Van Helsing: From Beneath the Rue Morgue
| Van Helsing: From Beneath The Rue Morgue | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Dark Horse |
| Schedule | One-Shot |
| No. of issues | One-Shot |
| Main character(s) | 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 |
From Beneath The Rue Morgue it's a one-shot comic book from Dark Horse Comics, drawing the experience that Gabriel Van Helsing lived in Paris, and from his own perspective, telling his story through an inform sent to the Monsignor. It's not a sequel, nor a continuation of the movie. It's a side-story, within the same universe and timeline of the Van Helsing universe. The comic book draws inspiration from very famous stories and books, to mention The Murders in the Rue Morgue, of Edgar Allan Poe; The Invisible Man, by H.G. Wells, and The Island of Doctor Moreau, by the same H.G. Wells.
Plot
The story starts in medias res, when Van Helsing is jumping into action through a window, meanwhile a woman is floating in the air, while a woman is talking to him, and stating that he hadn't sleep in 52 hours. The real beginning then starts, and we found Van Helsing inside Notre Dame de Paris, just after the kill of Mr. Hyde. After been found guilt by the people and the authority, he's given the oportunity of escape by the priests. He then proceeds to escape through the sewers, and then staying at a room in secret. However, he hears a scream in the night, an he jumps from the window to the rooftops, to the place where he heard the scream. This is the point where the comic book started before, and the woman who was talking to him was a medium, calling him through spiritual ways. He found that the woman floating it's been dragged upon the chimney. However, Van Helsing attacks the "arm" that grabs her with his Tojo Blades, and he release her, but just until the invisible menace grab her, and takes her through the window, taking Van Helsing in the way. The woman dies in the fall, however, but Van Helsing founds himself alive and hunted again, this time by the people who founds Van Helsing guilty. Van Helsing proceeds to chase the invisible beast, guided by his screams and the destruction he leaves in his way. In that moment, Van Helsing comments that "Why is it monsters never run into bodice shops?", as the invisible monster had entered the morgue. The people and the police circle the building, meanwhile Van Helsing escapes just again through the sewers, only to find himself in the claws of the invisible murderer. The monster drags him into the water, and they travel through the cannal, only to drop in a cage, that Van Helsing escapes with ease. He found himself between cages and bars, between corpses and monsters, half-beasts and half-humans. He states that he has "finally and fully sensed evil". Reading documents in a desk near him, he discovers that the monster is named Beathán, that his has been injected by a serum of invisiblity (Van Helsing even remember heard a Vatican report of hearing about an incident of an "englishman" becoming invisible in west Sussex, and that he's in the secret laboratory of the Dr. Moreau. He founds himself with the same Dr. Moreau, who was about to feed the invisible monster, and they chat about the creation of the chimeras in his laboratory. Van Helsing states that it isn't his job to kill him and his creations, but he will arrest him for the matter. However, Moreau releases Beathán, and Van Helsing fights him, first turning him visible with the antidote of the invisibility serum Moreau invented, and later with his own weapons. However, the fights becomes violent, and the monster, now visible, release the rest of the Moreau creations. Van Helsing then proceeds to fight the monsters. Through spiritual talk, however, the medium Van Helsing encountered before tells him that the monster is his husband, transformed into a frog-like beast by the Doctor, and that he must release the beast of his torment. Moreau take the confussion to his advantage, and he escapes without being seen, and later exploding his secret laboratory. Van Helsing and Beathán managed to escape, and Van Helsing ponders about taking the beast with him to the Vatican, and he states that he "put forth all effort in trying to capture it... and failed", while in reality he just let the monster to escape. Van Helsing ends his report stating that he hadn't sleep in 53 hours. We see a last image, of the Dr. Moreau escaping in 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...".