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Quote1 Look at me! What do you see?! Not a man you could love -- but instead, some hideous -- at best pitiful -- monster! Quote2
The Frankenstein Monster[src]

History

1788-1798[]

Frakenstein's Monster (Earth-616) from Frankenstein Vol 1 1 0001

Creation[5]

In 1788, Victor Frankenstein left his family estate in Geneva, Switzerland to study natural science at the University of Ingolstadt. While there, he became obsessed with the idea of recreating life from dead tissue and began robbing graveyards in order to acquire body parts. He stitched the various body parts together and subjected the patchwork creature to chemical treatments and electrolysis. Frankenstein succeeded in bringing his creation to life. Horrified by the Creature's grotesque features, Victor abandoned his creation and returned to Geneva. The Monster was left to fend for himself.[5]

The Creature wandered the forests for days and nearly died of starvation. He eventually came upon a grizzly bear, which he wrestled and killed. After consuming the raw meat, he skinned the carcass, and fashioned a makeshift coat, which he continued to wear for several years.[6]

As weeks passed, the Monster continued wandering the countryside, doing his best to avoid human contact. The entire time, however, he nursed a hatred for the man responsible for his miserable existence – Victor Frankenstein.[6]

His travels eventually brought him to a small cottage owned by the de Lacy family. The Monster observed the family for several days, and discovered that the family patriarch was a blind old man. Here was a being who would not shriek in horror at the monster's grotesque form. The Monster concealed himself in a stable for several days until he had a chance to catch the old man alone. As luck would have it, a wolf had entered the cottage and threatened to kill old de Lacy. The Monster rose to his rescue and killed the beast, then slowly nursed de Lacy back to health. Before long however, de Lacy's children returned to their cottage, and mistook the Monster for a savage murderer. Shouting their lamentations, they chased the Monster away from the house and back into the woods.[6]

Eventually, the Creature found his way to Geneva, where he learned that his creator's family lived. Still nursing a deep-seated hatred for all things Frankenstein, he decided to exact his revenge by brutally murdering Victor's young brother, William. To further compound the tragedy, he framed the Frankenstein servant, Justine Moritz, for the crime. Justine was sentenced and hanged for the crime, but Victor knew that the true murderer of poor William was his own pathetic creation.[5]

Victor met with the Monster for the second time in a mountain cave far to the north of the family estate.[5] The Monster told him of his experiences and demanded that Victor use his scientific prowess to create a mate for him. Victor felt he had little choice but to acquiesce, so he set upon creating a female version of the Monster. The Monster kept a close vigil over Victor's work, and even assisted him by providing a fresh human heart for the creation. Victor brought the second creature to life, but was so disgusted by the sight of it that he immediately destroyed it before it had barely taken its first breath.[6]

The Monster was outraged. His need for revenge against Victor Frankenstein intensified and he satisfied this need by strangling Victor's close friend, Henry Clerval.[6] He then tracked down Victor and his new bride, Elizabeth on their wedding night, and brutally murdered her as well.[7]

Consumed by grief, Victor endeavored to track the creature down and finish him off for good. He chased him as far as the North Pole, but by this point, Victor's health had declined significantly. He contracted pneumonia and passed away without ever having seen his task to its conclusion.[7]

Despite his hatred for Victor Frankenstein, the Monster was eerily distraught over the loss of the only "father" he had ever known. Now, he yearned for nothing more than his own destruction – if such a thing was even possible. He began walking across the frozen plains in search of a good place to build himself a funeral pyre. As he journeyed, he entered warmer climates and discovered a small tribal camp. A community of brute Neanderthal men discovered the Monster and attacked him. None of them, however, could overcome the Monster's strength and he easily battered them back. The tribe's chieftain recognized the creature's great strength and ordered his warriors to stand down. He invited the Monster to stay with them and he became an honorary member of their tribe.[8]

Frankenstein's Monster (Earth-616) from Frankenstein Vol 1 2 0001

Frankenstein's Monster out in the cold

Some days later, a nomadic tribe of rival barbarians stumbled upon the community and raided the camp. The Monster joined forces with his Neanderthal friends and fought back, but most of them died in the battle. The barbarians tried their best to destroy the creature, but ultimately failed. During the raid, the Neanderthal chieftain was mortally injured. The Monster took the dying man and traveled far away with him so that he could die in the tradition of his people. After erecting a funeral pyre for the chieftain, a massive earthquake erupted beneath him. The Monster fell off of the icy precipice and landed into the frigid waters below. The extreme temperatures rendered him inert, and he remained trapped in the ice for the next hundred years.[8]

1898[]

In January of 1898, explorer Robert Walton IV mounted an expedition to the North Pole. Walton was the great-grandson of the explorer who first encountered Victor Frankenstein in 1798. His crew and he came upon the frozen remains of the Frankenstein Monster. Walton recognized the Creature from stories passed down to him, and ordered it brought on board. Several superstitious crew members took umbrage with Walton’s command and formed a mutiny. During the conflict, a fire broke out in one of the ship's lower cabins, and the intense heat thawed out the Frankenstein Monster.[5] Revived, the Creature lashed out and took a young cabin boy named Sean Farrell as hostage.[6] To make matters even worse, Walton's ship struck an iceberg, killing several crewmen.[7] Both Walton and Sean Farrell passed away, but before he died, Walton told the Creature that the last living descendant of his creator was still alive.[8]

Forging a small wooden raft for himself, the Monster began a personal voyage to track down the last Frankenstein.[8] The first leg of his journey brought him to a small hamlet in Scandinavia. While there, he discovered the local citizens preparing to execute a comely young woman named Lenore. Empathizing with Lenore's persecution, the Monster rescued her only to discover that the reason the villagers tried to kill her was because she was a werewolf. The Monster fought with the werewolf under the light of the full moon, and ultimately ended her existence using her father's silver-tipped sword.[9]

The Creature's quest eventually brought him back to the land of his creation – Germany. Returning to Ingolstadt, he entered the dilapidated Castle Frankenstein where he discovered a misshapen horde of mindless servants. These pathetic beings were the slaves of a military man named Colonel Blackstone. Blackstone had taken residence in Castle Frankenstein and had acquired a giant mutated spider that possessed the ability to steal the souls of others. Blackstone captured the Monster with the intent of having him converted into another mindless slave, but the Monster managed to free himself, and Blackstone was killed during the scuffle.[10]

Leaving Ingolstadt, the Monster continued his journey throughout the Bavarian countryside. There he met an old gypsy woman named Marguerita who told him that she knew information concerning the last Frankenstein. The Monster remained with Marguerita for a short time, until he discovered that Marguerita was in fact a vampire. The vampire tricked the Monster into helping her resurrect the Lord of All Vampires – Dracula.[11] Enraged by her treachery, the Monster slew Marguerita and fought with Dracula. Dracula attempted to drink the Monster's blood, but the long period of inactivity had greatly weakened the vampire and he was not prepared for a protracted battle with the Frankenstein Monster. He did manage to wound the Monster's throat, rendering him temporarily mute. Dracula fled from the cave and returned to Transylvania.[12]

Moments after the battle, Vincent Frankenstein, the grandson of Victor's brother, Ernst, entered the cave along with his hunchbacked giant assistant, Ivan. Recognizing Vincent as the last Frankenstein, he attacked him and would likely have strangled him to death, had Ivan not intervened. Ivan’s strength was prodigious enough to keep the Monster at bay. Frankenstein calmed the Monster down, and told him that he may be able to transplant his brain into a normal human body. The Monster, though still suspicious of Vincent's motives, agreed to go with him back to England, In the basement of a London townhouse, Vincent Frankenstein prepared the Monster for surgery. The creature quickly realized that Vincent actually planned on transplanting Ivan's brain into the Monster's body, an act which would certainly mean the end of the Monster's own life. In a moment of selflessness, Ivan refused to be a party to the death of another creature, and betrayed his master. Vincent shot Ivan and ran from the cellar. Vincent died soon after, but not because of the Monster. It was actually his maid, Betty, who took Frankenstein's life for failing to heal his ill wife, Lenore – a woman that Betty held great affection for. [13]

The Monster left the London estate, little realizing that Vincent was not the last of the Frankensteins as he had believed. Moments before she died, Lenore Frankenstein gave birth to a son, Basil.[14]

With no true direction in his life, the Monster returned to Switzerland. He found himself in an encounter with some wild dogs, who forced the creature to fall from an icy precipice into the cold waters below. Once again, the Monster was placed into suspended animation, and remained frozen in a block of ice for several decades.[15]

1974[]

Being found by a steam freighter several decades later, the Monster thawed out; however, this time it did not revive straight away and was taken to a freak show and put on display.[15]

Frankenstein's Monster (Earth-616) from Monster Unleashed Vol 1 2 0001

In a carnival[16]

He was later found by Derek McDowell who had become so obsessed with owning the Monster that his girlfriend, who didn't believe the Monster was real, decided to burn the Monster. This burned the woman badly, but the fire awakened the Monster who attempted to escape up a Ferris Wheel and was shot at by the army with a bazooka, falling to the ground in the rubble of the wheel.[16]

Falling back into unconsciousness, the Monster was bought out of the morgue by McDowell and shipped to Owen Wallach. McDowell found that he could control the Monster by using electricity and attempted to get use the Monster to bring a fresh body to transfer Wallach's brain into, since Wallach was dying. However, due to the Monster's strength this failed, so McDowell transferred Wallach's brain into the Monster's body. Waking up and finding himself in the Monster's body, Wallach killed McDowell and vowed to transfer the Monster's brain back and find himself a better body.[17]

Wallach then murdered his nurse, a witness, and threw McDowell's body into the river and travelled to a circus, where his aspect would go unnoticed, and found a male trapeze artist, James, whose body he intended to use. His appearance startled James' companion Gretchen, who fell to her death. Wallach then knocked out James and took him to his lab to perform the operation. Once there, he broke a rat cage for the sadistic pleasure of seeing the animals suffering. Wallach then started an automatic transplant to James, which he had developed with McDowell's knowledge, but one rat had survived his rampage and climbed through James' inert body, unaware of the sabotage it was performing. Once the transplant was done, Wallach's brain was physically in the body of the rat, and the Monster of Frankenstein was being controlled by an animal.[18]

Psycho James Sinoda (The Master)[19] was secretly monitoring Wallach's lab and, as he needed the Monster's brain in the Monster's body, he manipulated the events: Using voodoo magic, Sinoda resurrected McDowell, who climbed from the river as a zombie. Believing he was back to get his revenge on Wallach, McDowell drove his zombie body to the lab. He wanted to extract Wallach's brain and isolate it from any stimuli. Once there, he found technology that Wallach intended to use to automate brain transplants, and moved his brain from his rotten body to the inert body of James, a healthy victim of Wallach's plans. He used this body to capture the Monster and then replaced the brain controlling it with the Monster's original brain - but McDowell discovered that Wallach was not the brain controlling it. The Monster then woke up and killed McDowell.[20]

With James in the body of McDowell and the creature mute due to the fire, James begins to explain his backstory and what has happened while the Monster was "absent". As the story comes to a close, the Master begins to control the body of McDowell and uses him to bring the Monster to his lair before killing James, whom the Monster had began to feel a kinship to.[21] The Master requested the Monster join him in his plans for revenge but the Monster, enraged by the death of his friend, attacked Sinoda but was restrained by his minions and chained in a dungeon. Sinoda decided to not use the Monster in his plan, sending instead his other freaks.[19]The freaks succeeded at kidnapping Julia and chained her to the dungeon - next to Frankenstein's Monster. Sinoda then tortured Julia and, while doing so, he revealed his real face. The freaks were aghast at seeing his normal-looking face and opposed Sinoda - who turned his weapons against the freaks. When Sinoda killed his bent butler Bruno, the other freaks attacked him - as he was beautiful and he had trained them to attack beautiful things. Frankenstein's Monster broke his chains, damaging the dungeon's wall and causing a collapse that buried Sinoda and his freaks. The Monster left with an unconscious Julia in his arms - but when leaving he was met with the police, who believed him to be the freak who had kidnapped her. Fearing the police were out to kill the girl the Monster fled with her, through the forests, the city and even a zoo until the girl woke up, got scared of the Monster and fled in terror.[22]

Later, the Monster found himself on a train and met a girl who didn't find him monstrous to look at. The pair attempted to foil an assassination attempt on the President. However, it was revealed the President wasn't on the train and as the Monster took his leave with the girl still aboard, the train was blown up and the girl was killed.[23] Finding himself at a costume party, the Monster became interested in a woman dressed as a princess; however, later in the evening the woman's husband killed her and framed the Monster. Killing the husband in revenge, the Monster escaped into the night, sad at the loss of another who did not run from him.[24]

The Legion of the Unliving[]

At some point, the Monster was temporarily pulled out of time to serve in Kang the Conqueror's Legion of the Unliving to fight the Avengers. However, due to the fact that he was not dead but the bodies he was made of were, he was able to resist the mind control and wandered off from the rest of the group, were he discovered Donald Blake and attacked him, forcing Blake to turn into Thor. The two fought until Thor realized the Monster was also a prisoner and let him wander off.[25] The Monster later discovered the badly damaged body of the Vision and carried him to the Human Torch. He proceeded to protect the injured Avenger from attacks by both Wonder Man and Kang until the Legion was returned to their correct time, which in the Monster's case was presumably before he was frozen a second time.[26]

The Brotherhood of Baal[]

The Monster headed to Los Angeles, hearing about the Brotherhood of Baal's experiments in soul transference. He wanted them to transfer his soul into a new human body, and they told him that could be done once they perform a ritual sacrifice that just happened to involve Lissa Russell as the victim. Lissa's brother interrupted the ceremony as the Werewolf by Night, leading the Monster to fight him, eventually knocking him out and letting the cultists take the Werewolf as a replacement sacrifice. Before they could deliver the killing stroke, however, the Monster caught on that the soul transfer was only meant to allow a demon to possess his body, so he turned on the Brotherhood together with the Werewolf.[27]

Adam[]

He later befriended Ulysses Bloodstone and lived at his mansion, acting as its caretaker and calling himself Adam.

After Ulysses' death, Adam gave Ulysses' daughter Elsa Bloodstone the Bloodstone Choker and a new costume and joined her on numerous adventures fighting beings such as Dracula and Living Mummy.[citation needed]

Fear Itself Fearsome Four Vol 1 1 Textless

The Fearsome Four

The Fearsome Four[]

During the Serpent's War, Frankenstein's Monster formed a team called the Fearsome Four with She-Hulk, Howard the Duck, and Nighthawk to stop the Man-Thing, who found himself driven to an uncontrollable rage caused by the immense levels of fear generated by the Serpent's hammer-wielders across the world. Facing various alternate universe heroes and the Psycho-Man, brought to Earth by the Man-Thing's connection to the Nexus of All Realities, the Four were eventually able to confront their own fears and calm the Man-Thing, bringing an end to his rampage and saving the world, before going their separate ways.[28]

The Murder Circus[]

Frank reappeared, leading the Murder Circus in his search of Frankenstein relatives.[citation needed]

The All-New Howling Commandos[]

Frankenstein's Monster was later recruited by Phil Coulson to join his incarnation of the Howling Commandos in order to combat Dormammu's Mindless Plague.[29]

Attributes

Power Grid[32]
:Category:Power Grid/Fighting Skills/Poor:Category:Power Grid/Energy Projection/None:Category:Power Grid/Durability/Regenerative:Category:Power Grid/Speed/Below Normal:Category:Power Grid/Strength/Superhuman (800 lbs-25 ton):Category:Power Grid/Intelligence/Normal

Powers

Immortality: As the Frankenstein Monster was created through artificial means, he is effectively immortal. Although he physically resembles a recently deceased corpse, the Monster will not age beyond his current form. The cells of his body are not alive, and are not subject to cellular mitosis, which usually accompanies growth in normal human organisms. Not counting the 100 years that he spent in suspended animation, the Monster has been "alive" for over a century. Since the monster isn't technically "alive", he is also immune to all known Earthly diseases and infections.

Superhuman Strength: The Frankenstein Monster is superhumanly strong. The process that granted him life artificially enhanced his body's physical strength to levels beyond the human body's natural limits. At his peak, he can lift about 10 tons.

Superhuman Stamina: The Frankenstein Monster's musculature produces considerably less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of a normal human. At his peak, he can exert himself for up to 24 hours before the build up of fatigue toxins in his blood begins to impair him.

Superhuman Durability: The Frankenstein Monster's body is somewhat more durable and resistant to physical injury and pain than the body of an ordinary human. Firearms can injure the Monster depending upon the range and caliber of the weapon, but he still possesses a greater resistance against bullets than an ordinary human. He is also capable of withstanding much greater impact forces than an ordinary human without sustaining injury. He can withstand impacts that would cripple or kill an ordinary human with only mild discomfort.

Regenerative Healing Factor: The Monster, if injured, is able to rapidly regenerate damaged or destroyed tissue to a degree far beyond that of a normal human. Injuries such as bullet wounds and severe burns can fully heal within minutes to a few hours. He can't, however, regenerate severed limbs or missing organs. It is possible, however, that if he were to hold a severed limb in place long enough, his healing powers would regenerate the damaged connecting tissue.

Body Part Substitution: Adam, being the titular Frankenstein Monster, had an innate quality to take the appendages and extremities of both the living and the deceased in order to reapply any lost or destroyed beyond regenerative capacity bodily mass, doing so by transplanting foreign tissue samples from other beings unto himself in case of emergency.[30]

Abilities

Expert Combatant: The Frankenstein Monster is a formidable hand to hand combatant. While he has received no formal training, he has gained experience through more than a century of adventures.[citation needed]

Occult Expert: He is also something of an expert in the occult, having encountered a number of supernatural forces and beings throughout his existence.[citation needed]

Weaknesses

Limited Healing Abilities: The Monster's healing powers aren't able to heal the scars and decomposition that has already taken place. This is because his body is composed of body parts taken from various different corpses that were in variable degrees of decomposition before he was brought to life.[citation needed]

Vulnerability to Temperatures: The Monster is also vulnerable to extremes in temperature. Due to a bad experience very early in his existence, the Monster has a severe, almost irrational fear of fire, despite the fact his body would rapidly heal if he were able to douse the flames quickly. Although extreme levels of cold will cause him no physical damage, prolonged exposure will place him into a state of suspended animation.[citation needed]

Paraphernalia

Transportation

Formerly the Murder Circus train

Notes

  • The character of the Frankenstein Monster, as well as much of his supporting cast, was the vision of 19th century writer Mary Shelley. Shelley first published her work Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus in London in the year 1818. The Monster made his Marvel Comics debut in a flashback sequence from X-Men #40. He also made a brief flashback appearance (more closely resembling his Universal Pictures counterpart) in a film reel in Silver Surfer #7. In 1977, Marvel adapted Shelley's original work in Marvel Classics Comics Series Featuring Frankenstein #1.

Trivia

  • In Silver Surfer #7, the monster's creator is referred to as "Henry" Frankenstein, not Victor. Henry was the name given to Colin Clive's character in the 1931 Universal film Frankenstein. In all other canonical sources, Frankenstein is referred to by the name given to him by his creator - Victor.

See Also

Links and References

References

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