Madame Frankenstein is a 2015 comic series written by James S. Rich and illustrated by Megan Levens and Joelle Jones.
In 1932, Vincent Krall sets out to create his perfect woman by reanimating the corpse of the love of his life. He'll soon discover, however, that man was never meant to peer beyond the veil between life and death, and a woman is not as easily controlled as he believes. As his monster becomes more conscious of who she was and who she is becoming, Vincent ends up with a lot more than he bargained for.
Mixing vintage horror with mythic drama, this graphic novel by writer Jamie S. Rich (You Have Killed Me) and smashing newcomer Megan Levens is guaranteed to send chills through even the warmest of hearts. Expect murder, betrayal, and some vintage Jazz Age parties.
This work provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Bi: While Gail briefly hits it off with the fire-spitter Vesuvias at the traveling carnival, she also exchanges brief looks with Hawaiian hula dancer Pualani.
- Downer Ending: Vincent Krall has officially gone mad and hacked Gail - who has just regained her memories of being Courtney Bow - to pieces, the disembodied woman still-living head begging for death under a glass display while he goes unpunished for the many deaths he was unrepentantly responsible for.
- Driven to Suicide: When the stock-market crashed, Henry’s father lept to his death as did others at the time.
- Evil Versus Evil: Vincent Krall (a hypocritical, misogynist Never My Fault murderer and grave robber with a God Complex) vs. Henry Lean (a Spoiled Brat that has tormented his adopted brother all of his life and denied him any form of friendship or love, also claiming no responsibility for essentially causing the car-crash that killed his then-girlfriend Courtney)
- Frankenstein's Monster: Galatea (or Gail for short) was created from the corpse of Courtney Bow repaired with disposed body parts and reanimated.
- Informed Deformity: While it is clear to the reader and some characters that she is not exactly the perfect female specimen (being bald and covered in surgical scars), Galatea is only ever stated as being in any way unattractive by Vincent (who is a misogynist). With everybody else, they either look to her with indifference or as a friend (with a police officer catching her loitering alone at night guessing that she has been through much hardship).
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: All throughout the comic, various characters interact with what they believe to be fairies. Considering that is is implied that Victor is addicted to morphine and Gail's mental state is most certainly in question, it is likely that they are simply a shared hallucination.
- Ms. Fanservice: Galatea is reanimated without any clothes on. Even with suture scars across her body and not hair on her head, she is not that hard to look at.
- Only a Flesh Wound: Near the end of the story, Vincent hacks off Galatea’s arm, only to find that it is still functioning inspite of being severed from the body. He then proceeds to hack her whole body to pieces and put her head in a display as a twisted form of punishment.
- Pygmalion Plot: The whole plot can be considered an adaptation of the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. Vincent creates Galatea (whom he purposefully names after the Greek character) with the intent of creating the perfect woman, but unlike the story of Pygmalion, Galatea does not love him back and he reveals his true colors as the true villain of the story.
- Straw Misogynist: While his Kick the Dog moments with Courtney pre-mortem might make you feel bad for him, make no mistake that he really is a scumbag. When he teaches the newly resurrected Gail proper etiquette, many of the lessons come across as rather dated in terms of gender-politics (let men order for her when out at a restaurant, speak only to a man when spoken to, etc). When taking her to a carnival, he is sure to show her "other images of womanhood" that she can "emulate" (most of which are erotic dancers). When she starts behaving more independently, he becomes angry and abusive, doling out harsh punishments while making rather sexist claims about women being indecisive.
- Villain Protagonist: Vincent Krall's actions in the story prove him to be the true villain of the story.
