As I write, there are nine books in the 'Lady Mechanika' series: eight with numbers, plus the bonus volume, 'La Dama de la Muerte'. However, when I picked up my stack of them from creator, writer and often artist, Joe Benítez, at a Gaslight Steampunk Expo a few years ago, it was missing book eight, 'The Devil in the Lake', on account of it not actually having been written yet. Therefore the last one that I have in hand is this one, 'The Monster of the Ministry of Hell', which is book seven.

There are only three names in play this time out: Benítez for his story and art, Beth Sotelo for her colours and long term collaborator Michael Heisler for his lettering. However, M. M. Chen is given a different credit for "writing assists", Martin Montiel for "art assists" on a pair of chapters and Sabine Rich for "color assists" on a fourth. I don't know how much work they contributed: clearly it was enough to warrant a credit but not enough to warrant a full one, every one of those but Rich having earned plenty of those on previous volumes.

The other obvious note to make at the start is that this is a dark read indeed. There's been plenty of darkness in earlier books, especially 'The Lost Boys of West Abbey', 'La Dama de la Muerte' and 'Sangre', but this is easily the darkest volume thus far. It explores the earliest memories that Lady Mechanika is able to reach, which were spent at the Ministry of Health soon after what she thinks of as her awakening. "It was not a pleasant time", she says, with characteristic restraint. Think an outright Victorian asylum run by a monster in a mask and populated by a variety of freaks.

Frankly, such obvious visual elements aren't the darkest part of this, though they paint a perfect backdrop for this story. The freaks are suitably diverse and, for the most part, seen in the way we expect from a Tod Browning movie, where they're far more human than the supposed humans in the story. They're not dangerous at all, but hidden from the world because of disfigurements. Oh, except Kat. She's there because of how she thinks, rather than how she looks. The monster in the mask is Deacon Grin, who operates on them, ostensibly in an effort to cure them of their various conditions. That they tend to disappear mysteriously afterwards has an obvious explanation, one backed up by a suitably horrific discovery later in the book.

In the present day, where Lady Mechanika has taken Fred to the fair to celebrate Founder's Day, they encounter some working freaks. She defends them against ridicule, only for them to be very upset with her. This is their livelihood, after all, whether it's a politely accepted one or not. Films like Browning's 'Freaks' and 'The Unholy Three' are worth bringing up in comparison. They aren't part of regular society but they're part of a community of their own, which is a heck of a lot more than the freaks who were kept away from everybody in the Ministry of Health.

Most of the story is told in flashback, as Lady Mechanika recounts what she went through at the Ministry. It's prompted by them bumping into Allie at the fair. She's suffering from some sort of muscular disorder, perhaps the same one that has restricted her mother of almost all movement. Dr. Littleton believes that it's God punishing him for his misdeeds working for Lord Blackpool, and so Lady Mechanika launches into her reminiscing to dissuade him of that notion.

Of course, we know Lady Mechanika as this modern day marvel, the thoroughly proper young lady perfectly able to function in polite society and to kick the asses of anyone in it who deserves it. If I was to hurl out adjectives to describe her, "capable" and "dangerous" would be the most obvious but followed by "polite", "controlled" and "decorous". That makes it all the more shocking when we encounter her after her "awakening". At that point, she was a feral creature incapable of any speech but apparently too of simple comprehension. She battles the orderlies out of some sort of instinct, which prompts beatings, restraints and electric shocks. She spends most of her time in a foetal position, her red eyes all the more obvious in animalistic rage.

And she proceeds to fight them as the animal they treat her as. It's only when Kat explains to her that the staff aren't medical experts knowledgeable about mental illness. They're fanatics eager to impose obedience in the name of God. As we learned in 'WarGames', the only winning move is to not play. Kat's suggestion is that the best way to avoid this sort of violent trauma is to simply not resist. And so she softens, her treatment changes and she waits. Of course, she's going to find a way to break out because she's Lady Mechanika, even in this atavistic primitive form. But there is much that unfolds before that happens.

I do like the dark side so I had no problem with this book and frankly revelled in just how gruesome it got. Dr. Grin's leather outfit, including mask, that hides all skin from the world is neatly freaky. So are the assembled throngs of freaks at the Ministry, especially when they're all crying out in a joint wave. Lady Mechanika waking up during surgery, her internal organs still open to the air is a powerful image, as is the one of her literally breaking out of her cell, her tattered clothes riddled through with blood, giving the false impression that she's skinless.

Whether glowering in the corner of a cell, chained and straitjacketed, only the red gleam of her eyes identifying her to us; strapped to a growing succession of weird steampunk contraptions; or stumbling into a closet full of bell jars packed full of recognisable specimens, this book is horrific through and through. However, rather ironically, the most horrific aspect of the entire book isn't a visual at all. It's just a misunderstanding, but it's a notably brutal misunderstanding that has a serious resonance to it. I'd need to go back to another Tod Browning movie, 'West of Zanzibar', to compare it, or even more so to its precode remake, 'Kongo'. It's good to see something so modern tap into a horror so old and primal.

We don't know any more about Lady M's origin after this book, something that's becoming rather overdue, I think, but we do know a lot more about her upbringing and her connection to Katherine Winter, who has been a prominent character in the series since its first volume. It's something for us to get our teeth into as Benítez thinks about when he's going to finally explore her beginnings. Maybe that'll happen in book eight, 'The Devil in the Lake', but I won't know next month, because that book isn't on my shelf. Maybe we'll have to wait longer before he gets to that point. What I'm taking away from this is that the series is getting more and more dark and horrific and I'm happily on board. ~~ Hal C F Astell

For more titles by Joe Benítez click here
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