Universal Monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! - Volume 01 Issue 04

My Rating

“Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! – Part 04”

The Narcos are on the hunt for the man who left their brother headless and floating in the black waters of a Peruvian lagoon. Darwin Collier, the American serial killer and ex-marine, had trained the drug traffickers well, but killing one of them – or so they thought, was an instant death sentence in the world of kill or be killed. What the six men didn’t anticipate while hunting for their target in the dense Amazon jungle was a creature of the paleozoic age.

On the other side of the lagoon, Kate Marsden watches the man who almost murdered her a year ago in the icy waters of the Hudson River. Luck was never with her, it seems, as the American reporter had been taken prisoner while she attempted to stop him once and for all. Now Kate stands bound to a stalagmite formed deep inside a cavernous aquifer. Her eyes widened in shock as Darwin Collier approached her from the shadows. What had he done to his body? The man was a true homicidal maniac, but the way he mutilated his body showed he was truly insane.

Will Doctor Thompson and Christiano save Kate Marsden before she is turned into a true monster? Can Darwin Collier applease the Peruvian god of the black lagoon? How far will the Narcos go to exact revenge? Collect the series to find out!

Reviewer Notes

The Creature has come and gone now, but Image Comics has left fans with a nice modernized interpretation of the character. The story, writing, and art are very well done in this series. However, I’m a bit confused as to which version of the monster Dan Watters is trying to portray here. He hints at the Shape Of Water, but in that 2017 Guillermo del Toro film, the Creature had mystical powers of healing, which the original 1954 Creature of the Black Lagoon and this comic book version did not have. I guess we will have to settle for some type of happy medium, unless Image Comics funds another miniseries.

I enjoyed this series as a whole, but I do have to point out, as I have in other recent reviews, that in issue four, Dan Watters seems to have leaned on artist Matthew Roberts to pad the pages with oversize panels to eat up space for lack of story and dialog. I take off points in my ratings for that. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Creature art, but for $4.99 content is key.

I give issue four of “The Creature of the Black Lagoon Lives” three out of five stars. The series as a whole gets four out of five stars from me. If you are like me, a life-long Creature fan, I hope more comics are made about this sad, misunderstood monster.