Van Helsing: From Beneath the Rue Morgue | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Dark Horse Comics |
Schedule | One-shot |
No. of issues | 1 |
Main character(s) | Gabriel Van Helsing Dr. Moreau |
Creative team | |
Created by | Stephen Sommers |
Written by | Joshua Dysart |
Artist(s) | Jason Shawn Alexander |
Penciller(s) | Joshua Dysart, Jason Shawn Alexander |
Van Helsing: From Beneath the Rue Morgue is a one-shot comic book from Dark Horse Comics, based on the 2004 film Van Helsing . It is based on the premise that Gabriel Van Helsing lived in Paris, and from his own perspective, telling his story through an inform sent to the Monsignor. It is not a sequel to, nor a continuation of, the film. It is a side-story, within the same timeline of the Van Helsing universe. The comic book draws inspiration from the 1841 short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe and The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells, as well as the 1954 film Creature from the Black Lagoon .
The story launches in medias res, as Gabriel Van Helsing jumps into action through a window. The woman is floating in the air, reminding him that he had not slept in 52 hours. The story then begins in full, and Van Helsing is inside Notre-Dame de Paris, just after the murder of Mr. Hyde. He is found guilty by the authorities, but is given the opportunity of escape by the priests. Van Helsing then proceeds to escape through the sewers to stay at a secluded room.
During the night, he hears a scream and ventures to track it down. In the comic's beginning, the floating woman is revealed to be a medium. She is dragged towards a chimney as Van Helsing gives chase. He tries to help the woman by attacking with his tojo blades and releases her, only to see the woman grabbed once more by the invisible force. It throws both her and Van Helsing through a window. The woman is killed in the fall and Van Helsing is once again hunted by the authorities. Undaunted, he proceeds to chase the invisible force, guided by screams and destruction left in its wake. Van Helsing wonders aloud "Why is it monsters never run into bodice shops?" as the invisible monster enters the morgue.
The people and the police surround the building and Van Helsing escapes through the sewers once again, only to find himself faced with the invisible monster. The monster drags him into the water and they travel through the canal, until they fall into a cage trap. Van Helsing easily escapes, but finds himself between cages and bars, corpses and monsters, and half-beasts and half-humans. He states that he has "finally and fully sensed evil". Documents on a nearby desk reveal that the monster is named Beathán. It says that he was injected with a serum of invisibility (Van Helsing even remembers having heard a Vatican report about an incident of an "Englishman" becoming invisible in West Sussex). Van Helsing learns that he is in the secret laboratory of the mad scientist Dr. Moreau.
He suddenly finds himself with the same, about to feed the invisible monster. They discourse about the creation of the chimeras in his laboratory. Van Helsing states that it is not his job to kill him and his creations, but he will arrest him for the matter. Moreau, however, is not fazed, and releases Beathán. Van Helsing fights the monster, first turning him visible with the antidote to the invisibility serum that Moreau had invented and later fighting him with his own weapons. The fight becomes violent as time passes, and the monster (resembling the Gill-man), now visible, releases the rest of Moreau's creations. Van Helsing then proceeds to fight all of them.
Through spiritual talk, however, the medium that Van Helsing encountered before tells him that the monster is her husband, transformed into a frog-like beast by the Doctor, and that he must relieve the beast from his torment. Moreau takes the confusion to his advantage, and he escapes without being seen, leaving his laboratory to be destroyed. Van Helsing and Beathán manage to escape and Van Helsing briefly ponders taking the beast with him to the Vatican. Finally, he reports that he "put forth all effort in trying to capture it . . . and failed", when, in reality, he just let the monster go. Van Helsing ends his report by stating that he had not slept in 53 hours.
The final image of Moreau sees his escaping with one of his creations, stating that "the world lacks vision", and that he should "move to an island perhaps. Somewhere drastic, like . . . the South Seas . . .".
Dr. Henry Jekyll and his alter ego, Mr. Edward Hyde, is the central character of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In the story, he is a good friend of main protagonist Gabriel John Utterson.
"Age of Apocalypse" is a 1995 comic book crossover storyline mostly published in the X-Men franchise of books by Marvel Comics. The Age of Apocalypse briefly replaced the universe of Earth-616 and had ramifications in the main Marvel Comics universe when the original timeline was restored. It was later retconned as having occurred in the alternate universe of Earth-295.
Van Helsing is a 2004 action horror film written and directed by Stephen Sommers. It stars Hugh Jackman as monster hunter Van Helsing and Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious. Van Helsing is both an homage and tribute to the Universal Horror Monster films from the 1930s and 1940s, of which Sommers is a fan.
Professor Abraham Van Helsing is a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula written by Bram Stoker. Van Helsing is a Dutch polymath doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc.", indicating a wealth of experience, education and expertise. He is a doctor, professor, lawyer, philosopher, scientist, and metaphysician. The character is best known through many adaptations of the story as a vampire slayer, monster hunter and the arch-nemesis of Count Dracula, and the prototypical and the archetypal parapsychologist in subsequent works of paranormal fiction. Some later works tell new stories about Van Helsing, while others, such as Dracula (2020) and I Woke Up a Vampire (2023) have characters that are his descendants.
The Island of Doctor Moreau is an 1896 science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells. It was published on 1 January 1896. The novel is set between 21 January 1887 to 5 January 1888. The text of the novel is the narration of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked man rescued by a passing boat. He is left on the island home of Doctor Moreau, a mad scientist who creates human-like hybrid beings from animals via vivisection. The novel deals with a number of themes, including pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity, human interference with nature, and the effects of trauma. Wells described it as "an exercise in youthful blasphemy."
Stanley and His Monster is an American comic-book humor feature and later series from DC Comics, about a boy who has a monster as his companion instead of a dog. Created by writer Arnold Drake and artist Winslow Mortimer as a backup feature in the talking animal comic The Fox and the Crow #95, it went to its own 1960s title and a 1990s revival limited series.
The Universal Monsters media franchise includes characters based on a series of horror films produced by Universal Pictures and released between 1913–1956.
Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, and the famous character of Frankenstein's monster, have influenced popular culture for at least a century. The work has inspired numerous films, television programs, video games and derivative works. The character of the Monster remains one of the most recognized icons in horror fiction.
Murders in the Rue Morgue is a 1932 American horror film directed by Robert Florey, based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 short story "The Murders in the Rue Morgue". The plot is about Doctor Mirakle, a carnival sideshow entertainer and scientist who kidnaps Parisian women to mix their blood with that of his gorilla, Erik. As his experiments fail because of the quality of his victims' blood, Mirakle meets with Camille L'Espanye, and has her kidnapped and her mother murdered, leading to suspicion falling on Camille's fiance, Pierre Dupin, a medical student who has already become interested in the earlier murders.
The Island of Dr. Moreau is a 1977 American science fiction horror film directed by Don Taylor, the second English-language adaptation of H. G. Wells' 1896 novel of the same name, following Island of Lost Souls (1932).
Van Helsing: The London Assignment is a 2004 American anime-influenced adult action horror animated short film by Universal Studios Home Video. It features the voices of Hugh Jackman, Tress MacNeille, Robbie Coltrane and David Wenham. The London Assignment is an animated prequel to the 2004 motion picture Van Helsing. It tells of the events before the film. It was animated by Universal Cartoon Studios, Production I.G, and Sunwoo Entertainment.
Van Helsing is an action-adventure video game for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Game Boy Advance, which is based on the 2004 action horror film of the same name by Stephen Sommers. Hugh Jackman and Richard Roxburgh reprise their roles from the film. The game is one of the few games on Playstation 2 that can run in 480p.
Count Dracula is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula. He is considered the prototypical and archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some to have been inspired by the 15th-century Wallachian prince Vlad the Impaler, who was also known as Vlad Dracula, and by Sir Henry Irving, an actor for whom Stoker was a personal assistant.
Dracula the Un-dead is a 2009 sequel to Bram Stoker's classic 1897 novel Dracula. The book was written by Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. Previously, Holt had been a direct-to-DVD horror screenwriter, and Stoker a track and field coach.
Scooby-Doo! Music of the Vampire is a 2012 direct-to-DVD animated musical comedy horror film, and the seventeenth entry in the direct-to-video series of Scooby-Doo films. This installment is notable for being the first of the films to be a musical. The film was released to rent through Amazon Video and iTunes on December 22, 2011. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on March 13, 2012. It premiered on Cartoon Network on March 3, 2012.
Dracula’s Widow is a 1988 vampire thriller film directed by Christopher Coppola, written by Tom Blomquist as Kathryn Ann Thomas, and starring Sylvia Kristel, Josef Sommer and Lenny von Dohlen. Kristel, in the title role, goes on a killing spree in a seedy 1980s Hollywood, while in search of her husband.
Overlord is a 2018 American alternate history action horror film directed by Julius Avery and written by Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith. It stars Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Gianny Taufer, Pilou Asbæk, Bokeem Woodbine and Iain De Caestecker. The film was produced by J. J. Abrams, through his Bad Robot banner, and Lindsey Weber. The plot follows several American soldiers who are dropped behind enemy lines the day before D-Day and discover terrifying Nazi experiments.
Works of popular culture influenced by H. G. Wells' 1897 novel The Invisible Man include: