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 surprise—Moench and Perlin have turned Jack’s little sister, Lissa, now eighteen and apparently not a werewolf (or were-demon) anymore, into a homely buzzkill a la Jan Brady. Jack and Topaz want to take her skiing, but she wants to stay home and do homework. What a nerd.

We’ll soon learn this ski trip is the day before the full moon, meaning they intentionally planned their recreation as close to Jack’s monthly lycanthropic outbreak as possible. They’re going with Buck, who wants to introduce everyone to his new girlfriend. Lissa’s surprised he’s got a girlfriend, which is kind of good since most writers on the book before Moench had Lissa hanging around forty-something Buck way too much. Not anymore, she’s got homework, and he’s got a young widow with a daughter. Nice ready-made family there, Mr. Cowan.

They’re all going skiing. The issue’s cold open is Wolfman Jack about to kill the little kid.

Now, there’s some bad writing in the issue. First, there’s Jack’s werewolf narration, which is just frustratingly pointless by now, and then there’s the cop who’s going to Haiti to hunt Raymond Coker for werewolfing while Black. Then there’s Raymond down in Haiti, meeting up with a strangely white mystic woman.

But nothing compares to the little kid’s dialogue. Moench hasn’t exactly exhibited a great ear for dialogue in Werewolf—other than making sure Jack’s a jackass—but, wow, is that dialogue on the kid bad. You’re just begging for the werewolf to eat her.

Except the werewolf’s not hungry? He’s hunting for the sport.

Moench continues to rid the series of existing continuity; Jack’s inability as the werewolf to hurt his own friends and family is entirely gone now, something the last couple issues strongly implied. However, it’s more explicit here. It’s even a change from how Moench started writing the book.

But it does mean he can surprise, and surprise, he does.

It’s a heck of a compelling read, but probably only if you’ve been through the last thirty-plus Werewolf adventures.

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). A blurb in the bottom right corner further promises, “A city trembles as the were-beast stalks the streets!”

Bullshit.

Neither Wolfman Jack nor Weredemon Lissa are in any city. Instead, they spend this issue fighting the same place they spent last issue fighting, their family’s ancestral home, rebuilt in the L.A. bay by the villain in the second-ever Werewolf by Night story. Back in Marvel Spotlight. Maybe third-ever. Doesn’t matter.

The point is the cover is bullshit.

Good cover. Redundant story.

Even writer Doug Moench seems to know it’s redundant. Or, more precisely, Moench goes out of his way to contribute to the redundancy. He’s at least two, maybe three flashbacks to last issue. Because they knew people might buy this one because of that bitchin’ cover, only to be entirely lost as Jack, Topaz, and Buck roam around the castle waiting for nightfall.

Last issue ended with Jack turning from his werewolf night to find sister Lissa sleeping, having no memory of becoming a blue were-demon. Artist Don Perlin drew Lissa like she’d prematurely aged, Deadly Years-style, but this issue, she’s back to normal. Or whatever’s normal when Perlin draws it. He’s not big on visual continuity for characters’ faces between panels.

As usual, he’s best in long-shot. I’ll bet he’d have made a great storyboard artist.

But it turns out Jack took until noon to get back—sadly, we don’t go through the stone sculpture garden, which were victims of the original story’s villain’s Medusa-like power—and so he’s only got time to strong-arm Glitternight to no avail, discover Topaz’s step-father, Taboo, isn’t so much a resurrected magician as a golem, and take a nap before the full moon. He’s got a dream where he and Lissa fight as monsters, only with human heads. It’s silly looking, but then Perlin uses the visual again for Jack’s transformation. Will there be terrible werewolf transformation scenes for the rest of the series? I’m not sure I’m ready.

The issue’s a waste of time. With better plotting last issue, Moench could’ve wrapped it up to the exact same result, probably with better drama too. Or at least he would’ve avoided this issue’s redundant drama instead of leaning into it so much everything falls over.

But that cover’s swell.

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 story he had in mind. Only once does Moench slip—when Perlin thought they were making just eighteen Lissa Russell into an old woman.

Also, Perlin doesn’t draw the Haitian mystic lady as a Black woman, but instead as some vaguely—well, actually, vaguely European in a particularly problematic way too—white hag. But Moench’s dialogue is… well, he embraces doing his version of an old Haitian lady’s dialect. It’s cringy even for a comic from 1975.

But the silly main plot, which has Wolfman Jack fighting “weredemon” Lissa, it’s kind of great. It’s not good. Moench throws out a bunch of established continuity, like the werewolf knowing Lissa’s his sister, so her being even smellier as a weredemon would probably help. And the narration—Jack, fully narrating the werewolf fight he’s observing first-hand but, you know, not because he’s narrating the panel action—has this repeated dream device. Jack remembers all the times he and Lissa wrestled when they were kids, which doesn’t sound like the siblings at all. The one time Moench finds some real emotion, he ignores it, and the rest of the time, there’s some weird patriarchal shit going on too.

At least Jack doesn’t think about how he wishes she’d have married his forty-five-year-old bestie Buck Cowan instead of turning into a werewolf like him.

Oh, the demon thing… Old Scratch hisself cursed the Russell family with lycanthropy, so the weredemon should be the standard.

Doesn’t matter. Something about the way Moench writes that narration of Perlin’s mostly bad but still somehow vibrant and active panels just works. Maybe Moench’s dismissal of canon? Though Jack being a shitty misogynist about psychic ex-love interest Topaz (he doesn’t dig her now she’s not as mystically powerful because he’s a twerp) sucks.

It might just be symbiosis—and Lissa’s extremely long birthday subplot having such a bullshit conclusion—but I do wonder if the book’s finally found the formula.

It’s a successful comic—you get your two bits worth—but it’s not a good one.

Maybe Moench just paced it well. It’s definitely not worth going back to figure out its (almost infinitely asterisked) success.

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 around, presumably because neither Jack nor Buck wanted to console Topaz, whose soul is in peril.

But then Lissa shows up just before her birthday. And then Dr. Glitternight comes back to threaten Topaz; she’s got two weeks to deliver her father, even though he died back in issue #14 or something. Two weeks is also how long Lissa has before she too becomes a werewolf. Moench vaguely touches on their curse being something to do with Dad being a warlock (at one point, Satan hisself had damned the Russell family to Larry Talboting for eternity).

So they all decide to head out to the family island, where they can turn into werewolves in peace, something no one’s thought of doing in twenty-nine issues of the comic. For a brief moment, it seems like artist Don Perlin might be able to do the “dark and stormy night” castle stuff.

He cannot. I’ve been going soft on Perlin as of late, complimenting his thumbnail long shots, which I’d have been proud to draw as a tween. But, holy shit, his art is terrible this issue. So bad editor Len Wein should’ve apologized.

The castle and its reveals end up being even worse than the lousy soap opera first half of the comic. Perlin’s got lots to draw, and he’s terrible at all of it. Well, the thumbnails, I guess. But the rest? Atrocious.

And sister Lissa’s much-ballyhooed eighteenth birthday? Eh. The werewolf transformation isn’t a cop-out, but the utter lack of character development disappoints. The comic’s been promising this occasion since the first issue or maybe even Marvel Spotlight. Moench whiffs it.

Nowhere near as bad as the art, but still. He’s had the time to plot it, and he didn’t.

Werewolf barely reads like a professional comic; everything comes off silly and amateurish. This poor book. Curse of the Werewolf, indeed.

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.

The biggest official retcon is Jack remembering Wolfman Jack’s adventures. It’s always been a problem for the book, which has Jack narrating his werewolf outings, only then clarifying later he doesn’t remember what goes on when he’s the werewolf. So how’s he narrating? Moench just does away with it, which is fine. I think in the early issues, they hinted at it being like a nightmare state. Whatever.

Moench might also move Buck Cowan’s house, or it could just be artist Don Perlin not doing much detail in his establishing shots. Perlin will be a thing to talk about, but first… Moench’s narration for Jack. He’s very intentionally writing it as a hard-boiled homage because nothing says hard-boiled like a blond-haired, blue-eyed surfer bro who’s Eastern European royalty and has a moneybags stepfather (slash uncle). I mean, maybe Jack does spend his non-werewolf times watching old Bogart and Brando movies and rocking out to the Stones—Jack ain’t no hippie, y’all—it’s not impossible since we never, ever see Jack do anything but werewolf out. But, also, no. Sure, Jan.

The story this issue involves the werewolf stumbling across an old nemesis of Topaz’s from India. Topaz forgot to tell anyone in getting back her “esper” powers (never called them esper powers before); she had to give her evil, womanly sinful side of her soul to the bad guy, Dr. Clitterhouse. Dr. Glitternight. Whatever.

The issue’s silly but okay, with Perlin leaning in on the long shots for action. He’s better at those. He’s also not bad at the slimy monsters. Wolfman Jack? Not great; slimy, tentacle monster, all good.

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 nothing good or interesting about it, but it’s a monster comic set in the Marvel Universe. We get a three-way fight between Wolfman Jack, the Hangman (who Doug Moench writes better than Marv Wolfman, who created the character back in Werewolf #11), and the seventies Mr. Hyde.

Mr. Hyde’s got a ridiculous name—DePrayve (but better than George Lucas’s prequel proper nouns)—but it doesn’t matter. Werewolf has a relatively low bar to clear, though Moench seems again committed to changing things up. The last time he changed things up, Moench made the comic closer to its ground situation back in the first few issues. Moved Jack in with Buck again, reintroduced Lissa’s frequently forgotten impending werewolf curse, and brought in another dipshit cop. The last dipshit cop was dirty. This dipshit cop doesn’t know the last one was bad news, so has it out for… well, Jack, I guess. Wolfman Jack.

Moench writes a peculiar comic, from the Hangman’s (restrained but well-focused) rants and then Jack’s narration. It’s still forgotten experience—Jack doesn’t remember the werewolf’s adventures, even though he narrates them in the comic—but Moench ignores the discrepancies better.

The less you think about Werewolf by Night, reading it or writing it, the better.

It’s a godawful issue for Jack’s pal, Buck, not just because Perlin can’t draw him the same in any two panels.

Otherwise, no guest stars. No step-dads, no sisters, just Hangman terrorizing the werewolf. It’s better than it ought to be.

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 have thought. I was dreading Perlin taking over the inks, but it ought to be okay if he keeps aiming low.

Now, there are caveats, of course. Perlin’s figure drawing is hard to describe without sounding ableist. He seems to draw an oval for the body, an oval for the head, not thinking about necks, shoulders, or chests. There is one panel where he seems to be doing a Mike Ploog homage with Jack’s features. However, Perlin’s got no consistency with Jack’s features, so maybe it’s just roll of the dice.

The story finishes up last issue’s modern Jekyll and Hyde story (sort of). Wolfman Jack escapes the police—after wrestling with the obnoxious cop in the worst drawn net I’ve ever seen or imagined—and fights the Hyde monster on the streets of Pasadena or wherever. It’s the first time the werewolf seems to have killed someone in ages (for all the killer werewolf talk, Jack’s only killed like one guy), but then Jekyll recovers to turn out to be a future foil.

Jack’s stepfather (and uncle) Phillip and sister Lisa show up for a few panels. She’s still waiting to turn eighteen and werewolf out; the funny thing about Werewolf is the monthly structure means you could count how many months since Jack’s eighteenth birthday (within a two-month margin of error). In other words, this Lissa thing better pay off.

(It won’t).

The finale brings back a previous villain, which is perilous. Moench doesn’t have the space to go overboard with narration (Perlin’s got six landscape panels most pages, no deviations), and it helps immensely. We don’t get seven adjectives a sentence anymore.

But Werewolf’s in precarious “harmony.” Too much personality from a villain might break it.

I’m not exactly enthusiastic about Werewolf, but I’m not dreading it… which usually lasts two issues. We shall see.