Werewolf by Night (1972) #14

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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 and Topaz—who steal a passionate kiss before he heads to a showdown—but the best is the car chase.

Out of nowhere, Wolfman and penciller Mike Ploog do this impromptu California mountain highway car chase. It’s awesome. Since it’s mostly in long shot, Frank Chiaramonte’s inks don’t do it too much disservice either. It’s a shame Chiaramonte seems to know to give expression to the werewolf and the bad guy, Taboo, but everyone else is relatively bland. It’s not the worst Ploog inking; it’s just not… well, it’s not good Ploog inking. It’s just not blithering incompetent.

There’s a lot of plot to the issue, too, something most Werewolf writers have avoided. Wolfman resolves the cliffhanger with a fight scene, gets Jack and Topaz back to his place for some smooching, stern words from sister Lissa, and discovers step-dad Phillip’s been brain-transferred to Taboo’s monster.

So Jack’s got to go back and defeat the monster, which should cure the step-dad. But, little does Jack know, the escape was all part of Taboo’s master plan, leading to some surprises in the second half. Maybe not the most consequential surprises, but Wolfman’s generating new, contained subplots, which is nice to see. Because he writes the heck out of it. Just superb work from Wolfman.

I mean, the wrap-up’s a disappointment on a couple levels, and there are some very repetitive series elements—at one point, I was expecting Jack to get turned to stone again, just like in his second adventure—but it’s still an outstanding issue of Werewolf. The big subplot conclusion—going back to the first issue—is just too slight, too easy.

Because they’ve got to get Jack and Topaz on a plane to catch a train so they can guest star in next month’s Tomb of Dracula, which should be interesting.

I feel like there’s some other unresolved plot thread I’m forgetting but maybe not.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #13

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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 layouts. Ploog’s flexing on the composition.

The story involves Jack again getting captured and held prisoner by someone out to get his werewolf magic (or something related). His captor, once again, has a comely female accomplice who gets sympathetic to Jack, putting herself in danger. And then there’s a monster guy to fight.

With minor adjustments, it’s the same story Werewolf by Night has been doing since the second or third issue. The bad guy—Taboo, an Indian mystic—is even after the Darkhold, which one of the first villains was after, though it got ingloriously destroyed ten issues ago. His pretty lady sidekick is Topaz. She’s the one with the real power; Taboo wants her to use her powers to soul-suck Wolfman Jack and put it into Taboo’s sickly son. Taboo was going to heal his son with the Darkhold twenty years ago, but Jack’s real father stole the book from him.

Or stole it back from him. Jack’s father’s history is very muddled.

Further complicating matters is Jack’s step-father, Phillip Russell, also being one of Taboo’s prisoners. Turns out Taboo hired the Committee to harass Russell on his behalf, all so Taboo could get the Darkhold. Werewolf by Night’s plotting appears to be determined by dice roll and bingo card.

Marv Wolfman’s scripting again. Instead of trying to unravel all the outstanding subplots and make sense of them, he’s bundling them together—the mysterious Committee being reduced to a proxy for Taboo, the Darkhold coming back. Jack has a little character development (he wants to be a stunt man). He’s also semi-racist to his Black neighbor again. While the neighbor’s a dick, to be sure, there’s some major subtext. Not to mention Jack’s just a bro.

No sign of his little sister, Lissa, who ought to be werewolfing out any time. The issue picks up at least a month after the previous, without addressing any outstanding plot points (i.e., also absent Buck now knowing Jack’s a werewolf).

I hope once the book loses Ploog for good, the writing somehow ups the ante to compensate because, otherwise, Werewolf’s going to be a Seventies slog.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #12

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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 fault. But the real disappointment this issue is writer Marv Wolfman. He’s got absolutely nothing going with the main plot, the new villain, the Hangman. And then the subplots stumble too.

The main plot fails because the Hangman doesn’t turn out to be a very good villain for Werewolf. Since Wolfman Jack can’t understand what’s going on—he’s found a Christian fascist psychopath vigilante with kidnaps the women he saves—writer Wolfman compensates with lots of monologuing from the Hangman. It’s not good monologuing, especially since at some point the Hangman becomes afraid of the werewolf, only we never see that moment occur in the comic. Somewhere between the werewolf dodging a blow and the Hangman outrunning the cops, he becomes terrified. Only Wolfman doesn’t write the monologuing like he’s terrified, just fanatical. Maybe Wolfman thinks he’s doing a transition, but he’s not.

Of course, the Hangman monologues are much better than the regular people’s dialogue. Wolfman’s Jack Russell is an entitled white bro asshole who’s potentially racist to the first regular Black character in the book. Maybe the guy is being a dick to him, but Jack’s barbed responses don’t not seem racist. Luckily, there are two girls who think he’s hot stuff, and he spends the day flirting with them, even though—the comic reminds us—he’s technically got a lady.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old (or younger) sister Lissa has told mid-forties Buck about Jack’s lycanthropy, and Jack blows them off for the chicks after his fight with the Hangman in front of them. Plus, step-dad Phillip is still off being tortured. Wolfman revved all the existing subplots only to let them go cold again, an issue later. He really was just keeping the pans hot.

Strangely, Wolfman’s Jack Russell narration is fine, sometimes near good—it can’t quite get there because the plot’s failing—it’s some of the best Jack narration in ages. We also get the first mention of Marvel superheroes existing in the real world. Jack thinks about how he’s not Spider-Man.

Anyway. I was expecting the art to be the most disappointing thing, but it’s the writing. Bummer.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #11

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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 a fascist vigilante who goes around with a noose and scythe, killing bad guys.

Oh, he also kidnaps all the women he saves, taking them down to his sewer lair. Presumably, a different sewer liar than the last villain in Werewolf. Thank goodness L.A.’s so big.

Gil Kane and Tom Sutton do the art; Kane penciling, Sutton inking. Wolfman Jack Russell is great. The rest varies from okay to good. Sutton inks Kane’s faces wrong. At their best, Sutton’s inks feel like they’re bundling and intensifying Kane’s pencils. At the inks’ worst… well, Sutton takes too much out of the faces. He flattens too much and leaves the eyes and mouth floating. It’d be okay a couple times, but it’s most times.

The issue opens not with Jack or the werewolf but with Jack’s kidnapped step-father, Phillip Russell. It’s a torture scene. The shadowy group of evil white men—I think the Council but so many of these comics had them—is willing to forgive Russell’s still unrevealed transgressions if he’ll just give them his stepson. We found out last issue the bad guys know Jack’s a werewolf. Also, last time they wanted Jack’s younger sister, Lissa, who hasn’t become a werewolf yet.

Russell won’t give Jack up, so they have to keep torturing him. It’s weird to have some dad getting tortured in a Bond villain lair but… fine. What’s weirder is how writer Wolfman does a bunch of work on the running subplots. The comic introduced them way back in its Marvel Spotlight days, then forgot about them until a few issues ago when original writer Gerry Conway returned. Conway lined some pieces up, and now Wolfman’s doing the finishing touches?

I don’t know if Werewolf needed a more constant writer, but it definitely needed better plotting. There’s decompressed storytelling, then there’s taking two years to get to a basic reveal.

Wolfman also gets to send Jack out on his own; he has a big scene telling Buck and Lissa he’s moving out on his own (he’s got his trust fund). Given we’ve seen Buck and Jack hanging out half a scene in ten issues, it’s not the last episode of “Friends.” Then there’s the on-the-nose moment where the Hangman sees Buck and Lissa together and is like, that old man better not be messing with that teenager.

There are a few good plot points opened up for next issue; Buck finally sees the werewolf, there’s the big cliffhanger with Hangman, and Phillip’s still kidnapped. But waiting ten issues for anything whatsoever to happen with the character arcs is way too long.

Even for the seventies.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #10

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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 about how L.A. doesn’t have any good superheroes?

It’s a pretty good issue. Tom Sutton’s art is slightly better this time. Last time he made an excellent first impression, this time, he opens with some of his weakest stuff—not sure what’s going on with Lissa Russell’s head, but it looks painful—and then mostly improves. The Century City attack sequence is goofy—pissed off Jack escapes, Sarnak unleashes his army of mind-controlled sewer men on the citizenry. It doesn’t really play into the main plot, but I guess writer Gerry Conway thought any set piece would do.

While that attack’s happening, Lissa’s presumably passed out in her sewer pit jail, while Jack goes to Venice Beach to get help from Buck, who doesn’t wonder why Jack’s shirtless and smelly. Weird norm.

At the same time, copper Lou Hackett wants to question Phillip Russell, but the bad guys from the Committee show up and—literally—karate chop Russell into submission before kidnapping him. Lots going on at once, but none of it for this issue. We met the Committee earlier during Sarnak’s origin flashback; he was once a great sound engineer, but he started bootlegging records. Apparently, the label guys burned him alive for it. But he still knows his stuff, so he can create a mind-control device and do the Committee’s bidding.

Their bidding in this case? Capture Jack and Lissa; the Committee knows Jack’s a werewolf and suspects Lissa will be one too. They want to control the werewolf siblings, and Sarnak’s just the man to do it, right after he organizes a brainwashed sewer army.

It’s all extremely contrived, but it also makes the story much stranger than it would be without such a silly series of events.

The finale’s good—Sutton obviously enjoys doing the werewolf scenes—and it’s nice to see Jack and Lissa on the same page about his lycanthropy. Even if she only plays damsel in distress when she was actually the Committee’s primary target.

The Larry Talbots… I have it, my father had it, my sister has it.

Conway and Sutton pull it off, rescuing the two-parter.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #9

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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 has Wolfman Jack running through rainy Los Angeles while some scary-looking guy in a scarecrow outfit chases him in the sewer, eventually attacking. The werewolf holds his own until a supersonic dog whistle paralyzes him, letting the scarecrow guy escape, with the werewolf passing out in public. Jack wakes up in the morning in the LAPD drunk tank, with detective Lou Hackett waiting to question him.

There was also a Len and Glynis Wein cameo, which is cute, but probably shouldn’t be one of Sutton’s most successful “people” panels. Because while Sutton’s better than most at the werewolf and his sewer-dwelling, scary-looking foe… the people are the pits. And they get worse as the story progresses. Then it turns out the sewer-dwelling grotesques are just ugly people who were experiencing homelessness and then hypnotized by some guy with a pied piper pipe… it’s rather dehumanizing and icky.

Pied piper guy is named Sarnak. He works for the Committee. And he wants to brainwash the werewolf into helping them attack Century City, but it’s all actually a ruse to kidnap Lissa Russell (in addition to Jack, in werewolf form). Sarnak sent his bad guys to get Jack from step-dad Phillip’s place, where Lissa was asleep—before the full moon rose, they go to bed early in the Russell household—and the bad guys didn’t go to get her.

There’s a line in Jack’s narration about Lissa’s presence being inexplicable, but go with it, so there may be no explanation next issue in the resolve.

The rainy street scene’s really good. The bad guys fighting the werewolf in the Russell house is good. The rest is pretty blah.

We do get Hackett trying to strong-arm Russell into giving him some answers about the werewolf, but Hackett calls Phillip, who shows up and takes Jack home. Not sure why they didn’t keep questioning him. But then Jack and Phillip get to argue for the first time in almost ten issues (I don’t know if they’ve had a scene together in Werewolf by Night proper). And Jack and Lissa get to briefly talk about the werewolf curse.

She’s seemingly unworried about coming down with it herself.

Gerry Conway’s script is okay. The people talking stuff might work if Sutton didn’t draw the people poorly.

It’s good they’re finally getting to the Russell family drama stuff, but it’s been about a year since the series started putting it off. So hopefully, they’ve got something good planned for next issue’s resolution. But I’m also not holding my breath.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #8

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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 and nights, he mostly walks around half-dressed, whining about the werewolf being hungry last night and sleeping away the day because the comic’s got no ideas.

Or maybe writer Len Wein was just going for a riff on schlock and failed because guest penciler Werner Roth has no sense of humor.

The issue opens with Wolfman Jack running off from the burning circus, leaving sister Lissa and pal Buck behind to answer the questions for the cops. Lissa’s less explicit about knowing Jack’s the werewolf. She just gazes out at the mountains, implying she knows her brother’s out there furry and hungry. Then Lissa and Buck are gone, their requisite page in. Wein also checks in on seemingly evil, murderous step-dad Phillip, who gets a threatening phone call (like he’s been getting since his second issue) and a visit from copper Lou Hackett. Hackett wants to talk to the family about a werewolf!

Presumably, these plot lines will be important later, but I’m worried I’m presuming a lot.

The main story is about Jack happening into a cave with a locked door at the end. When he hears noises behind it and opens it, but the chamber inside is empty except for a skeleton holding a book. Jack settles in for some light reading before he turns into the werewolf—for all the complaining about the werewolf’s constant hunger; otherwise, it doesn’t seem like Jack would eat at all—and reads about yet another Southern California warlock who called another demon into Marvel 616. The warlock locked the demon in the chamber and stayed inside until he and the demon died. The timeline’s shaky but maybe the demon picked the guy’s bones clean over the years.

Jack doesn’t realize he’s messed up, so he falls asleep, waking up to turn into the werewolf and discover there’s a very talkative demon he needs to fight.

The demon taunts the werewolf for, I don’t know, half the issue while they duke it out. The taunting is where it feels like Wein is targeting younger readers. It’s distinct, Bond villain taunting, but it’s contentless blathering.

Roth’s pencils leave a whole lot to be desired. It’s unclear if Paul Reinman’s inks help or hurt. It doesn’t matter. The issue’s entirely disposable.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #7

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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 not going to complain.

Not when writer Len Wein’s referring to the one Black character as a “Black giant.” It all feels very colonial. And very Christian; in his narration, which Wein writes with incredible detail and verbosity, Jack describes something like Moses’s cane separating the Red Sea, and you’ve got to hope they were smoking something.

The issue opens with lions versus werewolf—circus lions, which Jack explains in the narration means they aren’t as fierce as his surfer boy werewolf—only Wolfman Jack doesn’t beat them in a fight; instead, it’s the appearance of the Swami. He calms everyone down—and reveals he can mind-read for realsies—and it’s cliffhanger resolved. Jack sleeps off the shaggy dog syndrome, then spends the next day in a hypnotic trance until sister Lissa and buddy Buck arrive to save him.

Sadly, they’re no match for the Swami’s hypnotism, so it will be up to the werewolf to sort things out.

The Swami’s plan involves the Bloodstone, which will end up being a Captain America MacGuffin in the eighties—I’m not sure on the continuity. It’s just here to give the Swami an excuse to do a blood sacrifice, as well as to explain why the carnival flunkies work for him. The Bloodstone leads to incredible wealth somehow. It’s not important. Wein overwrites the narration so much and slowing down on it just reveals wanting (or problematic) content; why bother putting energy into parsing it all.

The art’s okay. Jim Mooney isn’t a good inker for Mike Ploog’s pencils, but he’s also not the worst.

The conclusion’s so perfunctory and bland—the Swami’s not some great villain—you’d think Wein was finishing off an arc he hadn’t started, but he wrote the last issue too.

I’m trying to think if there’s anything else notable. Maybe the way Wein writes Jack’s experience of the werewolf’s adventures—but it seems unlikely his approach (Jack’s more lucid observing the werewolf than his own existence) will carry over to the inevitable next writer.

Though, I guess Jack’s also never not hypnotized when he’s human in the issue. It’s a mess not worth unraveling. Werewolf by Night reads like a joyless churn for everyone involved.

And I think the series has used the same villain resolution before, which isn’t great given it’s only ten issues in (counting the Marvel Spotlight).

Werewolf by Night (1972) #6

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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 a werewolf on the loose. But the cop’s only a tease for later. Instead, the issue’s all about an evil circus swami kidnapping Jack so the show can have a real, live werewolf.

The issue starts with an unrelated action sequence; Wolfman Jack versus truckers (back when they were unionized). It’s a bit of a page killer, something to get the werewolf in Werewolf by Night as soon as possible. There’s no connection to last issue—other than when the cops talk about the events—but when Jack’s sister, Lissa, shows up, she’s apparently forgotten she found out her brother was a werewolf and she’d be turning someday too.

However, she at least isn’t paired off romantically with Jack’s roommate and bestie Buck Cowan, who’s in his forties at least. Lissa’s not yet eighteen. I’m just waiting for that icky to hit.

After the opening werewolf action, set on the last night of the full moon, Wein jumps ahead to the next one, though Jack isn’t preparing for it because, if he did, there couldn’t be a comic book. He’s always got to be taken vaguely by surprise the moon gets full every month.

He, Lissa, and Buck are on a day trip to San Diego, where they come across the circus. The swami immediately hypnotizes Jack to make him docile enough for kidnapping. Lissa and Buck disappear from the story at this point, with Buck telling Lissa her brother probably just hitched back to L.A. out of boredom. The cop scene’s next and seems like it’d be a missing persons report.

Nope.

There’s a little introduction to Jack and the circus; the second tier bad guy is the dwarf lion tamer who resents having a werewolf around; the good guy is a gentle giant who doesn’t let the lion tamer abuse hypnotized Jack. But once the full moon rises, there’s no way to keep the werewolf under control, and the whole circus has to get in on the fight.

The beginning’s a little rocky, with the art carrying the water, but the eventual roaming circus chase and fight is good. Wein doesn’t overwrite the narration as much previous writer Gerry Conway did.

It’s fine. For a seventies Marvel horror book, it’s totally fine.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #5

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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 the series on a downturn. Wein’s scripting is fairly indistinguishable from previous writer (and Werewolf creator alongside Ploog) Gerry Conway.

The action begins with Jack reverted to human form and heading back to collect sister Lissa from captivity. Unsurprisingly, he can’t just rescue her because the bad guy from the last issue has an evil brother, but this one’s a scientist who wants someone murdered. In exchange for the werewolf doing the deed, brother bad guy will cure Lissa’s lycanthropy. I’d be remiss not to mention—because it was a silly development and shouldn’t be forgotten—in Werewolf’s current canon, Jack and Lissa are Satanically cursed; they become werewolves because Satan wills it. Where the heck is Mephisto in this continuity?

Anyway.

Wein’s got no time for Satanic curses, so Jack’s going to go kill some guy for the scientist villain who’ll then cure Lissa. Lissa is unconscious this entire issue; she was unconscious most of last issue. No one writing Werewolf’s got time for her.

Speaking of time, this issue takes place on the fourth full moon in the monthly sequence but calls it the third. They made a mistake a couple issues ago doubling up full moons—they skipped the second night straight to the third—but they roll it back here. Jack missed the second night but had two third nights in a row. I guess it’s good they’re back on track, though I wish they’d move the story along instead of doing immediate sequels to previous issues. Every villain’s got a brother or a daughter to continue the action the very next day, while human Jack spends most of the daytime unconscious or off-page.

No character development here… just glorious action, both werewolf and human. Wolfman Jack’s prey is in a fortified mansion with militarized guards, meaning it’s werewolf versus machine guns, but also Jack hightailing it on a motorcycle at one point. And since it’s 100% Ploog, it’s fantastic even as it gets more and more absurd.

Given all this book’s got going for it—so far—is phenomenal Ploog art or the promise of phenomenal Ploog art… it’s concerning knowing he won’t be around much longer. Maybe Wein’s just finishing old business, and now the comic can get moving.

More likely, it’ll just be a series of contrived villain-of-the-month stories, but one can hope.