Marvel Comics
Creators: Taboo, B. Earl, Scot Eaton, Scott Hanna and Miroslav Mrva
Release date: April 2021
I’m a werewolf fan; the wolfman is my favorite among the various great Universal monsters. Always has been.
I don’t recall when I first learned of the Marvel Comics character Werewolf By Night/Jack Russell, but the great Mike Ploog art was surely a part of that first exposure. I have all of that first run of the character in my collection now thanks to the Marvel Essentials series of black-and-white reprints.
There have been some attempts to update the Jack Russell/Werewolf By Night character, either in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents or self-titled miniseries throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, but I never much cared for those stories. They often seemed to focus more on gore and killings, things I’m not really a fan of in my horror fiction.
I heard some good things about this title in single issues. I wasn’t entirely sure I would like a Werewolf By Night updating without the Jack Russell character at all, but making a new werewolf character a Native American youth and setting the adventure in the southwest was intriguing. I decided to give the mini a try in trade format, and I was pleasantly surprised by the result.
This series doesn’t ignore Jack Rusell’s history; although the previous WBN title character does not actually appear, he is name dropped a few times. The story of 17-year-old Jake and how he chooses to deal with the family curse that afflicts him is interesting. But the creators here also throw in a classic Marvel western character, Red Wolf, and a secret group of bad guys genetically experimenting on folks.
It all adds up to a very solid read with some beautifully nice artwork. Like a lot of modern comics, this story doesn’t actually come to a final resolution in these four issues. Rather it sets up events that may or may not continue in a future series or another title. I hope to see more of this new Werewolf By Night cast of characters.
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