New writer Doug Moench continues to put his mark (of the Werewolf) on Night.
By soft-booting the thing back to issue three or four. This issue starts with Jack going to see forty or fifty-something best friend Buck Cowan, who’s known Jack’s been a werewolf for a while now, but they never, ever talked about it on page, just went from not knowing to knowing. It’s the full moon, and the regular plan is for Jack to lock himself in Buck’s storage closet.
Jack tried this method last issue, and it’d didn’t work. They think they’ve got it licked this month with iron bars, but the werewolf just… goes through the door. Bet the claws help with it. The werewolf then attacks Buck, meaning Buck’s not as special as the other people the werewolf hasn’t killed because he knows they’re special to Jack. Except then, Jack’s seventeen-year-old sister shows up to see Buck, and the werewolf runs off.
I was getting my hopes up for Moench, and he’s really going back to Buck being a dirty old man.
Cool.
Moench does write excellent Wolfman Jack narration, though he finally breaks it at the end of the issue with Jack—who narrates the werewolf’s adventures in the past tense (meaning it’s already happened, keep that detail in mind)—thinking about how he doesn’t remember anything from the werewolf adventures. All that narrating he’s been doing for twenty issues? Doesn’t remember any of it. So how could he be narrating it during the Wolfman Jack adventures?
It’s tenses. It’s not, I don’t know, Ibsen.
Anyway, the actual story has the werewolf getting into a tussle with a ‘roided out movie star whose former producer got him into a disfiguring accident, so the guy, a former heartthrob, is killing a bunch of Hollywood types.
Who don’t not have it coming.
Moench also brings in a new cop—out for revenge for his missing partner, dirty, murdering cop Lou Hackett; but the new cop doesn’t know Lou was bad. Why get rid of one generic cop to bring in another?
The less said about the Don Perlin and Vince Colletta art, the better. It’s really bad this issue, Perlin’s worst (so far).
Once again, Werewolf’s a slog.
Leave a Reply