Destroyer

Title: Destroyer

Author: Victor LaValle

Date of First Publication: May 24, 2017

Place of Publication: BOOM! Studios

Type: Graphic Novel

Themes: ANDROID; BYRONIC HERO; POSTHUMAN; MAD SCIENTIST/MONSTER; RACE/POLITICS; SYMPATHETIC MONSTER

Critical Summary: In this rendition of Mary Shelley’s original text Frankenstein, author Victor LaValle crafts a story about love, loss, re-animation, and revenge. LaValle’s story picks up where Shelley’s novel leaves the reader. The Creature has not died and continues to live in the icy seclusion of Antarctica in the year 2017. He has adjusted to living a peaceful, quiet life with not further contact from humans… until a whaling ship discovers him and causes an altercation. This makes the Creature decide that humanity has ruined too many aspects of natural life, and therefore, should be completely and utterly obliterated.

Concurrently, 9,000 miles away, Dr. Josephine Baker (the last living descendant of Victor Frankenstein’s bloodline) works as a cutting-edge researcher in robotics and artificial intelligence. She’s an African American woman who’s recently lost her 12-year-old son Akai to police brutality. Through her escalating grief and obsessive need to restore justice, she uses Victor’s old journals and notes from his original experiment to bring back her son to life with the use of her access to modern and advanced technology. As Dr. Baker’s story with her son is unfolding, the Creature is making his way back to her unbeknownst to her knowledge. He plans to start his war against humanity by eliminating his relationship to the last living member of the Frankenstein family.

LaValle’s graphic novel heavily connects to Frankenstein in that it picks up where the original work left of. It’s also connecting Shelley’s themes of scientific creation and moral ambiguity with the modern-day themes of how technological advancement is changing us as a society. LaValle’s work also heavily relates to being part of an ostracized, minority population since he is telling the story from the perspective of both the Creature and an African American mother who’s just lost her son to institutionalized violence.

The graphic novel touches on androids through Akai’s creation—he is like and unlike the original Creature in that he is created through the most advanced and experimental technology available. Just as the Creature is a creation of the modern science of Victor’s time, Akai is the creation of his mother’s access to nano and robotic technology. The other theme which rings throughout the entire work is focused on Race and Politics. Akai is shot and killed by the Chicago police department—a story that rings too true since the updated media coverage of police shootings in 2015. LaValle works to create a story that is both new politically and known to many through using Shelley’s novel as a lens for the themes of love, grief, creation, moral ambiguity, and scientific progress.

Administrative Notes: Annette Morrison, CSUF; David Sandner, CSUF (editing)