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The Fly
"The Book of Transgenesis"
The Fly: Outbreak #1 (IDW)
Comic book
Written by Brandon Seifert
Art by menton3
Lettered by Tom B. Long
Cover A by menton3
March 2015
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Years after Martin Brundle reverses his
condition, he unsuccessfully tries to cure the deformed Bartok.
Read the summary of the
mini-series at RottenInk
Notes from the
Fly
chronology
This mini-series opens a few years after the events of
The Fly II.
Didja Know?
The Fly: Outbreak is a 5-issue mini-series
published by IDW in 2015.
In the title of this issue,
"The Book of Transgenesis", "transgenesis" is the delivery of
foreign genes to a host cell. Seth Brundle went through a form
of transgenesis in The Fly
when the genes of a housefly were mingled with his during his
teleportation experiment.
The artist of this series, using pen name
menton3, is Menton J. Matthews III.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this issue
Noelani
Dr. Martin Brundle
Anton
Bartok (dies in this issue)
Beth Brundle (nee Logan)
Jefferson (dies in this issue)
Didja Notice?
Page 1 reveals that Martin has already had a vasectomy at his
young age. He says it's to prevent an unwanted child because of
buggy genes. His use of the phrase "buggy genes" is a bit of a
wisecrack as it refers to his genes which suddenly caused him to
gradually transform in
The Fly II
and that those genes are insect-related, therefore, "buggy".
On page 1, Martin's personal assistant Noelani is said to be speaking in something
of a Jiminy
Cricket voice while teasing Martin.
Jiminy Cricket is the animated character who serves as a
makeshift conscience for wooden puppet Pinocchio in the 1940
Disney animated film Pinocchio.
On page 2, Martin's latest attempt to turn Anton Bartok back to
human form via the telepods fails. He remarks that he's been
trying to downregulate the homologous fruit-fly genes. Downregulation
is a loss of cellular material in response to external stimulus.
Martin and Beth appear to be married now.
Page 3 implies that Martin and Beth live on a small houseboat.
The boat has an identification number on the side, M3: 934423;
the M3 probably stands for
menton3, the name used by the artist of this mini-series.
On page 4, we see that Martin and Beth have a dog in their home
of the same breed as Timex, young Martin's dog in
The Fly II(possibly a Golden
Retriever).
On page 4, Martin is worried that he could currently still be an
asymptomatic carrier of the "fly gene", with Beth comparing it to
Typhoid Mary.
Mary Mallon (1869-1938), popularly known historically as Typhoid
Mary, was an Irish-American cook who was the first identified
asymptomatic carrier of the disease typhoid fever in the U.S.
She was also mentioned by Seth Brundle in
The Fly.
On page 6, we see that Bartok's holding pit has a photo of the
man hanging in it, presumably to remind him of what he should
really look like.
On page 10, one of the security guards is in the middle of a
conversation with another guard and he is saying, "goddamn tired
of his stupid Napoleon Compl--" before he is cut off by the
appearance of Bartokfly. Napoleon complex is a psychological
complex thought to exist is some individuals that makes them
overcompensate for the perceived lack of some aspect of their
lives, such as having short physical stature compared to average. "Napoleon"
refers to
Napoleon Bonaparte
who became
the high general, First Consul, and Emperor of France from
1799-1814 after a military coup; he was generally considered to
be of short stature.
