 |
This list highlights some of the greatest imitation humans ever created. In addition to the above conditions, we're also excluding robots, because those metal soulless automatons get enough attention. This time the fleshy soulless automatons get their due! After you finish reading this, feel free to make your own homunculi at home.
10) Tara Boumdeay, Return of the Killer Tomatoes
Professor Gangreen discovered a way to transform dead (i.e. off the vine) contraband tomatoes into living simulacrums of various people using the power of music. His prize creation was Tara, a beautiful, toaster-obsessed tomato-woman capable of cooking 815 international dishes and performing 637 sexual acts. You wouldn't believe what she can do with a lawn chair, six milk bottles, and a tuning fork! She leaves the mad doctor after he throws the adorable Fuzzy Tomato away as a failed experiment. Although she appears to be nothing more than a chauvinist dream, Tara is highly intelligent, a loyal friend, and passionate about tomato rights. She teaches everyone a lesson about prejudice toward fruit that are frequently mistaken for vegetables.
9) Prince Koura's Spy, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
In addition to being THE BEST TIMELORD EVER, Tom Baker is also a powerful magician down with the demons of darkness. As Prince Koura, Baker seeks the treasure of Lemuria to help him reclaim the kingdom his dad inexplicably bequeathed to the Grand Vizier. He frequently employs adorable little gargoyles he shares a mental link with. They're made the old-fashioned way from mandrake root, magic elixirs, and blood (plus Dynamation). These flying critters don't have the best of grips, but they turn to ash when captured rather than snitch. Koura also animates the figurehead on Sinbad's boat and a giant bronze statue of Kali that spontaneously generates scimitars, but those don't quite count for this list because Koura didn't make them himself like these little scamps.
8) Longshot, X-Men
 |
7) Sally, The Nightmare Before Christmas
Sally was stitch-punk before the surprisingly dull 9 failed to make it popular. This giant ragdoll was created by Dr. Finklestein to be his nursemaid, but she longed for freedom like servants are wont to do. Instead of leading a violent uprising, she becomes adept at detaching her limbs and drugging her creator to sneak out. Her experience at sewing herself back together gets her the job tailoring the Pumpkin King's Santa suit. Despite her crush on him, she finds the guts to tell Jack Skellington that his Christmas coup will go over like a lead balloon. When that doesn't work, Sally attempts to rescue Santa Claus from the clutches of the terrifying Oogie Boogie by her lonesome. Not only does she become manumitted, Sally hooks up with the ridiculously tall skeleton of her dreams. Sally proves you can have a compelling romance without sacrificing the competence and personality of the female lead. You go, girl.
6) Roger the Homunculus, Hellboy
 |
5) Dr. Pretorius's Homunculi, The Bride of Frankenstein
Despite what its prologue would have you believe, The Bride of Frankenstein isn't how Mary Shelly ended her debut novel. The movie introduces Dr. Pretorius as an amoral genius who has created six homunculi: queen, king, archbishop, the Devil, ballerina, and mermaid. Each has their own personality and tiny clothes. The king and queen even have to be kept in separate jars lest they breed like rabbits. This is a colossal achievement that the movie doesn't bother elaborating on -- they could've made the whole movie just about them. So why is Dr. Pretorius so anxious to team up with Dr. Frankenstein to make a mate for his creature? Sure, making a living creature that's more than the sum of its dead parts is pretty great, but it ceases to be impressive once you've a made a 5-foot mermaid complete with gills by yourself from scratch.
4) The Golem of Prague
A golem (not to be confused with Gollum) is a giant homunculus made of clay used for hard manual labor and/or vanquishing anti-Semites. Golems are animated when the Hebrew word for truth is carved into their brows; they deactivate once the first letter is rubbed out to spell death in Hebrew, although the person doing the crossing out risks being crushed beneath an inert wall of clay. Some golems are fed their incantations on parchment to make them harder to destroy. Occasionally they go berserk as a cheap excuse for why nobody's ever conquered the world with a golem army. There have been many golems, but the one that turns up most frequently is the one made by Rabbi Loew in the sixteenth century to protect Prague's Jewish ghetto. If German silent films are to be believed, he sculpted it with an awful case of helmet hair.
3) Father, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
There's a great deal of homunculi n the world of Fullmetal Alchemist, but they all come from one source: a being called Homunculus, a sentient shadow festooned with eyes and teeth trapped in a jar. Once he tricked a naïve alchemist into giving him a body, Homunculus used Philosopher's Stones to create seven more homunculi, each embodying one of his flaws and named after the Seven Deadly Sins, and these lesser homunculi called him "Father." While Lust, Gluttony, Envy, Greed, Sloth, Pride and Wrath are all impressive homunculi themselves -- particularly Wrath, a terrifyingly skilled swordman and Fuhrer-King of the entire country of Amestris, as well as Pride, a child who transforms into a churning nightmare of eyes and teeth that can strike anywhere there's shadows -- they're all part of "Father," so he gets the nod in this list. Besides, Father created the entire country of Amestris and engineered wars for centuries just to create a blood-soaked alchemy circle large and powerful enough to transform himself into god... which he actually succeeded at doing. Sure, his plan was incredibly cruel and evil, but you have to admire his stick-to-itiveness.
2) Wonder Woman
 |
1) Frankenstein's Monster, Frankenstein
Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus when she was 18-years-old, primarily to make everyone else feel inadequate. In it, Dr. Victor Frankenstein creates an 8-foot-tall jaundiced man with long black hair out of human (an possibly animal) remains he nicked while no one was looking. Rather than being just a patchwork zombie, the creature thinks, learns, and eventually even speaks. Despite his experiment being extremely successful, Frankenstein rejects his creation and reneges on his deal to make it a mate, lest they breed, and his creation becomes vengefully murderous because Frankenstein is too craven to assume responsibility. Although he able to tear regular humans apart like fresh bread, the monster can also speak eloquently on theosophy and the injustices of the world, although he does seem to focus on the injustices that have happened to him. Frankenstein's monster is certainly the world's best known man-made man, to the point where he's effectively co-opted his creators name in modern culture. Although the monster would likely be fine being called "Frankenstein" if people also started referring to Dr. Frankenstein as "That also scientist who created Frankenstein."
More links from around the web!
