Category: Werewolf by Night
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It’s a lackluster but not bad Werewolf by Night, which is one hell of a compliment, but what else are you going to do with this book. Writer Doug Moench finally resolves the mysterious Committee out to get Jack Russell since the first issue. Or at least by the third issue. They hired Moon Knight…
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When I was a kid, this issue of Werewolf by Night was the most expensive because it featured the first appearance of “The Moon Knight,” a comic book weirdo. Werewolf proper hasn’t done any superhero crossovers, so Moon Knight could just be a seventies cosplayer. He’s not—he’s Marc Spector, mercenary, hired by The Committee to…
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This issue does something beyond what I was expecting from Werewolf by Night. It surprised me. Writer Doug Moench—with artist Don Perlin co-plotting—actually surprised me. Now, they couch that surprise in some bad writing, but still. I didn’t know Werewolf had any surprises left in it. Though, I suppose the issue even opens with a…
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Did contemporary readers ever return their issues of Werewolf by Night, finally fed up with the false advertising on the cover? With its gorgeous Gil Kane cover, this issue promises a story entitled, Red Slash Across Midnight, and Wolfman Jack on the city’s rooftops, holding a blonde lady (so either his sister or Topaz, presumably).…
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Werewolf by Night somehow manages to straddle being an utter debacle on every possible level while simultaneously being perfectly in sync. Writer Doug Moench and artist Don Perlin have reached simpatico like Moench gave in to Perlin’s art and just started describing it in the narrative instead of trying to make it fit the pre-existing…
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I’ve been wondering why Werewolf never does an issue in-between Jack’s werewolf nights—so, you know, the majority of his life—and Doug Moench “delivers” here, complete with entirely unsuitable hard-boiled narration for surfer bro Jack. After last issue’s second-night cliffhanger, they all had an uneventful third night. Then they didn’t talk for a week, just moped…
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There are numerous things to talk about this issue, but the teaser for next issue muscles them all out. Next issue is Lissa’s eighteenth birthday, an event the series has been promising for twenty issues and three years. I’m not taking the teaser as a promise, especially when writer Doug Moench is so comfortable retconning.…
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Artist Don Perlin keeps himself busy this issue. Each page has at least seven panels, usually with Perlin doing the action in small, vertical panels, in long-shot. As detail isn’t Perlin’s strong suit, the composition choices help. I have to be honest and admit I dug this issue so much I’m worried about myself. There’s…
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I can’t imagine Werewolf will keep it going, but somehow they find themselves this issue. I mean, it’s Doug Moench’s surfer bro pulp and Don Perlin’s “what if I just page layout like it’s 1952” penciling and inking, but still. They’re in sync here, and it’s… fine? Or at least closer to fine than I’d…
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I’m losing my resolve for Werewolf by Night. I was mostly prepared for Don Perlin—there aren’t any good panels this issue, but there are some where inker Vince Colletta adds so many lines they compensate for whatever was there before. It works with the villain, a Jekyll and Hyde-type scientist who maybe can cure Jack’s…
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Reading this issue, I kept having to remind myself writer Doug Moench doesn’t want Jack Russell to sound like a jackass, quite the opposite. Moench writes Jack’s narration as a combination of hard-boiled detective, beatnik, and, I don’t know, Charles Atlas advertisement text. It’s the purest obnoxious surfer bro Jack’s gotten in two dozen plus…
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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…
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Initially, this issue feels like newish writer Doug Moench taking Werewolf out and kicking its tires. He brings back Buck Cowan—who hasn’t been around since he was low-key living with seventeen-year-old Lissa Russell—as Jack’s best friend but only for a couple panels. There’s a lengthy flashback to the destruction of the Darkhold, sadly without the…
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It’s not going to seem like it in a few paragraphs, but I am a fan of director Giacchino. Or, more accurately, I am a fan of Giacchino’s directing. Werewolf by Night is easily the most interesting MCU project in the brand’s fourteen years. Most of the credit goes to director Giacchino, who does a…
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I’m not sure Doug Moench read much Werewolf by Night before writing this issue, which has eighteen-year-old Jack Russell walking around talking like a cheap forties gumshoe. Moench also doesn’t seem to know the bad guys kidnapped his sister because she too has the werewolf curse; when Jack goes to rescue her, the bad guy—Baron…
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The Gil Kane, Tom Palmer, and probably John Romita cover sells this issue as Wolfman Jack versus vampires on the moon. But the interior art isn’t Kane, Palmer, or Romita; it’s Don Perlin and Vince Colletta. Wolfman Jack versus the vampires is actually on a movie set, tying into a Dracula Lives story about a…
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I really haven’t been reading the creator credits well enough. First, I thought this issue was Doug Moench writing; it’s Mike Friedrich. Second, I thought it was Don Perlin’s first issue as full artist (penciler and inker), but he had that role last time. Third, he’s got an inker: Mike Royer. I blame the Don…
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I’m already regretting this statement, but I’m glad to have hit the Don Perlin era of Werewolf by Night. No more wondering if Mike Ploog will get an okay inker this time (because he won’t); now it’s just Perlin enthusiastically hacking it out, page after page, including a kind of good double-page spread. Despite his…
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Mike Friedrich writes, adding his name to the list of seventies Marvel writers who tried to make hash out of Werewolf by Night with limited success. The issue credits have some enthusiasm for pairing two Mikes (Friedrich and Ploog), but then Frank Chiaramonte’s the inker, so how much can they really do? The most Ploog…
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I’d like to say there are a few pages where Frank Chiarmonte’s inks don’t mess up Mike Ploog’s pencils. I can’t because there’s probably only a page and a half, and not sequentially. Werewolf by Night versus Tomb of Dracula comes to its conclusion here, a better comic than the first installment, which had writer…
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Marv Wolfman writes the h-e-double hockey sticks out of this issue. Unfortunately, it’s got a lousy ending as Wolfman gets stuck resolving Jack’s subplot with his step-father, Phillip, in a resolution seemingly intended to conclude the aged arc as quickly as possible. But there are some real highlights, including Jack’s moody romance narration for him…
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Has Frank Chiaramonte gotten better at inking Mike Ploog, or am I just so happy to see Ploog pencils, I’ll take whatever I get, inking-wise. The inks cut into some of the pencil’s roundness, making people more angular—Phillip Russell in particular. But the werewolf’s still nice and Ploog-y, plus there are plenty of great page…
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Don Perlin makes his first appearance in the Werewolf by Night credits, and I felt the tinge of inevitability. He’s inking Gil Kane’s pencils; about the only okay thing ends up being Wolfman Jack. Kane and Perlin’s regular people are pretty bad, Perlin’s fault, but Kane’s layouts for the action aren’t very good, not Perlin’s…
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It took Marvel until Werewolf #11 to get Marv Wolfman writing the book. Just the credit alone is worth it, which they seem to get—the credit reads: “finally a Wolfman written by a Wolfman.” Wolfman does get to create a new villain—The Hangman; I’m pretty sure he goes on to more in Marvel. The Hangman’s…
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I know people buy Marvel superhero comics in Marvel comics. Still, when a kid’s floppies get knocked from his hands during Sarnak the evil sound engineer’s attack on Century City, and the kid wishes Spider-Man or Thor were here… it feels like he’s talking about his comic book heroes. Otherwise, wouldn’t someone just be whining…
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For a while, I thought artist Tom Sutton would be Werewolf by Night’s return to art form. Or at least getting closer to it than it’s been since they started putting consecutively worse inkers on Mike Ploog, then lost Ploog altogether. Sutton’s probably the most successful since then, but he’s not good. The first sequence…
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Did Marvel have a market research department in the seventies? Was there some editorial edict to make Werewolf by Night aim younger? Despite being about a teenager who just turned eighteen and presumably feeling the weight of adulthood (legally, anyway), protagonist Jack Russell isn’t. Since the comic only ever shows him on his werewolf days…
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Apparently, somewhere in between issues, Jack sat down with sister Lissa, and they had the “your brother’s a wolfman” talk because she knows it in this issue and it’s old hat. If it were a better comic, I might be disappointed, but so long as they don’t pair Lissa off with forty-something Buck Cowan… I’m…
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Frank Bolle’s not the best inker for Mike Ploog’s pencils, but he’s far from the worst. This issue’s got some fantastic panels, even with Bolle muting the Ploog faces. Most of the art’s at least good, if not better, with only one wanting page when writer Len Wein introduces the cop who’s figured out there’s…
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Artist Mike Ploog is back to inking himself, and it is glorious from the first page. There’s even a recap of the previous issue, so everyone can see what they missed not having Ploog ink himself. The recap also burns some pages for writer Len Wein, who’s got the somewhat inglorious task of picking up…
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