Frankenstein as a Superhero? Frankenstein in the Generic System of Comic Books

Abstract

Comic books became a mass media in the United States in the late 1930s, a period during which Universal was producing its popular series of Frankenstein movies. The dual intermedial figure–the scientist and the creature–became a source of inspiration for the superhero stories which dominated this new media, through quotations, borrowings or more sustained engagements, as in the case of Dick Briefer’s Frankenstein. Though the 1954 Comics Code ostensibly prohibited its use in comic books, Frankenstein has constantly interacted with the superhero genre since that period. This article uses a chronological approach to examine this generic compatibility, which never becomes a full assimilation, and the evolving functions of these intermedial exchanges.