Monster War is a 2005 four-issue miniseries from Top Cow Productions (reprinted later under Dynamite Comics) written by Christopher Golden & Tom Sniegoski and drawn by Joy Chin. Its an crossover event pitting its flagship characters Witchblade, The Darkness and the Magdalena, alongside its guest star Lara Croft against the classic horror monsters such Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Wolfman with Mr. Hyde leading them with the intent to unleash hell on Earth.
Monster War contains examples of the following tropes:
- Advertised Extra: Despite being advertised in one of the covers, the Wolfman is not a major character or even part of Hyde's group. Rather, a group of werewolves serves as an obstacle for Lara Croft to retrieve a special ingredient to cure vampirism.
- Anti-Villain: Frankenstein's monster isn't malevolent like Dracula and Hyde and all wants is to find a way to end his existence.
- Badass Normal: Unlike the other heroes, Lara Croft doesn't have any symbiotic powers or magical artifacts and relies on her guns, martial arts and acrobatic skills to go toe-to-toe against terrible monsters.
- Big Bad: Edward Hyde is the mastermind of the whole plot seeking to open a portal to an eldritch dimension and let horrors into the world, plunging it into Hell.
- The Dragon: Count Dracula, ironically enough. Though he dislikes being in service to Hyde, he has a debt to him which he must repay and therefore goes along with his scheme.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Dracula breaks into a brothel, murdering everyone inside and turns three prostitutes into his vampire brides.
- Eldritch Abomination: Hyde's true masters are cosmic horrors that used to rule the world before driven away and he seeks to return them.
- Enemy Without: Jekyll and Hyde are now separate entities because of a serum developed by the former to get rid of his evil side. Mr. Hyde's plan makes use of this serum to create evil vampires that will serve his true masters.
- Genius Bruiser: Hyde is depicted as a hulking brute with superhuman strength, but is still very much a Mad Scientist.
- Fight Dracula: While not the main villain, Dracula is pitted against the heroes, and serves as the Magdalena's rival.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Jekyll sacrifices himself by merging back with Hyde and then shooting himself in the head, killing them both.
- Immediate Sequel: This miniseries got a sequel in the pages of Dynamite's Army of Darkness ongoing series in a storyline titled "Ash Vs. The Classic Monsters", which picks up a few days after Monster War ends and expands upon Dracula's origin.
- Lovecraft Lite: A mobster, a cop, an archeologist and a nun with magical powers managed to stop an interdimensional invasion from taking over a world.
- Monster Mash: Mr. Hyde, Dracula and Frankenstein's monster are the main villains, while werewolves are merely minor antagonists (see Advertised Extra). Its revealed that Lovecraftian horrors are the ones behind Mr. Hyde.
- Vampire's Harem: Dracula creates a new batch of vampire brides from Jackie's prostitutes.
- Vampire Refugee: Magdalena is bitten by Dracula and is turned into a vampire.
