Creature From The Black Lagoon Lives! Issue #1: A promising start to the return of a classic monster
The 1954 classic, Creature From The Black Lagoon is one of my favourite movies of all time and the Gill-Man is in my opinion, one of the greatest movie monsters ever conceived.
So when I subscribed to Global Comix and saw that the first issue of Dan Watters and Ram V’s Creature From The Black Lagoon Lives! was available, I just had to read it.
Set after the events of the original film and ignoring its sequels, the comic serves as a standalone sequel that follows Kate Marsden, a journalist who is on an investigation in Peru that’s seemingly connected to a past trauma and is otherwise, completely disconnected to Gill-Man
Whilst some people might question this creative decision by the writers, I think that it very much works in the issue’s favour as it means that readers who aren’t familiar with the original film don’t have to worry about feeling locked out and it also gives the story a different set up to the film which allows it to avoid feeling like it’s just an adaptation of the movie.
The lack of Gill-Man in this issue is also another decision that works in its favour as it allows the Creature to slowly be built up as a more sinister and scary presence compared to the family friendly tone of the film.
However, the length and pacing of the issue left me feeling mildly disappointed as the page count combined with the brisk pace of the story made it feel quite abrupt when the issue ends on a cliffhanger.
Credit for creating an appropriately creepy atmosphere must also go to the somewhat scratchy (in a good way) art style of Mathew Roberts. One scenes that particularly earns him my praises is near the end of the issue where we see Gill-Man for the first time. When I read this scene, I felt the exact same sense of dread and excitement as when I first watched the film and saw the Creature in full for the first time.
My main and only real criticism for the visual aspects of the book is that the series is in colour. Even though Dave Stewart’s realistic colouring style compliments Roberts’ art well, I think that I would have preferred that the series be in black and white to enhance the feeling of the book as a tribute to one of the best movies of the fifties era.
Overall, Creature From The Black Lagoons Lives! #1 is by no means perfect or particularly groundbreaking but it gives readers a strong opening to a promising reintroduction to one of the best but often most overlooked parts of the Universal Monsters canon.
8/10
