Category: Werewolf by Night

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Ghost Rider Epic Comics volume 2: The Salvation Run (1975-1978)


By Tony Isabella, Jim Shooter, Steve Gerber, Bill Mantlo, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Don Glut, Chris Claremont, Roger McKenzie, Scott Lobdell, Frank Robbins, Don Heck, Sal Buscema, George Tuska, Bob Brown, John Byrne, Gil Kane, Don Perlin, Tom Sutton, Vince Evans, Vince Colletta, Mike Esposito, Jim Mooney, Sam Grainger, Keith Pollard, Don Newton, Dan Green, Pablo Marcos, Tony DeZuñiga, Owen McCarron, Steve Gan, Phil Sheehy & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-5549-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

Closely reflecting the state of their presumed readership, as the 1960s ended US comic books were in turmoil. Superheroes had dominated for much of the previous decade; peaking globally before explosively falling to ennui and overkill. Established genres like horror, westerns, science fiction and war were returning, fed by contemporary events and radical trends in moviemaking where another, new(ish) wrinkle had also emerged: disenchanted, rebellious, unchained Youth (on Motorbikes …and Drugs!) seeking different ways forward. Moreover, most of us thought that we might well all expire in a nuclear fireball at any moment. How glad I am that we’ve finally returned to those halcyon days…

Green Lantern/Green Arrow, Jack Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, Captain America and many more took the Easy Rider option to boost flagging sales (and if you’re interested, the best of the crop was Mike Sekowsky’s tragically unfinished mini-masterpiece of cool Jason’s Quest in Showcase). Over at Marvel – a company still reeling from Kirby’s defection to DC in 1970 – canny Roy Thomas green-lit a new character combining that freewheeling, adolescent-friendly biker theme with the all-pervasive supernatural furore gripping entertainment fields.

Back in 1967, Marvel had published a western masked hero named Ghost Rider. He was a shameless, whole-hearted appropriation of the cowboy hero creation of Vince Sullivan, Ray Krank & Dick Ayers (for Magazine Enterprises from 1949 to 1955), initially utilising magician’s tricks to fight bandits by pretending to be an avenging phantom of justice.

Scant years later, with the Comics Code prohibition against horror hastily rewritten – amazing how plunging sales affect ethics – scary comics boomed back in a big way. A new crop of supernatural superheroes and monsters appeared on newsstands, supplementing the ghosts, ghoulies and goblins already infiltrating the once science-only scenarios of surviving mystery man titles.

In fact, diluting the Code ban resulted in such an avalanche of horror titles (new material plus reprints from the first boom in the 1950s), in response to the industry-wide downturn in superhero sales, that it probably caused a few more venerable costumed crusaders to – albeit temporarily – bite the dust.

Almost overnight, nasty monsters became acceptable fare for four-colour pages and, whilst a parade of pre-code reprints made sound business sense, the creative aspects of the fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public. As always in entertainment, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was incorporated into the mix as soon as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (cover-dated October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of shocking superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire – before broadening the scope with a haunted biker tapping both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and a prevailing supernatural zeitgeist.

Preceded by western hero Red Wolf in #1 and the aforementioned Werewolf by Night in #2-4, the all-new Ghost Rider debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5 (August 1972) and the course of comics was changed forever…

What Has Gone Before: Carnival trick cyclist Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the devil in an attempt to save his foster-father Crash Simpson from cancer. As is the way of such things, Satan follows the letter but not spirit of his contract and Simpson dies anyway – just not from cancer. When the Dark Lord later comes for his prize, Blaze’s beloved virginal girlfriend Roxanne Simpson intervenes. Her purity prevents the Devil from claiming his due so, temporarily thwarted, Satan spitefully afflicts Johnny with a body that burns with the fires of Hell every time the sun goes down…

After months of diabolical persecution with Blaze shaming the Devil daily by using his curse to do good and save souls, everything seemed to change after what looked like Jesus Christ himself intervened to get Satan off his back, but of course nothing is ever what it seems…

Spanning cover-dates March 1975 to February 1978, and re-presenting Ghost Rider (1973) #12-28; Marvel Two-in-One #18; Daredevil (vol. 1) #138; Marvel Team-Up #58; Marvel Premiere #28 and material from 1991’s Marvel Tales (vol. 1) #255, this conflagratory compendium sees Blaze and his infernal alter ego unwillingly dragged deeper into the world of superheroes… but not for long…

Marvel Two-in-One #8 opens proceedings and also explores redemptive themes as Blaze teams with Ben Grimm – AKA The Thing – in a quirkily compelling Yuletide yarn. Crafted by Steve Gerber, Sal Buscema & Mike Esposito, ‘Silent Night… Deadly Night!’ finds the audacious Miracle Man attempting to take control of a very special birth in a modern-day stable…

In Ghost Rider #12 Tony Isabella, Frank Robbins, Frank Giacoia & Mike Esposito reveal the fate of World War I fighter ace Phantom Eagle, as Blaze tries to rescue a stranger from a ghostly aerial assault, only to learn he has inadvertently thwarted justice and helped the noble air warrior’s murderer avoid the ‘Phantom of the Killer Skies’, after which GR #13 and Isabella, George Tuska & Vince Colletta declare ‘You’ve Got a Second Chance, Johnny Blaze!’  as the terms of the hero’s on-going curse are changed again, just as the dissolute biker heads to Hollywood and a previously promised job as TV star Stunt-Master’s body-double. No sooner has he signed up, however, than Blaze becomes involved with Daredevil’s former girlfriend, fresh-faced starlet Karen Page and a bizarre kidnap plot by supervillain The Trapster. As ‘A Specter Stalks the Soundstage!’ Blaze’s revenge-obsessed nemesis The Orb returns to destroy Ghost Rider, an action yarn that spectacularly concludes with ‘Vengeance on the Ventura Freeway!’, as illustrated by Bob Brown & Don Heck.

Whilst hanging out on the West Coast, Blaze joins new superteam The Champions, but they play no part in Bill Mantlo, Tuska & Colletta’s fill-in yarn ‘Blood in the Waters’, as Ghost Rider oh, so topically tangles with a Great White Shark in the gore-soaked California surf.

A much reprinted yarn comes next courtesy of Mantlo, Robbins & Steve Gan: an attempt to create a team of terrors long before its time. Marvel Premiere #28 (February 1976) launched the initial line-up of The Legion of Monsters in ‘There’s a Mountain on Sunset Boulevard!’. When an ancient alien manifests a rocky peak in LA, Werewolf by Night Jack Russell, the macabre Man-Thing, Hollywood stuntman Johnny Blaze and living vampire Michael Morbius are drawn into a bizarre confrontation which might have resulted in the answer to  all their wishes and hopes, but instead only leads to destruction, death and crushing disappointment…

Back on track in GR #17, ‘Prelude to a Private Armageddon!’ (Isabella, Robbins & Colletta) triggers a combative and fractious reunion with The Son of Satan when fellow stunt-actor Katy Milner is possessed by a demon and only Daimon Hellstrom can help. The struggle devolves into ‘The Salvation Run!’ as Blaze races through the bowels of Hell, reliving his own traumatic past and at last learning the truth about his own personal Jesus, before finally saving the day on his own terms and merits, rescuing both Katy’s and his own much-tarnished soul in ‘Resurrection’.

All this time the mysterious subplots of Karen’s attempted abduction had percolated through GR, but now explosively boil over into Daredevil #138 as ‘Where is Karen Page?’ (by Marv Wolfman, John Byrne & Jim Mooney) exposes the extensive machinations of deceased criminal maniac Death’s-Head as merely part of a greater scheme involving Blaze, Stunt-Master, the Man without Fear and the homicidal Death Stalker. The convoluted conundrum cataclysmically climaxes in Ghost-Rider #20 with Don Perlin inking Wolfman & Byrne’s ‘Two Against Death!’

After dancing with the Devil and assorted demons for months, and dabbling with team dynamics in the Champions, instinctual loner Blaze’s move to Hollywood had sparked a far more mundane narrative methodology. His glamorous hazardous working gig had brought romantic dalliances, increased interaction with superheroes and supervillains, and more and more clashes with street level crime…

As the action opens in GR #21’s ‘Deathplay!’, Gerry Conway, Gil Kane & Sam Grainger built on the “real world” TV friendly trend as manic super thug for hire The Gladiator attacks the Delazny Studio employing Blaze, seeking a deadly weapon left by a sinister hidden foe. After spectacularly repelling the armoured assassin, Blaze does a little digging into the studio and staff only to clash with another veteran villain – The Eel – abruptly reinforced by an incensed Gladiator seeking a rematch. Thrashing them both only gets Johnny in more trouble with the cops and – on the run again – he finally faces the criminal mastermind who has orchestrated many months of woe. Unfortunately, he learns ‘Nobody Beats the Enforcer!’ (Conway, Don Glut, Don Heck & Keith Pollard)…

The secretive crime lord has his fingers dug deep into the studio and seeks ultimate power in LA, but somehow Blaze is always in his way, such as here, foiling the costumed killer’s attempt to steal a deadly ray concealed in a ring. Attempts to further integrate Ghost Rider with mainstream Marvel continuity intensify with the arrival of new scripter – and actual motorbike afficionado – Jim Shooter. With Dons Heck & Newton illustrating, ‘Wrath of the Water Wizard!’ depicts the embattled biker battling a hydrokinetic hoodlum at the Enforcer’s behest, only to be betrayed and beaten in anticipation of a blockbusting deciding clash in Shooter, Heck & Dan Green’s calamitous concluding climax ‘I, The Enforcer…!’

The end and direction change is emphasised by another crosspollinating adventure as Marvel Team-Up #58 (June 1977 Chris Claremont, Sal Buscema & Pablo Marcos) describes ‘Panic on Pier One!’ as Spider-Man is abducted by The Trapster and how, in saving the hero, damned Johnny Blaze exposes the true nature of his “powers & gimmicks”…

Cover-dated August 1977, (“The New”) Ghost Rider #25 presaged a return to wandering ways as Shooter, Heck & Tony DeZuñiga’s ‘Menace is a Man Called Malice!’ finds our infernal antihero erroneously implicated in an arson attack on a wax museum before battling a high tech madman. Blaze’s diabolical overreaction in victory signalled darkening days ahead…

Don Perlin fully began his long association with the Spirit Cyclist in #26 pencilling ‘A Doom Named Dr. Druid!’ (words by Shooter & inks by Grainger) as recently-revived and revised proto Marvel superhero Anthony Druid (who as Dr. Droom actually predates Fantastic Four #1) hunts a satanic horror and mistakenly attacks Ghost Rider. Only after beating the burning biker does the parapsychologist learn the dreadful error he’s made, but by then Blaze’s secret is exposed, his Hollywood life is ruined and the end of his safe secure life looms…

Back on the road again, Johnny heads for the Mojave desert and encounters two fellow travellers/he-man soulmates, aimless and in trouble. Palling up with disgruntled former Avengers Hawkeye and time-displaced cowboy hero Matt Hawk – The Two-Gun Kid in an atypical moment of Marvel Madness crafted by Shooter, Perlin & Green. ‘At the Mercy of the Manticore!’ sees Blaze save the heroes from The Brand Corporation’s bestial cyborg monstrosity, only to drive them away when his demonic other half’s growing propensity for inflicting suffering gets out of control…

Still roaming the southern deserts, Blaze is then targeted again by his personal Captain Ahab in ‘Evil is the Orb!’ (by Roger McKenzie, Perlin, Tom Sutton, Owen McCarron & Pablo Marcos), when his vengeance-crazed rival abducts Roxie and mesmerises a biker gang into doing his vicious, petty dirty work. However, the villain hasn’t reckoned on an intervention by Blaze’s new biking buddy Brahma Bill…

Although the 1970s sensationalism stops here, there’s one last yarn by Scott Lobdell, Vince Evans & Phil Sheehy (from Marvel Tales #255: November 1991, which reprinted Marvel Team-Up #58) to enjoy. ‘Shock Therapy’ explores what a dose of Blaze’s satanic Hellfire did to the Trapster and what extreme measures were taken to cure him…

This spooky compendium compounds the chilling action with a full cover gallery by Kane, Tom Palmer, Ron Wilson, Sal Buscema, Ed Hannigan, Dave Cockrum, Rich Buckler, Frank Giacoia, Nick Cardy, John Romita Sr., Gene Colan, Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby, Al Milgrom, Steve Leialoha, George Pérez, Ernie Chan and Sam Kieth and includes pertinent images from ‘The Mighty Marvel Bicentennial Calendar 1976’ by Sal B, plus covers from 1990s reprint series The Original Ghost Rider #19-20, by Sal and Mark Buckingham.

Also on view are original art covers and interior pages by Heck, DeZuñiga, Kirby, John Verpoorten, and Romita Sr. to truly complete your fear-filled fun fest.

One final note: backwriting and retcons notwithstanding, the Christian boycotts and moral crusades of the following decade (and ever since) were what compelled criticism-averse and commercially astute corporate Marvel to “translate” the biblical Satan of these tales into generic and presumably more palatable demonic creatures such as Mephisto, Satanish, Marduk Kurios and other equally naff quibbling downgrades. However, the original intent and adventures of Johnny Blaze – and spin-offs Daimon Hellstrom and his sister Satana – respectively Son and Daughter of Satan – tapped into the period’s global fascination with Satanism, Devil-worship and all things Spookily Supernatural which had begun with such epochal breakthroughs as Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski’s 1968 film more than Ira Levin’s novel). Please remember in funnybook terms these aren’t your feeble bowdlerised “Hell-lite” horrors…

These tales are about the real-deal Infernal Realm and a good man struggling to save his soul from the worst of all bargains – as much as the revised Comics Code would allow – so brace yourself, hold steady and accept no supernatural substitutes…
© 2024 MARVEL.

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Marvel Masterworks: Werewolf by Night volume 2


By Marv Wolfman, Mike Friedrich, Gerry Conway, Tony Isabella, Doug Moench, Mike Ploog, Don Perlin, Tom Sutton, Gil Kane, Gerry Conway, Pat Broderick, Frank Chiaramonte, Mike Royer, Vince Colletta, Tom Palmer& various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-4948-8 (HB/Digital edition)

Win’s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Magical unrealism… 9/10

This book includes Discriminatory Content produced in less enlightened times.

As Marvel slowly grew to a position of market dominance in 1970, in the wake of losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators – Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties.

The only real exception to this was a mass release of horror titles rapidly devised in response to an industry-wide down-turn in superhero sales. The move was handily expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight nasty monsters (plus narcotics and bent coppers – but that’s another story) became acceptable fare within four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too) the creative aspect of the contemporary fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watch-word was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics was to be incorporated into the mix as soon as possible…

When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel moved ahead with a line of scary stars – beginning with a werewolf and traditional vampire – before chancing something new via a haunted biker who could tap into both Easy Rider’s freewheeling motorcycling chic and the supernatural zeitgeist.

With its title cribbed from a classic short thriller from pre-Code horror anthology Marvel Tales #116 (July 1953), Werewolf By Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2. It had been preceded by masked western hero Red Wolf in #1, and was followed by the afore-hinted Ghost Rider, but this hairy hero was destined to stick around for a while.

This chillingly crackers compendium compiles more moody misadventures of a good-hearted young West Coast lycanthrope who briefly shone as an unlikely star for the entire length of a trading trend, as proved here by the reprinted full-colour contents of Werewolf By Night volume 1 #9-21, Giant-Size Creatures #1, and Tomb of Dracula #18, plus some enticing extracts from Monsters Unleashed #6 & 7: collectively spanning September 1973 to September 1974.

Jack Russell is a teenager with a rare but very disturbing condition. On her deathbed, his mother revealed unsuspected Transylvanian origins to her beloved boy: relating a family curse which would turn him into a raging beast on every night with a full moon… as soon as he reached his 18th birthday.

And so it began…

After many months of misunderstanding as Jack tried to cope alone with his periodic wild side, Jack’s stepfather Philip Russell expanded the story, revealing how the Russoff line was cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reached adulthood. Moreover, the feral blight would do the same to his little sister Lissa when she reached her own majority…

As Jack tried and repeatedly failed to balance a normal life with his monthly cycle of uncontrollable ferocity, he met eventual mentor and confidante Buck Cowan, an aging writer who became Jack’s best friend after the pair began to jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s past. Their incessant search for a cure was made more urgent by little Lissa’s ever-encroaching birthday. In the course of their researches they crossed swords with many monsters – human and otherwise – including off-the-rails cop Lou Hackett, who had been going increasingly crazy in his off-the-books investigation/hunt for a werewolf nobody believed in. This time we will meet a fellow horror hairball who has found a shocking remedy to their condition…

Following fond and effusive recollections from novelist/comics scribe Duane Swierczynski in his Introduction ‘My Favorite Fur Baby’, the saga resumes as Jack heads back to LA after meeting Spider-Man, only to find ‘Terror Beneath the Earth!’ Here, Conway, Tom Sutton & George Roussos delve into an impending and thoroughly nefarious scheme by business cartel The Committee. These out-of-the-box commercial gurus somehow possess a full dossier on Jack Russell’s night-life and hire a maniac sewer-dwelling sound engineer to execute their radical plan to use monsters and derelicts to boost sales in a down-turned economy.

Sadly, the bold sales scheme to frighten folk into spending more ends before it begins as the werewolf proves to be far from a team-player in wrap up ‘The Sinister Secret of Sarnak!’

Werewolf by Night #11 revelled in irony as Marv Wolfman signed on as writer for ‘Comes the Hangman’ – illustrated by the incredible Gil Kane & Sutton – in which we learn something interesting about Philip Russell and The Committee, whilst Jack’s attention is distracted by a new apartment, a very odd neighbour and a serial kidnapper abducting young women to keep them “safe from corruption.” When the self-deluded hooded hero snatches Lissa, he finds himself hunted by a monster beyond his wildest dreams…

Concluding chapter ‘Cry Werewolf!’ brings in the criminally underappreciated Don Perlin as inker. In a few short months he would become the strip’s penciller for the rest of the run, but before that original illustrator Mike Ploog (with Frank Chiaramonte) pops back for another stunning session, introducing a manic mystic and a new love-interest (not the same person) in WBN #13’s ‘His Name is Taboo’. An aged sorcerer coveting the werewolf’s energies for his own arcane purposes, the magician is stunned when his adopted daughter Topaz finds her loyalties divided and her psionic gifts more help than hindrance to the ravening moon-beast.

‘Lo, the Monster Strikes!’ pits the wolf against Taboo’s undead – but getting better – son and sees revelation and reconciliation between Philip and Jack Russell. As a result, the young man and new girlfriend Topaz set off for Transylvania, the ancestral Russoff estate and a crossover confrontation with the Lord of Vampires…

Tomb of Dracula #18 (March 1974) commences the clash in ‘Enter: Werewolf by Night’ (Wolfman, Gene Colan & Tom Palmer) as Jack & Topaz investigate a potential cure for lycanthropy, only to be ambushed by Dracula. Driven off by the strange girl’s psychic powers, the cunning Count realises the threat she poses to him and resolves to slay her…

It concludes courtesy of Wolfman, Ploog & Chiaramonte in Werewolf by Night #15 and the ‘Death of a Monster!’ as the battle of beasts resolves into a messy stalemate, but only after Jack learns of his family’s long connection to Dracula…

The suspense builds as Jack & Topaz reach Paris. After failing to find a cure in his Balkan homeland, and clashing with a vampire they were forced to endure a tiresome – and crucially untimely – forced stopover in the City of Lights. Quel dommage!

This leads to an impromptu clash with a modern-day Hunchback of Notre Dame (he doesn’t sing and he’s not very gentle here) and ends with ‘Death in the Cathedral!’. Scripted by Mike Friedrich and inked by Chiaramonte, this bombastic battle was co-originator Ploog’s farewell performance as artist in residence.

WBN #17 was by Friedrich & Don Perlin, with Jack & Topaz escaping Paris only to fall into The Committee’s latest scheme, as blustering Baron Thunder and his favourite monster ‘The Behemoth!’ try to make the werewolf their plaything again. The plot concluded in ‘Murder by Moonlight!’ (Perlin inked by Mike Royer) as the secret of Jack’s mystery neighbour is exposed when Thunder attacks again, aided by witch-queen Ma Mayhem. However, it’s all a feint for The Committee to kidnap Lissa who will, one day soon, become a werewolf too… and hopefully a far more manageable one…

A potent pin-up carries us onwards before – whilst searching for Lissa – Jack finds out some of the secrets of nasty neighbour Raymond Coker before falling foul of two undead film-stars haunting the Hollywood backlots in #19’s ‘Vampires on the Moon’ (Friedrich, Perlin & Vince Colletta).

Armed with the knowledge that for a werewolf to lift his curse, he/she must kill another one, it’s a swift lope to  Giant-Size Creatures #1, where Tony Isabella, Perlin & Colletta moodily re-imagine a failed costumed crusader and introduce a new creepy champion in ‘Tigra the Were-Woman!’ Greer Nelson – one-time feminist avenger The Cat – is “assassinated” by Hydra agents, revived by ancient hidden race the Cat-People and becomes an unwilling object of temporary affection for feral and frisky moonwalker Jack Russell…

Following text piece ‘Waiter, there’s a Werewolf in my Soup!’ – also from Giant-Size Creatures and explaining the genesis of Marvel’s horror line – WBN #20 debuts writer Doug Moench to wrap up all the disparate plot threads in ‘Eye of the Wolf!’: a rushed but satisfactory conclusion offering a whole pack of werewolves, Baron Thunder, Ma Mayhem and lots and lots of action.

With the decks cleared, Moench began making the series uniquely his own, beginning with #21’s ‘One Wolf’s Cure… Another’s Poison!’, wherein he starts playing up the ever-encroaching 18th birthday of little Lissa, before deftly engineering the final reckoning with rogue cop Hackett…

With the stage set for some truly outrageous yarn-spinning we abruptly divert to a brace of sidebar shorts taken from Monsters Unleashed #6 and 7. Here Gerry Conway’s prose yarn ‘Panic by Moonlight’ and concluding instalment ‘Madness Under a Mid-Summer Moon’ (with spot illustrations by Ploog, Pat Broderick & Klaus Janson) detail how a gang of bikers pick the wrong night to home-invade the flashy singles complex Jack Russell lives in…

Kicking off the bonus section is an Introduction by Ralph Macchio first seen in 2017’s Werewolf By Night: The Complete Collection volume 1, contemporary house ads and – complementing the cover gallery by Sutton, Kane, John Romita, Ernie Chan, Ploog, Palmer, Frank Giacoia, Ron Wilson, Klaus Janson – a selection of original art by Kane, Ploog, Perlin & Chiaramonte.

A moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action, this compilation comprises some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling. If you must have a mixed bag of lycanthropes, bloodsuckers and moody young magical misses, this is a far more entertaining mix than many modern movies, books or miscellaneous matter…
© 2023 MARVEL.

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Werewolf by Night Marvel Masterworks volume 1


By Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Roy & Jean Thomas, Mike Ploog, Werner Roth, Ross Andru, & various (MARVEL)
ISBN: 978-1-3029-3346-3 (HB/Digital edition)

Now a star of page and screen, Werewolf by Night could be described as the true start of the Marvel Age of Horror. Now technically supplanted by modern Hopi/Latino lycanthrope Jake Gomez – who’s shared the designation since 2020 – these trials of a turbulent teen wolf opened the floodgates to a stream of Marvel monster stars and horror antiheroes.

Inspiration isn’t everything. In 1970, as Marvel consolidated its new position of market dominance – even after losing their two most innovative and inspirational creators, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby – they did so employing a wave of new young talent, but less by experimentation and more by expanding proven concepts and properties. The only real exception to this was a mass-move into horror titles (or more accurately “monster titles” – the CCA still vetoed “horror”): a response to an industry down-turn in superhero sales, and a move expedited by a rapid revision in the wordings of the increasingly ineffectual Comics Code Authority rules.

Almost overnight scary monsters became again acceptable fare on four-colour pages and whilst a parade of 1950s pre-code reprints made sound business sense (so they repackaged a bunch of those too), the creative aspect of the revived fascination in supernatural themes was catered to by adapting popular cultural icons before risking whole new concepts on an untested public.

As always, the watchword was fashion: what was hitting big outside comics would be incorporated into the print mix and shared universe mix as readily as possible. When proto-monster Morbius, the Living Vampire debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October 1971) and the sky failed to fall in, Marvel launched a line of sinister superstars – beginning with a werewolf and a vampire…

Werewolf by Night debuted in Marvel Spotlight #2 (preceded by western-era hero Red Wolf in #1, and followed by Ghost Rider). In actuality, the series title, if not the actual character, was recycled from a classic pre-Comics Code short suspense-thriller from Marvel Tales #116, July 1953. Marvel always favoured using old (presumably already copyrighted) names and titles when creating new series and characters. The Hulk, Thor, Magneto, Doctor Strange and many others all got nominal starts as hairy underpants monsters or throwaways in some anthology or other.

Accompanied by an introductory reminiscence from Roy Thomas, this copious compendium collects the early adventures of a young West Coast wild one by re-presenting the contents of Marvel Spotlight #2-4, Werewolf by Night volume 1 #1-8 and a guest-shot from Marvel Team-Up #12 cumulatively covering February 1972 to August 1973.

The moonlit madness begins with that landmark first appearance, introducing teenager Jack Russell, who is suffering some sleepless nights…

Cover-dated February 1972 and on sale as 1971 closed, ‘Werewolf by Night!’ (Marvel Spotlight #2) was written by Gerry Conway and moodily, magnificently illustrated by Mike Ploog in the manner of his old mentor Will Eisner. The character concept came from an outline by Roy & Jeanie Thomas, describing the worst day of Jack’s life – his 18th birthday – which began with nightmares and ends in something far worse.

Jack’s mother and little sister Lissa are everything a fatherless boy could hope for, but new stepdad Philip and creepy chauffeur Grant are another matter. Try as he might, Jack can’t help but see them as self-serving and with hidden agendas…

At his party that evening, Jack has an agonising seizure and flees into the Malibu night, transforming for the first time into a ravening vulpine man-beast. At dawn, he awakes wasted on a beach to learn his mother has been gravely injured in a car crash. Something had happened to her brakes…

Sneaking into her hospital room, the distraught teen hears her relate the story of his birth-father: an Eastern European noble who loved her deeply, but locked himself away three nights every month…

The Russoff line is cursed by the taint of Lycanthropy: every child doomed to become a wolf-thing under the full-moon from the moment they reach 18 years of age. Jack is horrified on realising how soon his sister will reach her own majority…

With her dying breath Laura Russell makes her son promise never to harm his stepfather, no matter what…

Scenario set, with the traumatised wolf-boy uncontrollably transforming three nights every month, the weird, wild wonderment begins in earnest with the beast attacking the creepy chauffeur – who had doctored those car-brakes – but refraining – even in vulpine form – from attacking Philip Russell…

The second chapter sees the reluctant nocturnal predator rescue Lissa from a rowdy biker gang (they were everywhere back then) and narrowly escape the cops, only to be abducted by a sinister dowager seeking knowledge of a magical tome dubbed the Darkhold. This legendary spell-book is the apparent basis of the Russoff curse, but when Jack can’t produce the goods, he’s left to the mercies of ‘The Thing in the Cellar!’…

Surviving more by luck than power, Jack’s third try-out issue fetches him up on an ‘Island of the Damned!’: introducing aging Hollywood screenwriter Buck Cowan, who will become Jack’s best friend and affirming father-figure as they jointly investigate the wolf-boy’s evil stepdad.

Russell had apparently sold off Jack’s inheritance, leaving the kid nothing but an old book. Following a paper trail to find proof Philip had Laura Russell killed leads them to an offshore fortress, a dungeon full of horrors and a ruthless mutant seductress…

The episode ended on a cliffhanger, presumably as an added incentive to buy Werewolf by Night #1 (cover-dated September 1972), wherein Frank Chiaramonte assumed inking duties with ‘Eye of the Beholder!…

Merciless biological freak Marlene Blackgar and her monstrous posse abduct the entire Russell family whilst looking for the Book of Sins, until – once more – a fearsome force of supernature awakes to accidentally save the day as night falls…

With ‘The Hunter… and the Hunted!’ Jack and Buck deposit the trouble-magnet grimoire with Father Joquez, a Christian monk and scholar of ancient texts, but are still hunted because of it. Jack quits the rural wastes of Malibu for a new home in Los Angeles, trading forests and surf for concrete canyons but life is no easier.

In #2, dying scientist Cephalos seeks to harness Jack’s feral life-force to extend his own existence, living just long enough to regret it. Meanwhile, Joquez successfully translates the Darkhold: an accomplishment allowing an ancient horror to possess him in WbN #3, in ‘The Mystery of the Mad Monk!’

Whilst the werewolf is saddened to end such a noble life, he feels far happier dealing with millionaire sportsman Joshua Kane, who craves a truly unique head mounted on the wall of his den in the Franke Bolle inked ‘The Danger Game’. Half-naked, exhausted and soaked to his now hairless skin, Jack must then deal with Kane’s deranged brother, who wants the werewolf for his pet assassin in ‘A Life for a Death!’ (by Len Wein & Ploog) after which ‘Carnival of Fear!’ (Bolle inks again) finds the beast – and Jack, once the sun rises – a pitiful captive of seedy mystic Swami Calliope and his deadly circus of freaks.

The wolf was now the subject of an obsessive police detective too. “Old-school cop” Lou Hackett is an old buddy of trophy-hunter Joshua Kane – and every bit as cruelly savage – but his off-the-books investigation hardly begins before the Swami’s plans fall apart in concluding part ‘Ritual of Blood!’ (inked by Jim Mooney).

The beast is safely(?) roaming loose in the backwoods for #8’s quirky and penultimate monster-mash when an ancient demon possesses a cute little bunny in Wein, Werner Roth & Paul Reinman’s ‘The Lurker Behind the Door!’, after we which we pause for now with a slight but stirring engagement in Marvel Team-Up #12, where Wein, Conway, Ross Andru & Don Perlin expose a ‘Wolf at Bay!’

As webspinning wallcrawler meets wily werewolf, they initially battle each other – and ultimately malevolent mage Moondark – in foggy, fearful San Francisco before Jack heads back to LA for more feral fury in a future issue…

With covers by Neal Adams& Tom Palmer, Ploog, Gil Kane and John Romita, this collection is supplemented with an unused Ploog cover for Marvel Spotlight#4; a gallery of original Ploog art pages and a previous collection cover by Arthur Adams & Jason Keith. A moody masterpiece of macabre menace and all-out animal action, this tome shares some of the most under-appreciated magic moments in Marvel history: tense, suspenseful and solidly compelling chillers to delight any fear fan or drama addict. If you crave a few fun frightmares, go get your paws on this.
© 2022 MARVEL.

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The Monster of Frankenstein


By Gary Friedrich, Doug Moench, Bill Mantlo, Gerry Conway, Mike Ploog, John Buscema, Bob Brown, Val Mayerik, Don Perlin, Sal Buscema & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-9906-9 (TPB/Digital edition)

Whereas DC Comics capitalised on the early 1970s global boom in all things supernatural and mystic by creating a plethora of short-story anthologies and the occasional spooky star, Marvel Comics took the trend in another direction and created a small army of horror-heroes to headline their own series.

This particular collection reprints the House of Ideas’ interpretation of the Mary Shelley classic from a time when the censorious Comics Code Authority first loosened some of its strictures banning horror material from the pages of comics. That translates here to 18 issues of the colour comicbook; Giant-Sized Werewolf #2, Marvel Team-Up #36-37 and all the pertinent strips from adult-oriented Marvel magazines Monsters Unleashed #2, 4-7, 9-10 and one-shot Legion of Monsters (spanning January 1973-September 1975), all awaiting your rapt attentions.

Some comic artists work best in black-&-white. Such is certainly the case with Mike Ploog. A young find who had previously worked with Will Eisner, Ploog illustrated Gary Friedrich’s pithy adaptation of the original novel before moving on to groundbreaking new ventures as the strip graduated to in-house originated material. This monumental tome is presented mostly in colour, but if you are of a similar opinion you could try to lay your hands on the 2004 monochrome Essential Monster of Frankenstein edition…

Cover-dated January 1973, ‘Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein!’ introduced Robert Walton IV, great grandson of the sea-captain who had rescued scientist Victor Frankenstein from the polar ice and who was subsequently regaled with the incredible tale of “the Modern Prometheus”.

Now, in 1898 and leading a band of rogues, cutthroats and sullen Inuit, Walton finds the fabled monster interred in a frozen slab and brings it aboard his ice-breaker. He then recounts the story to his fascinated cabin-boy, unaware of the fear and discontent simmering below decks…

A bloody mutiny during a terrible gale opens the second issue as the burning ship founders. Meanwhile the flashbacked saga of tragic Victor reaches the terrible moment when the monster demanded a mate. The guilt-plagued scientist complied only to baulk at the last and destroy his second creation. ‘Bride of the Monster!’ concludes with the creature’s fearsome vengeance on his creator, paralleling the grim fate of the storm-tossed ship…

In The Monster of Frankenstein #3, ‘The Monster’s Revenge!’ has the reawakened creature freed from its ice-block to overhear the continuation of his life-story from Walton’s lips, even as the last survivors struggle to find safety in the Arctic wastes.

Thereafter ‘Death of the Monster!’ – with inker John Verpoorten taking some of the deadline pressure off hard-pressed Ploog – turns the tables as the monster reveals what happened after the polar showdown with his creator, leading to a new beginning as Walton reveals that not all the Frankensteins were eradicated by the Monster’s campaign of vengeance. Their warped blood-line lives on…

A new direction began with issue #5 in ‘The Monster Walks Among Us!’. Making his way south, the tragic creature arrives in a Scandinavian village in time to save a young woman from being burned at the stake on a blazing longboat, only to rediscover that when villagers pick up pitchforks and torches to go a-screamin’ and a-hollerin’ for blood, they generally have a good reason…

With issue #6 the comic book renamed itself The Frankenstein Monster as the undying creature reaches the village of Ingolstadt a century after he first wreaked bloody vengeance on his creator’s loved ones.

‘…In Search of the Last Frankenstein!’ is a mini-classic of vintage horrors scripted as usual by Friedrich but plotted, pencilled & inked by Ploog, who was reaching an early peak in his artistic career. It was also his last issue.

Ploog was followed by John Buscema & Bob Brown before Val Mayerik settled as regular artist whilst Friedrich gave way to Doug Moench, a writer once synonymous with Marvel’s horror line.

Issues #7, 8 and 9 bowed to the inevitable, pitting the Monster against Marvel’s top horror star (albeit 75-ish years prior to his contemporary adventures). Beginning with ‘The Fury of a Fiend!’ continuing in ‘My Name is… Dracula!’ and concluding with ‘The Vampire Killers!’, this is an extremely classy tribute to the old Universal movies and then-current Hammer Films in equal measure, wherein the misunderstood misanthrope battled an undying evil for ungrateful humanity, consequently losing the power of speech; and becoming more monstrous in the process.

Produced by Friedrich, Buscema and Verpoorten, this trilogy lacks the atmosphere of Ploog’s tenure, but the action is very much in the company’s house-style. With #10 (inked by Frank Giacoia and Mike Esposito) the creature finally found ‘The Last Frankenstein!’ …much to his regret.

With number #11’s ‘…And in the End…!?’ – illustrated by Brown & Vince Colletta – and #12’s ‘A Cold and Lasting Tomb’ (Moench, Mayerik and Colletta), the Monster wrapped up his historical adventures by falling into a glacial sea. Frozen once again into another block of ice he was revived, Captain America-style, in modern times: i.e. the swinging 1970s…

The epic account then switches to monochrome as more mature episodes from Monsters Unleashed begin, starting with #2 and ‘Frankenstein 1973’ by Friedrich, Buscema & Syd Shores. Here we see how an obsessive young man finds the Monster preserved as a carnival exhibit, only to see his jealous girlfriend revive it whilst trying to burn down the sideshow. The story continued in #4 as ‘Frankenstein 1973: Chapter Two – The Classic Monster’ (Friedrich, Buscema & Win Mortimer), with a literal mad scientist actually putting his own brain in the monster’s skull. Happily, the unnatural order is restored in ‘Once a Monster…’

Monsters Unleashed #6 introduced new creative team Doug Moench & Val Mayerik who completed the introduction to modern times with a good old-fashioned monster hunt in ‘…Always a Monster!’

This leads directly to #7’s ‘A Tale of Two Monsters!’: a dark, socially relevant tale of the modern underclass and man-made horrors carried over into ‘Frankenstein 1974: Fever in the Freak House’ before concluding in #9’s ‘The Conscience of the Creature’.

The horror boom was fading by this time and Monsters Unleashed #10 was the Monster’s last outing there: a superbly dark and sardonic Christmas offering complete with elves, snow, terrorists and a Presidential assassination attempt.

One final monochrome tale from Moench, Mayerik, Dan Adkins & Pablo Marcos (accompanied by a chilling frontispiece by Marcos) appeared in 1975 one-shot The Legion of Monsters. ‘The Monster and the Masque’ was a bittersweet morality play seeing the creature accidentally accepted at a fancy dress party, which is ruined when a different sort of monster gets carried away…

Switching back to full-colour comics, next up is a rather tame team-up/clash from Giant-Size Werewolf #2 wherein ‘The Frankenstein Monster Meets Werewolf by Night’ (Moench, Don Perlin & Colletta) to collaterally combine and quash a band of run-of-the-mill West Coast Satanists.

Resuming his own series, The Frankenstein Monster #13 displays ‘All Pieces of Fear!’ (Moench, Mayerik & Jack Abel) as, shoe-horned into mid-1970s America, the Monster is drawn into a tale heavy with irony as men act like beasts and an obsessive father ignores his family whilst building his own abominations through the nascent science of cloning.

With a hip young teenager as sidekick/spokesperson, ‘Fury of the Night-Creature’ (Dan Green inks) extends the saga by introducing I.C.O.N. (International Crime Organizations Nexus): yet another secret organisation intent on conquest by merging corporate business practices with traditional gangsterism.

Issue #15’s ‘Tactics of Death’ (Klaus Janson inks) briefly concludes the acronym-agenda as the Monster and companion Ralph mop up the men in suits only to be shanghaied to Switzerland to meet the latest Last-of-the-Frankensteins in ‘Code-name: Berserker!’ (inked by Bob McLeod – who managed to handle the next issue too).

Veronica Frankenstein was still absorbed in the family business, but claimed to be fixing her ancestors’ mistakes when I.C.O.N. creeps showed up, demanding her biological techniques in ‘A Phoenix Beserk!’. Beautifully inked by Mayerik and Adkins, the last colour issue ended on a never-to-be completed cliffhanger (although scripter Bill Mantlo covered elements of the story in Iron Man some years later) as the Monster and his new friend met ‘The Lady of the House’ – the utterly bonkers creature-crafter dubbed Victoria Von Frankenstein…

Perhaps the abrupt cancellation was a mercy-killing after all…

Rounding off the narrative wonderment is a 2-part tale from Gerry Conway, Sal Buscema & Colletta first seen in Marvel Team-Up #36-37 wherein Spider-Man is kidnapped and shipped off to Switzerland by the assuredly insane Baron Ludwig Von Shtupf, who proudly proclaims himself The Monster Maker…

In ‘Once Upon a Time, in a Castle…’ the bonkers biologist wants to pick-&-mix creature traits – having already secured the Frankenstein Monster to practise on… After the webslinger busts them both out, they stumble upon sexy SHIELD Agent Klemmer, but a rapid counterattack goes badly wrong when Von Shtupf unleashes his other captive – the furiously feral Man-Wolf – and only big Frankie can prevent a wave of ‘Snow Death!’

This codex of comic creepiness concludes with a mammoth bonus section offering art lovers and funnybook historians additional treats such as Ploog’s very first design sketch of the monster from 1972, original art, illustrations and (finished but pre-editorial addition) painted covers by Boris Vallejo.

Also on show are assorted frontispieces, pencils, inks and previous collected editions, covers and original art by Tom Sutton, Gray Morrow, Vince Evans, Mayerik, Bernie Wrightson & Arthur Adams, making this compendium a perfect treat for fantasy fans and dedicated horrorists: one that should be a first choice for introducing scare-loving civilians to the world of comics.
© 1973, 1974, 1975, 2015 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved.