The Superman Monster is a DC Comics series published under the Elseworlds imprint that mashes up Superman with the story of Frankenstein.
Sometime after Commissioner James Gordon told his story to Peregrine White, White gives his own tale where a man named Vicktor Luthor sought to create life after learning the secrets of Kryptonian science from the programming onboard a rocket containing an infant skeleton. Luthor succeeds in creating a man, but is repulsed by what he's loosed upon the world.
Compare with Batman: Castle of the Bat, another story consisting of a retelling of Frankenstein that uses a famous DC superhero as the monster.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Ugliness: Subverted. The Superman Monster comes to life as hideous as the monster was described in the original novel, but he eventually becomes as handsome as the standard version of Superman.
- Adaptation Name Change:
- Lex Luthor has his forename changed to Vicktor.
- Lois Lane is instead named Eloise Edge.
- The Kents become the Kants, with the Superman Monster's adopted human alias being Klaus Kant rather than Clark Kent.
- Composite Character:
- The Superman Monster is a creation of Luthor and initially appears pale and deformed, bringing Superman's flawed duplicate Bizarro to mind.
- In addition to being the equivalent to Lois Lane, Eloise Edge fulfills the roles of both Victor Frankenstein's fiancee Elizabeth Lavenza (being engaged with Vicktor Luthor) and the monster's bride (Vicktor resurrects her after she is killed using the same methods with which he created the Superman Monster, only for her to leave him for the monster).
- Death of a Child: Baby Kal-El did not survive the trip from Krypton and is a skeleton by the time his rocket makes it to Earth.
- Decomposite Character: In this continuity, Kal-El perished before his rocket made it to Earth, with Superman being a separate being Luthor creates from the information he learns from the rocket's hologram of Jor-El.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While it initially seems that Vicktor Luthor is only after Eloise’s finances to fund his experiments, it’s ultimately proven that he truly did love her when he was willing to use the same process that created the Superman Monster to bring her back, even after the way it backfired the first time.
- Frankenstein's Monster: The premise is Vicktor Luthor creating a monster from dismembered corpses under the guidance of Kryptonian science.
- He Knows Too Much: Vicktor Luthor shoots the man he buys corpses from to prevent him from spreading word of his experiments.
- Mythology Gag:
- One panel depicts the Superman monster lifting a carriage, copying the depiction of Superman lifting a car on the cover of his comic book debut Action Comics issue 1.
- Luthor's professors, all outraged by his experiments and theories, are this world's counterparts of Paul Westfield, Dabney Donovan and Emil Hamilton, all Mad Scientists to some extent in regular continuty, with Westfield and Donovan in particular being among the founders of Project Cadmus, which creates life all the time.
- The "resurrection man" Vicktor employs resembles Resurrection Man.
- This Superman wears the costume the canon Superman wore right after he came back to life.
- Related in the Adaptation: Lois Lane's equivalent Eloise Edge is the daughter of Burgomaster Edge, the equivalent to Morgan Edge.
- Replacement Goldfish: The Kants regard the Superman Monster as a substitute for their deceased son Klaus Kant.
- Shared Universe: Takes place in the same continuity of Batman: Two Faces, as made evident by both stories having the Framing Device of Commissioner James Gordon and Peregrine White telling each other stories.
