Review by Ian Keogh
Of all places, the 21st century incarnation of the Legion of Monsters were introduced in a Punisher story written by Rick Remender. A network of underground caverns and tunnels accessed by teleportation gates provide a home for over 400,000 monsters beneath New York on Marvel Earth, and if that alone seems unlikely you’re best off venturing no further with Legion of Monsters.
This is the first Marvel outing for Dennis Hopeless, who keeps the focus on the primary quartet of Morbius the Living Vampire, Werewolf by Night, Manphibian and the Living Mummy, with Damon Hellstrom and monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone joining them. Her interest comes about because monsters have been rampaging, the cause identified in the opening chapter as something or someone possessing their brains. The device enables the use of assorted monsters, that would probably look a lot better if not drawn by Juan Doe, whose gruesomely stylised version of both people and monsters is far from easy on the eye. This is accentuated by odd viewpoints, either in extreme close-up or looking upwards at people being examples. Very occasionally, such as Morbius chomping on a cow’s heart, this is effective, but mostly the result is messy looking pages.
A clever reveal occurs to lead into the final chapter, but it doesn’t compensate for page after page of material that would be ordinary even if Doe’s art was pulling its weight. Overall Legion of Monsters has a feeling of project thrown against the wall to see if it would stick. It didn’t.
