(I originally read these comics in late November 2016)
The Werewolf was the first of Marvel's takes on the traditional horror characters in February 1972, in the pages of Marvel Spotlight # 2.
On her deathbed, eighteen year-old Jack Russell's mother reveals that, far from being a wholesome California kid, he's actually the son of a long-deceased European nobleman and that he's now inherited his father's curse of werewolfism. Under his new, hairy guise he battles and kills the family chauffeur, the man guilty of causing the accident that killed his mother. However, he's helpless to kill the one who designated this grim task - his own stepfather.
I'll update this entry with better scans when they're available. For now, these are about the best I can find.
The origin story is by Roy and Jeanie Thomas but from there it's Gerry Conway (who's long had a fascination with werewolves), Len Wein and, yes, Marv Wolfman who take up the baton. Jack encounters a succession of stock horror characters during his early adventures including witches, hunchbacked henchmen, the reincarnation of a mad monk and a crooked swami, etc. Having graduated to his own comic, there's the first appearance in issue # 10 of what will prove to be a recurring threat in the Committee, an "organisation of businessmen and financiers, its purpose is to revive our flagging economy... by any means possible, legal or criminal." (Hey, it makes more sense than anything from Paul Krugman.) The minimal supporting cast comes in the shape of Jack's lithesome, younger sister Lissa (who may also stand to inherit the werewolf curse) and middle-aged reporter Buck Cowan. When Marv Wolfman comes aboard as writer with issue # 11, he immediately has Jack settle into his own bachelor pad, presumably because there's a lot of downtime between full moons and his nocturnal rampages. This expands the cast by introducing neighbours composed of two sexy airheads and one brusque gentleman who may have secrets of his own. In that same issue comes the closest thing so far to a costumed super-villain in the scythe-wielding shape of the Hangman, who comes across like a twisted parody of a Ditko hero. Jack's father's association with the mystical book of the Darkhold comes back to haunt him with an encounter with the sorcerer Taboo and his beautiful familiar Topaz in issues 13 and 14. Topaz hereafter becomes Jack's girlfriend, his previous one having shown her face previously only to be immediately forgotten. Wolfman also makes the effort to exonerate Russell's stepfather of any culpability in his wife's death in issue # 14, though whether this is early revisionism or whether it was planned this way from the start is hard to discern. Following this, there's a two-part crossover with the Tomb of Dracula, in which secrets of Jack's Transylvanian lineage are further revealed. The decision to narrate the stories in the first person betrays its limitations when Jack recounts events he wasn't privy to, with captions along the lines of, "I was told later this is what happened..." Groan. The team-up with Tigra in Giant-Size Chillers # 1 is dreadful, but historically important in that it's the comic where Greer Nelson first assumes her furry alias.
Werewolf by Night is consistently entertaining if you venture in with expectations low. A tendency towards goofy, '70s occultism certainly helps. Artistically, it's mostly well served by the Eisner-esque stylings of Mike Ploog, making his professional comics debut (though inker Frank Bolle absolutely murders his pencils in issue 6), Tom Sutton and Gil Kane, who definitely draws the scariest, most feral-looking version of our furry protagonist. The combined 'efforts' of Werner Roth and Paul Reinman in issue # 8 are abject hackery, and from issue # 17 onwards it's Don Perlin ushering in a dark age of artistic mediocrity.
Marvel Spotlight (1971) # 2-4, Werewolf by Night (1972) # 1-19, Tomb of Dracula (1972) # 18 and Giant-Size Creatures (1974) # 1 are collected in:
Hardcover:
Softcover:
Werewolf by Night (1972) # 1 is collected in:
Softcover:
Werewolf by Night (1972) # 15 and Tomb of Dracula (1972) # 18 are collected in:
Hardcover:
Softcover:
Giant-Size Creatures (1974) # 1 is collected in:
Hardcover:
Softcover:
