In this review of Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1, we get a fresh new take on a classic tale of horror.
Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1
Written by Faith Erin Hicks
Art and Main Cover: Faith Erin Hicks
Colors: Lee Loughridge
Variant Covers: Joshua Middleton, Guillem March, Martin Simmonds, Gabriel Rodríguez
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: March 26, 2025
Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1 starts off in Thebes, 1912. 7-year-old Helen, along with her British father and Egyptian mother, is watching a crew digging up a tomb. One of the workers sustains an injury, bringing up the curse. Of course, that gets dismissed as BS, because who believes in cursed gravesites? Helen comes across a slab, part of a larger picture, with the face of a young woman from ancient times, grabbing her interest…
We skip ahead to 1921, Helen’s now 16 and on a rooftop with a few friends. The narration points out that she’d like them to be her friends, anyway…but the rest of these kids’ parents work for her dad’s estate, so they all know that she doesn’t quite fit in with them. To get on their good side, she says she can get them into a nightclub nearby, thanks to the fact that she’s well-connected.
On the one hand, she manages to get them in. On the other, thanks to those same connections, she’s immediately ratted out and the kids find themselves sneaking out through the kitchen. Helen feels this pull toward the ruins, but most of the others decide to ditch her. All except for Essam, who follows her into the desert.
Meanwhile, one archaeologist is in his tent, with a sarcophagus or two behind him and he’s opening a box in front of him. He’d been warned not to open it, but he does. And then he reads the Scroll of Thoth inside of it.
As he reads it off, Helen suddenly passes out, while the mummy in the open sarcophagus begins to stir…
Helen is eventually brought home, where her father chews her out for heading out with these lower-class kids and forbids her from associating with them again. She goes to her room, takes her rage out on the room itself, and upon breaking the mirror, she sees a face other than her own (looking a bit more like the slab from earlier). The other entity has been watching her this whole time, but only managed to surface after the reading of the scroll. And she wants Helen to help her remember her past.
Okay, so, going into the story for Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1 first and foremost. The familiar story of The Mummy usually involves a mummy rising from the dead to locate his long-lost love, and woe be to anyone who gets in his way. This version is probably going to go that same route, especially considering the note from the writer/artist and how she’d appreciated the story’s themes and was proud to bring her own twist to it.
I would not be shocked at all to find out that this girl residing within Helen’s body happened to be the mummy’s lost love. The choice of main character for this iteration definitely intrigues me, as well. Most versions tend to follow some kind of archaeologist/adventurer as he and his group deal with the undead mummy situation. But this one features a half-Egyptian/half-British girl who probably has the soul of the mummy’s lost love residing inside of her, making the “female character that encounters the mummy” role a central piece as opposed to a deuteragonist. Not only that, but she’s got other baggage to deal with, being a biracial girl in the 1920s, whose father’s wealth instantly alienates her from the kids her own age she’d like to befriend.
As a horror fan, even not factoring in familiarity with the many film versions that came before this, you know nothing good will come of opening that box. Or reading off the scroll in the forbidden box. As anyone with any familiarity with horror tropes will tell you, that never leads to anything good.
Art-wise, the expressions and poses in Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1 communicate the story well enough. My favorite aspect may have to be the scene with the shattered mirror near the end. There’s some wonderful composition going on with that scene. The difference in color helps, as well, with Helen’s shattered reflection being rendered in cooler tones, while this other soul’s face has a slightly warmer tint to it. The warm/cool contrast between the interiors and exteriors is also done well, I think. The expressions could probably be a bit stronger, but we’re also only on issue 1, and I look forward to seeing how things go with this one.
Final Thoughts
Universal Monsters: The Mummy #1 is a familiar story, but with an intriguing main character that may push the tale into a different sort of direction. The art could be slightly more dynamic, but the story’s already pulling me in.
