“Fanged Nemesis of the North” appeared in Beyond #14 (August 1952). It was written by Robert Turner. (Turner wrote about penning this story in Some of My Best Friends Are Writers… (1970). The art may have been provided by Mike Sekowsky or Bill Walton.
Jason Fee and Phil Loomis are gold prospectors in Alaska. They have struck it rich but are attacked by timber wolves. The men manage to fight off the beasts and Fee uses the opportunity to kill his partner for all the gold. As Loomis is dying he curses Jason, slashing him slightly. Fee leaves the body for the wolves to eat.
Now a rich man, Jason goes to impress the idol of his eye, Phil’s girl, Nora. As Fee is wooing her, he turns into a werewolf. To hide his secret, Fee strangles Nora then flees. Jason lives it up with parties and girls. Again his lycanthropy ruins the party. He is shot at but since he is a werewolf the bullets don’t kill him.
An angry mob forms outside his hotel room. He disguises himself and escapes. Fee goes to a plastic surgeon to hide his face. It doesn’t stop him from turning into a werewolf on his wedding day. He violently attacks his bride-to-be and rushes off again. (Not since Frankenstein has a story been so hard on the girls.) Back to the surgeon.
This time Fee has his blood replaced, hoping it will cure him. It doesn’t work. To make matters worse, the ghost of his old partner, Phil, shows up. Only by confessing to the police can he be rid of the curse. Fee does and is sent to a prison in Alaska. While on his way to execution, he turns into a werewolf.
He escapes into the mountains, returning to the cave where he and Phil had fought the wolves. The animals drive him out into the night where hunters are looking for him. One of the men stabs Fee with a piece of wolf bone, the only way to kill a werewolf. (Forget silver bullets, virgin blood, holy water, etc.) Fee in death returns to his original human form, even before the plastic surgery. As one deputy says: some things are beyond human explanation!
“Fanged Nemesis of the North” has lots of werewolf and Northern cliches here, but the idea of using plastic surgery is new to the werewolf comics. The idea is from Mystery fiction, most famous perhaps the Humphrey Bogart film, Dark Passage (1947) based on the David Goodis novel (1946).
Read this comic for free at DCM.
