By 
Marvel dipped its toe into the horror stream cautiously, using Marvel Spotlight #2 (in 1971) as the safest way to introduce a new concept in horror. Bringing the Werewolf legend to modern life (as it was in 71) was no easy task. Aside from “The Wolf Man” movie, there is no definitive work of fiction about lycanthropy. Marvel’s newly appointed editor-in-chief, Roy Thomas, solved this problem with his unique concept: a young eighteen year-old named Jack Russell, who discovers his curse on his 18th birthday.
Jack Russell (yeah, the terrier did have something to do with that name) didn’t live in the Baltic states or New England, as most horror stories did back in those days. He was a California kid, living in Malibu, with his mother, step-father (Philip), and sister Lissa. As he discovers on his eighteenth birthday, Jack is cursed to turn into a werewolf on each night of the full moon. Throughout the series, we often see the Werewolf prowling around Los Angeles and the beaches during the night (click to expand the image above). One memorable sequence had Jack turning into the Werewolf as he drove his car along the Pacific Highway.
It was natural for Thomas to choose Gerry Conway as the first writer of the series. Conway was already writing Amazing Spider-Man and could zero in on young-adult angst like a missile. I’ve read that for a period of time, the Buffy writers admired Conway’s skills at constructing these types of stories. Conway used first-person narration to convey the horror that Jack feels. He avoided making the stories around a Jeckyl and Hyde duality. The Werewolf was Jack. A bit animalistic, but it retained Jack’s basic emotions—it never attacked his friends or loved ones. The Werewolf remembered Jack’s enemies with a passion and pounced on them quickly.
When Jack is first transformed into the Werewolf, he leaves his 18th birthday party in a lurch to prowl the beaches. His mother goes looking for him, and gets fatally injured in a car crash. Jack visits her in the hospital and learns the truth: that his real father was a European warlock who was similarly cursed and killed when he got out of control. Later, Jack discovers that his father possessed a book called the Darkhold—a book of spells that could possibly lift the curse. The Darkhold went on to be used in other series after WBN was cancelled—most notably in the Doctor Strange arc that eradicated vampires from the Marvel Universe.
Werewolf By Night featured the debut of a new superstar artist: Mike Ploog. Ploog was an incredible asset to Marvel, since he had learned the craft of drawing from Will Eisner. Ploog had Eisner’s style down cold, yet he wasn’t a clone. He plugged Eisner’s drawing techniques into the Marvel style of storytelling. Click on the above image to expand; you’ll see that Topaz’s introduction resembles the way we met P’Gell in the Spirit. WBN was Ploog’s first assignment, but he quickly developed his talent. He excelled at drawing a number of great horror characters: Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, and Frankenstein. There’s no other artist that I loved more than Ploog during this period.
The early issues of WBN involved a number of weirdoes looking to get a hold of Jack. Some people want to find the Darkhold using Jack; others want to tap the Werewolf’s spiritual energy; one redneck wants to hunt down the Werewolf. There’s an ongoing sub-plot about his step-father, Philip—did he have Jack’s mother killed to inherit her wealth? And what about Jack’s sister, Lissa—will she become a Werewolf on her 18th birthday? The Werewolf himself has few motivations: only the desire to survive, to be free, to return to the forest and hunt various four-legged animals for meat.
