Zenescope - Omnibusted #53: The Chronicles Of Dr. Herbert West

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Omnibuster

Wester Week continues, Ticketholders!

Yes, that's what I'm going with, two days into a three-part theme week where I'm celebrating Easter by looking at three versions of the Reanimator story, beginning with yesterday's review of H.P. Lovecraft's original, Herbert West: Reanimator. That's why Easter Week is now Wester Week, get it?

Anyway, today, I'll be setting fresh eyes on the discontinued corpse (but according to the Wikipedia article on Lovecraft's story, it's just on an almost twenty-year hiatus, which is hilarious) of Zenescope Entertainment's The Chronicles Of Dr. Herbert West.

First referenced in Retrospective continuity as a film that Tracy Russell is watching in the first Wonderland Annual, Chronicles was meant to be a six-issue miniseries that began releasing in September 2008. Only three issues were published before the series was canceled (or put on indefinite yatus, if a seldom-updated Wikipedia article is to be believed), and although it was never finished or collected in trade format, digital editions of the three available issues exist on ComiXology and through other methods (the latter of which include credits pages).

The first issue is a fairly direct adaptation of the first, "From the Dark" chapter of Lovecraft's serial, with the changes being as follows:

• Time period is shifted from the early twenties to the late nineties.
• The setting is moved from Arkham to Quincy, Pennsylvania (perhaps to avoid a copyright dispute with DC, though Miskatonic University is still a thing).
• The assistant is gender-flipped to a woman named Megan (with whom West is romantically involved, and she's kind of a crazy simp with moral boundaries, so their continued working relationship makes more sense than it originally did).
• There is an intro devoted to explaining West's atheism and obsession with cheating death.

My only real qualm with the series so far is its use of Lovecraft's original text for internal monologue and narration purposes. It worked well enough in the Call and Madness comics, when Lovecraft's stories were being adapted into a journal for a fictional version of the author himself. But here, 1920s prose in masculine voice (agendered at best) is used for the inner thoughts of a 90s woman, and it's an incredibly awkward fit in my view.

The second issue continues things as an adaptation of the "Plague-Dæmon" chapter of Lovecraft's story, here focusing on the professional and personal rivalry between West and Stein (a character original to this telling, created to reference Reanimator's Frankenstein inspiration) as there were no newsworthy epidemics in either the late '90s or 2000s to serve as a timely reference (typhoid was relevant to '20s readers). Stein is a plot stand-in for Dean Halsey here (while Halsey is a character in this version as well, some alterations were made to the plot, leading to Stein being Reanimated as the "cannibal murderer" here instead of Halsey). The term, "cannibal murderer," has its own set of problems, as duh, eating someone probably will kill them, so it's redundant, and out of context it sounds like it refers to someone who murders cannibals, but I'm just being pedantic for the sake of having something to say beyond "this issue adapts this chapter and makes these changes, rinse, repeat, Re-Agent, Reanimator).

Well, shit; I can already tell from the cover (and having "read" the original story) which chapter is getting adapted this time.

And yeah, it's the much-hated (by nice, non-racist people) "Six Shots By Midnight." Instead of some random street boxer, the Reanimated hulk is one of the gang members that West made a deal with for fresh...materials in the first issue, and the grieving family whose son gets eaten by the hulk is Hispanic rather than Italian. Most importantly, though, this issue isn't vehemently, repulsively racist like the chapter it adapts, so I like it. And the narration has gradually modernized and feminized over the course of these three issues, so it doesn't feel as awkward as it did at first. More bonus points!

We also got more information about West's...haunting motivations that suggest something very Zenescope may be manipulating him into increasingly sinister actions to exploit his Re-Agent for its own ends, but The Chronicles Of Dr. Herbert West ended there despite the company appearing confident that they would release more issues.

Judging by the above preview page, Zenescope had intended to skip "The Scream Of the Dead" and adapt "The Horror From the Shadows" for issue #4. Based on how the series handled contemporization so far, I can assume it would follow West and Megan as field medics in the Iraq War rather than World War I, but leave much of the rest of the narrative unchanged as West experiments with Reanimating dismembered bodies and individual organs.

Beyond the fifth issue (and the sixth?) possibly adapting "The Tomb-Legions," I can only suggest plot points based on how Zenescope would end a miniseries like this. Maybe Stein comes after Megan when the headless soldier breaks him out of the asylum (oh, yeah; they call it Arkham Mental asylum in the third issue, no cap, do not sue). Or Megan dies and West has to use Re-Agent on her and bad things happen again because he's too impatient and desperate to learn anything. Or some random supernatural nobody shows up to steal the Re-Agent and West is dragged to Hell by the corpses of his victims and loved ones.

But we may never know. What we did get is a solid, inoffensive adaptation (if a little too adherent for its own necessity at times), so give this impromptu trilogy the attention it deserves, and maybe annoy Zenescope until they finish the other half of the story (just not in a Snyder fanboy kind of way, because that's bullying). Also, please Stay Tuned and remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can cheat death with my online presence, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

76

Re-Omnibuster,

Out.