Skybound's Creature from the Black Lagoon by Dan Watters and Ram V

[Gaius]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/mo...ic-1235786821/

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is suiting up for another swim.

Skybound Entertainment, the Robert Kirkman-led company behind The Walking Dead and Invincible comics and its screen adaptations, is bringing the Creature, one of screenland’s most memorable monsters, to the four-walled world of comics.

Dan Watters (Lucifer) and Ram V (The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, Detective Comics) are writing Universal Monsters: Creature From The Black Lagoon Lives! The pair are known for their acclaimed works in the indie world and for DC.

It will be a four-issue limited series. Matthew Roberts, the co-creator of long-running Image title Manifest Destiny, is drawing the story with Dave Stewart acting as colorist.

The comic hails from Skybound’s partnership with Universal Products & Experiences and the first issue will hit comic shops April 24.

It’s the second title from the Universal partnership and follows the well-received limited series Dracula, by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds. The comics line is intended to pair bold-faced comic industry names with the studio’s stable of iconic horror creatures.

The story is not an adaptation of the 1954 black and white classic (Arthur Adams did that in 1993 for Dark Horse Comics) but is a modern day-set tale of suspense, intrigue, and terror that connects to the original movie. The limited series introduces new characters such as journalist Kate Marsden and serial killer Darwin Collier while also bringing back Dr. Edwin Thompson, the scientist whose face got mangled by the Gill-man and was later covered in bandages.

Per Skybound, the story sees journalist Marsden hunt a notorious serial killer in the heart of the Amazon. Hot on the trail of this madman, she soon encounters an unexpected new threat – the Creature from the Black Lagoon – and must determine if he is friend or foe.

The company is positioning the series for new readers and longtime fans alike.

“Dan Watters and Ram V are two of the most exciting writers in comics, and to be able to turn them loose with longtime Skybound creators Matthew Roberts and Dave Stewart has been an absolute treat,” said Skybound editorial director Alex Antone. “And while James & Martin’s Dracula was an adaptation of the original film, Creature is a brand-new story featuring beloved Gill-Man.”

Antone notes that each book in the Universal Monsters line will feel different from the last, with each creative team bringing their own unique flavor to the iconic horror characters.

Check out the first five pages and the covers below…

[Hypo]

Cool, guess Tynion/Simmonds's Dracula sold well enough for them to continue the Universal Monsters line.

[Gaius]

Gill Man's my favorite of the Universal Monsters so nice to see he's up next.

[thwhtGuardian]

Hopefully it's better than the Dracula adaptation, other than the awesome art that book was as dull as dishwater.

[Dr. Skeleton]

Color me intrigued. Hoping it's good.

[Gaius]

UNIVERSAL MONSTERS: CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON LIVES! #2 (OF 4)
WRITER: Ram V, Dan Watters
ARTIST / COVER A: Matthew Roberts, Dave Stewart
COVER B / COVER D: Francis Manapul
COVER C: Dani

MAY 29 / 32 pages / / -- / $4.99

Kate Marsden has miraculously survived, but just who—or what—is the creature that she saw?
As Doctor Thompson and Kate work to discover the truth, they come face to face with an elusive serial killer…who’s also the man that Kate has dedicated her life to destroying.

[Gaius]

[Gaius]

First issue was pretty good

[thwhtGuardian]

Dan Watters and Ram V's take on the Creature of the Black Lagoon succeeds in every way that the earlier Image adaptation of Dracula by James Tynion IV failed: it's fresh and exciting while still feeling recognizable as the original. Now, perhaps I'm being too harsh on Tynion's earlier work, by it's very nature adapting Dracula is going to necessarily harder as it's been made into a film purportedly over 200 times and has nearly as many comic book adaptations which obviously means finding a new angle is going to be tough. On the other hand the Gillman while certainly visually iconic as a Hollywood Monster only had three films originally by Universal, the latter two of which are little known or seen, a cameo in Monstersquad and the recent film The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro so as such has much more room for exploration and Watters and Ram V do just that, moving the creature to Peru instead of Brazil and adding in a plot of a reporter who is tracking down a serial killer who drowns their prey who just so happens to encounter the creature. Their's a great feeling of intrigue and true crime that is completely new but the myth of an aquatic off shoot of man remains and his mode of killing being similar to the serial killer brings some interesting comparisons that I'm excited to see developed