Ygor

Ygor is the main villain in the films The Son of Frankenstein and The Ghost of Frankenstein. He "befriends" the Monster and uses him for his own purposes of revenge. He is portrayed by Bela Lugosi, the actor best known for playing Dracula.

Early Life
Not much is known about Ygor's life prior to the films he is featured in. It is known that he was a blacksmith in the village of Frankenstein. He was arrested and convicted by a jury for stealing bodies. It is not by any means certain who he stole the bodies for, but he does mention that he "knew" Henry Frankenstein in Ghost, so it is not outside the realm of possibility that they were collaborators at one point. The villagers hanged Ygor and the town doctor proclaimed him dead. Not wanting to bury him on consecrated ground, the villagers dumped his body in the ruins of Frankenstein's laboratory. However, Ygor wasn't dead, but his neck was twisted and deformed. He went mad and thirsted for revenge. Some time after this, Ygor stumbled upon the Monster and gained his trust. Ygor took advantage of this and convinced the monster to kill the men who condemned him. However, the Monster only managed to kill six of the eight members of the jury when he was struck by lightning and rendered comatose. This put Ygor's revenge on hold for a period of several years.

Wolf von Frankenstein
After an unspecified period of years, Henry Frankenstein's son Wolf, also a scientist, returned to his family's ancestral home, having been brought up in England. He was determined to clear his father's name and rectify the mistake made many years before when Henry's assistant Fritz mistakenly stole a criminal brain, which Henry placed inside the Monster. Ygor met Wolf when he went to explore the ruins of his father's laboratory. Realizing that Wolf could revive the Monster given enough time, Ygor showed him where the Monster had been hidden, in the Frankenstein family crypt. Wolf restored his father's equipment and began experimenting on the Monster, hoping not only to bring him out of his coma but also to fix his brain as well. However, once the Monster regained consciousness, Ygor put him to work completing his plan of revenge. He even has the Monster kill Wolf's butler Benson in order to keep him from anyone about the Monster still living. After Wolf learns what Ygor has done, He goes out to the laboratory to confront him. Ygor attacks Wolf with his hammer, but Wolf riddles him with bullets. In a climactic fight scene, the Monster is hurled into the laboratory's sulfur pit by Wolf.

Events in Vasaria
After yet another period of years, Ygor (not dead, only wounded) was still living in Castle Frankenstein. The sulfur pit had hardened, and the Monster's body lay within. The villagers, convinced that a curse lay upon them, dynamited the castle. The explosion freed the Monster from the pit, who fled the castle with Ygor. They traveled to Vasaria, where Ludwig, the second (and possibly older) son of Frankenstein, lived. He was a respected and gifted brain surgeon, having successfully concealed his origins. The Monster had been weakened by his tenure in the sulfur pit, and Ygor wanted Ludwig to make him strong again. However, Ludwig decided to replace the Monster's criminal brain with that of Dr. Kettering, an associate who had been killed by the Monster when he arrived at Ludwig's home and clinic. However, Ygor convinced Dr. Bohmer, Ludwig's partner who had once been his superior before an unspecified accident, to place his brain in the Monster's skull. When the operation was completed, Ygor announced his plan to take over the world using his new body. But fate intervened when Ygor went blind, a result of the Monster having a different blood type than Ygor. In a fi of rage, Ygor hurled Bohmer into the lab machinery and went on a rampage in the lab. The resulting fire killed Ludwig and the floor collapsed under Ygor, plunging him into an icy cavern, where he remained frozen for a long time.

Fighting Larry Talbot
Years afterwards, Larry Talbot, better known as the Wolf Man, arrived in Vasaria looking for assistance in dying. However, he only found the Ygor-Monster frozen in the ice. Talbot dethawed him, in attempt to learn the location of Frankenstein's journals of his experiments. Dr. Frank Mannering, who had followed Talbot from England, agreed to restore the lab equipment and destroy him as well as the Ygor-Monster. But Mannering couldn't resist seeing the Monster at its full potential, and made him strong again. As soon as that had been accomplished, the Ygor-Monster flashed the ultimate evil grin and boke free from his operating table. At this point, the full moon rose and Talbot turned into the Wolf Man,, fighting the Ygor-Monster. The fight was inconclusive, as one of the villagers dynamited the nearby dam and flooded the castle.

(Author's Note: The original script for the film Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman included the Monster speaking in Ygor's voice, per the conclusion of the last film, but studio execs considered the effect to be ludicrous and had all of the Monster's dialogue scenes cut from the film. The explanation for his blindness was retconned, and the Monster was turned into a shambling, speechless idiot. Because of this, I felt it unecessary to continue.)