Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Frank Frazetta's Creatures
Image Comics
Remender, Bergting & Hanley

The Frank Frazetta line of comics rolls along with perhaps its boldest incarnation to date. This is a comic that takes a president and turns him into a warrior fighting against the supernatural. You read that right. Theodore Roosevelt was known as a rough rider and as president, but in this story he is also a Ghostbuster. Or maybe he’s Indiana Jones. He’s something, but whatever he is, he kicks ass.

The issue begins with the setup where Teddy Roosevelt is still in the dying days of the old west. He’s wandering around with his own kind of posse. This kind fights the supernatural.

True to Ghostbusters, they find a glowing green pit and old Teddy dives in with his pack. He finds a demon sacrificing a local. Teddy fights this creature and eventually loosens its soul. The soul travels to Mars in search on some help.

This sequence provides the first minor problem I have with this issue. Teddy uses some sort of hand held dial to communicate with someone. It’s not clear if he is talking to his posse on the outside or if this disk is some sort of gateway to another time. I say this because the voice on the other end says the following, “fifth inning here at Dodgers Stadium.” This is a problem because a) the Dodgers didn’t play in Dodger Stadium until long after Teddy was dead and b) the Dodgers weren’t called the Dodgers in 1900, but they were called Bridegrooms. If that wasn’t obscure enough the disk then says, “Have a Coke and a smile…” which references a 1970s Coca Cola ad. I think a little explanation would have been in order as to what this thing was doing. I grant you that this is a complaint placed about a comic where a president fights demons with secret fleets of Zepplins, but whatever.

The demon escapes to Mars and convinces the Martian to invade Earth to gain Teddy’s power source, a gem. Years go by and Roosevelt, the President now, gets the call that some gorillas have invaded the Washington Monument and set up some weird light on top of it. Teddy investigates with his fleet of Zepplins and gives the gorillas a beat down.

Later, the real battle begins with the Martians. Old Teddy looses his power source, but in an odd twist, the Martians are betrayed by the demon. All hell breaks loose in the end with a surprise character coming in to keep this thing open a crack for future stories.

I loved this comic. I thought it had the right mix of humor and action with some crazy supernatural science to boot. The comic even uses the spear that stabs Christ (just as in the Indiana Jones story in Volume 2 of the Omnibus), which only bolsters its connection to the Indy genre. That doesn’t mean the comic was perfect though.

The artwork has been the strength of the Frazetta line to date, but not in this issue. I found the art confusing in some spots. To a point where I literally didn’t know what I was looking at. I found it to detract from the story at the wrong times. This is one full goggle deduction.

Also, I thought the character interaction was very bland. I never got the impression that Teddy was the universal leader. I felt his lines of dialogue could have been swapped with his teammates too easily. I would have preferred him to have more of a booming presence.

Still, for a comic on this level it pulled something pretty cool. It’s certainly worth checking out if you like strange monsters and a good laugh.

3.5 out of 5 geek goggles.


Frank Frazettas Creatures #1 (Cover A)
Frank Frazettas Creatures #1 (Cover B)