Essential Werewolf by Night

    (Marvel, 2005)
™ and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

Marvel’s Werewolf is a strange creature. [Marvel] had the public-domain Dracula and Frankenstein, so how to complete the hat trick? It created its own generic werewolf character. But Werewolf Jack Russell is surprisingly sympathetic.

Jack’s backstory is a little soap-operatic (dead mother, wicked stepfather, and, of course, that pesky werewolf curse). His adventures can also be formulaic, since almost every month he is stalked by someone new for his or her own nefarious purpose. (You never know how many uses a werewolf has until you really think about it.) But, in such skillful hands, it can’t help but grab the reader.

One of the pluses of the Essentials series is that they include related issues from many series. Therefore, this edition includes The Werewolf’s debut in Marvel Spotlight, both halves of a Dracula crossover, and Giant-Size Creatures #1, featuring the debut of Tigra. (It also includes The Werewolf’s appearance in Marvel Team-Up because you don’t really live in the Marvel universe, if you don’t know Spidey.)

In short, Werewolf by Night has that 1970s experimental Marvel charm.

— Jack Abramowitz
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