, and the not-so-commercial Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (1990) for Marvel. In 1992, he drew the comic book adaptation of the film Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics.

In 1993, Mike moved to Dark Horse comics and created Hellboy, a half-demon occult detective who may or may not be the Beast of the Apocalypse. While the first story line (Seed of Destruction, 1994) was co-written by John Byrne, Mike has continued writing the series himself. There are, at this moment, 13 Hellboy graphic novel collections (with more on the way), several spin-off titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien and Witchfinder), three anthologies of prose stories, several novels, two animated films and two live-action films staring Ron Perlman. Hellboy has earned numerous comic industry awards and is published in a great many countries.

Mike also created the award-winning comic book The Amazing Screw-on Head and has co-written two novels (Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and Joe Golem and the Drowning City) with best-selling author Christopher Golden.

Mike worked (very briefly) with Francis Ford Coppola on his film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), was a production designer on the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and was visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). He lives somewhere in Southern California with his wife, daughter, a lot of books and a cat.

Reviews

[Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really solid start in dark fantasy from Mike Mignola. Shocker, it’s fantastic! More worldbuilding and intrigue in 94 pages than most books 4x the length. Frankenstein, frog people, ancient gods, and so much more.

[Drew Canole · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts off with a strong first issue. What is this!? We see what happened to the world after the apocalypse in BPRD. It's a cool idea!

But it just falls flat. The plotting and pacing is terrible. There was no quality control here. Literally... a blue creature stabs one of our main characters... she falls to the ground. The next panel our allies are with her worried about her wound. What the hell happened to the blue creature!? He just disappears, never to be mentioned or addressed. We have to assume our Frankenstein character killed him in between panels I guess? There's enough story here to be 12+ issues, all crammed into 4.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this, but really it left me a little confused. I'm not sure exactly what the ending was about, and even the story itself seemed to be a little random. I couldn't really place this story in the overall Hellboy Universe, but that could just be me. Overall a decent read, but not on the level of most Hellboy Universe series.

[Matty Dub · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such a disappointment.
Gone are the days of quality control in the Mignolaverse.
The writing team crams too much in too small a space, nothing breathes like it should. The pace is janky and unpleasant, everything feels rushed. The whole Murk story was half-baked and poorly executed, it would’ve been better excised from the story.
The writers fail miserably at foreshadowing.
This honestly felt like it was written by a 12 year old.

The art by Bergting does what it can with the mediocre tale and the horrible colouring by Madsen. Seriously everything is so bright, it looks like she coloured it all with a 10 crayon crayola set. Doesn’t matter if it’s over or under ground, the same bright colours with zero nuances abound everywhere.

Even for Mignolaverse fans, this is a hard sell. For years now most books have had shitty writers on them. I miss Mignola and Arcudi so much! I’m not sure if it’s DH or the editors pushing for this, I don’t know if it’s a budget thing but it sucks to see that wonderful universe diminished by incompetence like that.

[milo in the woods · Rating 2 out of 5]

i borrowed this from my library's online database kind of randomly, and i just don't know what the intention of this graphic novel is. it is the prologue to a story, but it was published three years ago and it doesn't seem to have been continued.

the art style is not my favourite, but i did actually really enjoy the sketchbook pages that were included at the end. i also like the worldbuilding: frankenstein as the oracle, and the humans living in the underworld. however, like i said, it is not a story with a conclusion at all.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why even call it Frankenstein? This is really imaginative, a treat for the eyes, but trading on Frankenstein seems lazy, there is a rich bunch of things unique to the world building inside "from the world of hellboy" trades from Dark Horse. This is properly Fantastic Voyage material that is interesting enough on its own.

[Dylan Schnabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a review copy from the publishers & Edelweiss.

I really wanted to like this one. I'm not deep into the Mignolaverse, but I'd understood this could stand relatively on its own. Heck, I love Frankenstein's monster being expanded on as a character, and I thought I'd give this a try. It turns out, I do think it can stand entirely on its own.

Well, it had all the potential to be something special, but it fell a little bit flat. There's a *lot* here. Heck, I think if this was 8 or even 12 issues, a lot of my problems could have been resolved, but there are only four.

The Murk storyline needed a lot more flesh. I could tell they wanted to really emphasize the dread it'd induce, but then there needed to be more death and decay or something. The frog storyline felt rushed, as well, which robbed it of any real heft.

The coloring was also a bit of a knock for me. I really felt like there should have been a more visual difference below ground and above. That being said, I really dug the art. Frankenstein looked great, and I loved the design of the first set of frogs. The other evolved animals throughout were awesome to look at, as well.

On top of all that, the main story feels about half-way done. That's not necessarily a huge problem, as I'm hoping this story thread gets picked up in a later run, but the conclusion we get feels so empty, like they ended it there because they got to four issues, not because it's a good place to end.

Ultimately, I think this can be a good jumping off point for more stories in this "New World", and it definitely makes me want to go back and read the related works taht came before. I just wish this entry was a little bit stronger overall.

[Jack Kuper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. There is so much here to unpack for a beginning that seems monumental.

At the end of Hellboy, all was separate with a completely fresh start for a new world, while the past was buried deep. Now, it seems inevitable that existences will mix. As a new evil rises, heroes will rise to fight it.

I did not realize how confused the ending of the Hellboy saga left me until this story showed the aftermath, making clear how the different events of Ragna Rok played out to create the new earth, giving me a MUCH better appreciation for that final arc.

I hope this is the start of a big new story/the main continuation of the Hellboy world post-Hellboy. The world is so strange and wonderful. Keep it going!!!

Also, I am super excited to see what role the “Star Lady” plays in the New World!!!!

[Etain · Rating 2 out of 5]

This doesn't even feel like a Mignolaverse book. The new world is a really interesting concept but exploring it is a bit inherently iffy. It makes it lose its mythic quality so to explore it with a new writer and new artist starring a very minor character and annoying child is profoundly stupid. Basically nothing at all happens in this story and the mythology of the frog people feels just completely made up like a teenager writing their first fantasy world. It's so disheartening that a hellboy book can fail at mythology.
The mythology was always my favorite part 😞

[Sol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm tired, boss. This metaseries reached its natural endpoint, and even that was stretched out beyond necessity. Hellboy's blood creating the world of the new men, Liz a sleeping prophet, humanity surviving in Shambhala, those were inspired images. Images. They are not enhanced by the pale elaboration here. If Mignola must allow the dilution of his mythology with unnecessary spinoffs, don't let them tread past the moment of sublimity and kill it. Just give me a damn Gall Dennar caveman series.



It's especially painful because I really liked Frankenstein Underground and Frankenstein Undone looked it could have been interesting before it was canned. This series adds little to nothing to his character, and the voice of the Hyperborean priestess is nowhere to be found. There's an annoying kid. There's a generic hungry demon making zombies (implied to be the remnants of the lingering hatred of humanity killed in the apocalypse, but still). If Stenbeck was doing the art, at least I could look at that. It's not the worst comic art, and going for a sort echo of Garden of Souls in the wildlife of the new Eden is a decent idea, as are the colours atypical of a Hellboy story, but neither is it great.



Little to nothing happens even within the limited purview of this spinoff, ending on the implication that it'll continue. No thank you. I don't want to see more naked Liz that badly.

[Mikael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been trying to follow Mignola, starting with Hellboy, then B.P.R.D. over to B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth, and the spinoffs with Abe Sapien, Rasputin and a few others. I've missed a few since it's quite hard to keep track of which albums are released, in what series and so on as local stores have a hard time tracking new albums for me, and bigger websites like Amazon are a mess to navigate.

Anyway, with the risk of being completely off track, this story felt like a continuation of the Hell on Earth-series, but at a much later time in history. Meaning Earth has already been destroyed a long time ago and a new civilization has spawned from the invading monsters. And then there's a handful of human survivors, plus Frankenstein, or he actually looks like a zombie at first, but as it turns out later he can bleed so I assume he is not.

Anyway again, however much I liked Hell on Earth (and even though I probably misunderstood a lot of the story and it wasn't all clear to me whether it was finished or not), this new world feels even better. I like the story, the illustrations, all of it. It feels like returning to continue reading a great series, I hope it is.

I really hope there will be at least a few additions to this storyline and not just one single standalone album.

[Joseph R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this sequel to Frankenstein: Under Ground, the Monster has been living for decades, maybe centuries, as an oracle to the small colony of humans who made it into the hollow earth before the surface world was overwhelmed. He's been sitting around getting old. Things change when a young girl's prophetic vision shows her a doom coming for them. Defying the tribe's elders, she approaches Frankenstein, who sets out to investigate the girl's claims. She tags along (against the wishes of both the elders and Frankenstein). Their fantastic journey leads them into a conflict between some frog people and some fish people. A deeper problem is hinted at as a new enemy, hungry for the power that makes Frankenstein immortal, appears.

The deeper problem is only hinted at, as if preparing readers for a sequel. Unfortunately, that's the most interesting part of the story. The world looks amazing but the story is very so-so. If the conflict got going later on, I'd be interested in more.

Barely recommended. I hope there's a better sequel coming.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another World of Hellboy read that fails to explain how it connects to anything else, but at least Frankenstein: New World has a decent standalone tale. Basically, Frankenstein awakens in Hollow Earth and goes on a brief adventure with a young girl while various evil forces build in the background. The pair save a society of frog people.

It's pretty straightforward. The art is decent, if you like looking at a lot of frog and lizard people. There are hints at connections to other material (that Hyperborean sword shows up), but they don't really pay off. Does anything ever pay off in the World of Hellboy?

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now I knew that along with Hellboy Mike Mignola had a number of other projects to work on many of which were part of the wider Hellboy universe.

Now some of these books are obvious as to where they fit in while others are so tangential that its almost impossible (or just incredibly tenuous) however this book honestly caught me off guard. As such I will try not to give away any spoilers but I would say that when you see the connection its impressive/

so what of this story - well it does not help that I came in to the second volume so yes I have to go back and find the first but for now I would say that this is the weird world of Mike Mignola in full force and if you like Hellboy you'll love this and not just for the obvious reasons

[Adan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting start to the world that comes after the end of the world. Frankenstein is the only person left from the old world, and he’s going on a new adventure thanks to the visions a girl named Lilja is having. The New World above is pretty gnarly looking, like a cross between Hollow Earth stuff and alien landscapes. The Murk is an interesting future problem, but this collection was more focused on introducing the New World to us, along with many of its inhabitants. The only real drawback was how annoying Lilja could be at times, though I think that’s mostly kids-in-an-apocalypse syndrome. Kids in an apocalypse or post-apocalypse are always annoying.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frankenstein: New World, by Mike Mignola
No resemblance at all to Mary Shelley’s original mythology. Think “Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti westerns in a creepy primordial fantasy land.” ***
#1 – “They are called ‘humans.’ And they are all that remain of their kind.”
#2 – “So beautiful, and so quiet, it makes me want to sing!” – the young girl Lilja
#3 – “Like the spore that fertilized that ancient evil, all it wants to do ..is spread, grow, reproduce.”
#4 – “No turning back now.” - Frankenstein

[Books For Decaying Millennials · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this courtesy of my local library. An excellent continuation of the hellboy universe , that succeeds in forging a new path. Peter Bergtings art is a loving call back to the comics of heavy metal magazine.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very nice art and fun story that works on its own and reminds me of Zelda a little bit.

[Craig Randall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read! Different. Cool to see where the world goes. I miss HB. Intrigue, and I’ll will continue to read the series.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Frogenstein

[Howell Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this more interesting than Mignola's other Frankenstein book, but at four issues, it left me with questions about the world.

[zackxdig · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a Frankenstein and frog monsters and some resurrections. It all seemed like it was framed into such short runtime.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting post-apocalyptic story. I liked the pronged sword and the relentless creature of darkness. Who is the girl in amber?

[Steven Shinder · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how the setting and creatures look. That's about it.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short & sparse, but the art carries the tale.

[shanesama84 · Rating 4 out of 5]

El universo de Hellboy de Mike Mignola se sigue expandiendo con la incorporación al catálogo de Norma Editorial el nuevo título "Frankenstein: El nuevo mundo". Una nueva aventura en una tierra transformada tras los acontecimientos del final de AIDP.

A cargo del guión de este cómic están Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden y Thomas Sniegoski que nos portaran una nueva visión de Frankenstein. Peter Bergting nos deleita con un magnífico dibujo con unos paisajes llenos de fantasía y la colorista Michelle Madsen que destaca por sus tonos llamativos y atrayentes en esta obra.

Desde la seguridad de la Tierra Hueca en la que la humanidad sobrevivió tras el Ragna Rok, la precoz Lilja, recibe visiones de una nueva oscuridad que aflora en la superficie.

Lilja desafía a los ancianos y despierta al eterno oráculo, antaño conocido como Frankenstein, para investigar las advertencias y quizás explorar el nuevo mundo de arriba.

Un nuevo mundo que dista mucho de lo que fue en su día y que pondrán tanto a Lilja como a Frankenstein en grandes apuros. Por lo que tendremos intriga y acción a raudales.

Si te fascina el universo de Hellboy sin duda alguna esta obra tiene que estar en tu colección.

[Jack T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feb 2024 5/5
Aug 2024 5/5