Recently I spoke of the werewolves in The Beyond, an Ace Comic. The other Horror and action comics of the Ace line also used werewolves. (Some comics like Baffling Mysteries sometimes reprinted the stories.) As with most Golden Age Comics, the very first werewolf encounters are with superheroes. In the late ’40s, the Horror titles (like The Beyond) slowly came to the front and scary tales were the norm.
Ace Magazines was originally a minor Pulp publishers with Ace Sports, Ace Detective, Ten Ace Detectives and Flying Aces. They had hero Pulps but not any Horror Pulp titles. In 1940 they got into comics with four Horror comics: The Beyond, Baffling Mysteries, Hand of Fate and Web of Mystery. It is the last three you will find here. The authors of these tales are mostly unknown.
“Lash Lightning” (Four Favorites #1, September 1941) was probably written by Abner Sundell. The villain of this piece is Adolph Krimetz, “a shaggy beast of a man”. He was once humiliated at Sumter Military Academy. He plans to blow it up as part of his revenge. Krimetz can change into a werewolf (and then has the ability to fly!) with his head becoming that of a wolf. His legs never change but remain human. Lash Lightning eventually punches the lycanthrope out of him, winning the day.
“Lash Lightning” (Four Favorites #2, November 1941) sees the return of Adolph Krimetz. Another long tale with Lash Lightning defeating him this time by throwing a lightning bolt at him. Lash Lightning was popular enough to get his own comic, Lightning Comics.
“The Werewolf’s Marauding Raids” (Super-Mystery v3 #3, January 1943) features Paul Revere Jr, Patrick Henry and Betsy Ross, three historically named children, and a plot to supply enemy submarines. The villains use a scam about a werewolf to frighten people away from the secret chamber in the old well by the sea. The werewolf in this comic is a fake. Kurtzman would go onto fame in the 1950s with Mad Magazine.
“The Werewolf of Wetheridge” (Four Favorites #20, November 1945) shows how much things change in eighteen issues. We have a werewolf but it’s not Krimetz this time. Lash has a girlfriend, Isobel, who is a reporter. She is sent to Wetheridge to look into the werewolf sighting. She looks up an occult detective, Professor Davis. He later dies at the claws of the beast. Once again the lycanthrope turns out to be fake, and Lash punches the tar outta him. I’m not sure why Isobel put on the Lightning Girl costume just to play the damsel in distress. Not much of a superhero.
Let’s leave the caped crusaders and dive into the Horror Comics. These comics filled with vampires, werewolves, haunted paintings and ghosts really took off after ACG came out with Adventures Into the Unknown, the first inspirational issues written by Horror master, Frank Belknap Long.
“Midnight Marauder” (Web of Mystery #2, April 1951) has Mark Doran and his girl, Laura Marsh, in a hunting party in the woods of Quebec. Laura is attacked by a wolfman and Mark saves her. Later Mark finds himself turning into a beast. Mark must kill the werewolf that cursed him if he is to return to normal. Laura’s father melts down silver to make bullets for Mark’s gun. Mark confronts the werewolf, turning into a monster as well. He shoots the other lycanthrope and cures himself of the disease.
“Vengeance of the Dead” (Web of Mystery #4, August 1951) concerns Zita, a mysterious woman in the circus. Her act is as lion-tamer, only she doesn’t tame lions. She uses monsters (one of these is a werewolf). Like most stories about circuses, the animals turn on the master in the end. Zita ends her days by being torn apart by a werewolf, a vampire, Frankenstein’s Adam and a caveman.
“The Menace That Stalked Brooding Cunliffe” (Web of Mystery #5, October 1951) has Pierre Beauchamp interested in the beautiful Cambria. Her cousin, David, is coming for a visit. He is a student of the occult. He and Pierre don’t like each other. Pierre dismisses David’s work as nonsense. A werewolf begins to prey on the people of Brooding Cunliffe. (What a great name for a town!) The culprit turns out to be skeptic Pierre, not David. David kills the monster by stabbing it in the heart.
“Death Howls By Moonrise” (Hand of Fate #8, December 1951) has Ben and Ginny driving to the mountains to see Fulton Duane, who has been resting at a cabin. Fulton seems healthy and in good spirits. The locals are all armed, looking for a wolf. It is actually a werewolf. And it isn’t very hard to guess who it is. The beast approaches Ginny and is later shot. It is Fulton Duane.
“The Mad Beast of Monaco” (Web of Mystery #6, December 1951) gives us Count Almo Duclos of Monaco and his fiancee, Ysobel Barsac. Life is pretty tough for the Count. He has lost a fortune of ten million francs and Ysobel has broken up with him. The Count hears about the Duchess of Malfia and her secret of the numbers that guarantee success at the roulette table. He forces the secret out of her but gets cursed in the bargain. He becomes a werewolf (the only one who wears a chic cape!) and goes on a rampage, killing several victims before being shot to death (with regular bullets). The slight reference to The Duchess of Malfi is cool.
“Scourge of the Kentucky Hills” (Baffling Mysteries #7, March 1952) begins with Dr. Vincent Curtiz and his hunchback assistant, Nemo, tricking the people of Calgia into thinking the marauding wolf has been hung. Curtiz wants the wolf’s heart, which he transplants to his own body. This turns him into a werewolf. Looking healthier, Curtiz tells his gal, Louise, they can now marry. Unfortunately he goes on a killing rampage, taking out his henchman and others. The locals kill him with arrows dipped in moonwater. (That’s new!)
“Dreaded Duo’s Blood Banquet” (Web of Mystery #11, July 1952) is an alliterative title worthy of a 1930s issue of Terror Tales. Georgie the Dog-Faced boy has fallen for the circus owner’s daughter, Lil Damion. Spurning him for his ugliness, Georgie runs into a graveyard during a lightning storm. He finds the grave of Dr. Karl Kasper, a very evil man, and digs up the coffin. He is promised his heart’s desire by a circle of ghostly demons if he pulls out the stake in his chest. Georgie does and wakes up to a handsome face.
Later Georgie finds Kasper is back from the dead. He also changes into a werewolf. Georgie receives the same curse and goes to the hospital where Lil is recuperating. He kills her. Georgie goes to the strange mansion of Dr. Kasper and learns that he lived a hundred years ago. He did terrible experiments on animals in that house. The demons reappear and the house burns to the ground. They find Georgie’s dead body, his face returned to its original homeliness.
“The Beast of Skeleton Island” (Web of Mystery #13, September 1952) begins when Harle Frier is rescued from a desert island. His only companion is a werewolf-like creature. Harle leaves the beast behind when the ship leaves. The beast has other ideas. He reappears in a more human form on the ship. He introduces himself as Rufus Meeks. He knows Harle ate the others in his party. Harle is cursed with lycanthropy now. When Harle gets home his disease haunts him as does Meeks. The beast attacks Harle’s family. The two werewolves fight until a policeman shoots them both dead.
“Role of the Footlight Werewolf” (Baffling Mysteries #13, January 1953) has a theatrical troupe in Poland. The lead, Raskine, falls ill and Nagy must take over his part in a werewolf play. His girl, Alicia, covets the part of the female lead, Olga. An old woman warns Nagy of the dangers of the countryside. He learns of the Valley of the Werewolves. He goes there to become a werewolf, guaranteed to make him the best actor to ever play a werewolf on stage. (What, we actors, do for our craft!) Olga doesn’t like Nagy so he gets rid of her and replaces her with Alicia. The two become werewolves during the play and are shot dead by the police. (That seems to happen a lot.)
“Revenge of the Haunted” (Hand of Fate #21, December 1953) features Biff Stone, a man who captures monsters for circuses. The first he takes down is a werewolf. Next he outsmarts three vampires. And finally, he goes after a mermaid. But the Hand of Fate intervenes and he ends up a sideshow freak, a real merman. The Lou Cameron art in this comic is something worthy of note.
“Baffling Mysteries #34” (Baffling Mysteries #20, April 1954) has an inspector from Scotland Yard make a terrible decision. When you hunt werewolves, you can’t trust anyone!
“Werewolf Husband” (Baffling Mysteries #23, November 1954) has Lucille being suspicious of Count Yarno. She studies eldritch tomes trying to discover his secret. She brings a Russian wolfhound to the Count’s quarters. He freaks out, killing the animal. Lucille is sure he was badly bitten but there is no wound. She accuses him of being a werewolf. He slaps her. Later she finds him in wolf form. He pleads for her help.
Lucille forces the Count to marry her, and to write a will leaving all his fortunes to her. She wants to get rid of him quickly so she shoots him with silver arrows. She gets scratched in the fight and becomes a werewolf too. She gets the same treatment, a silver arrow, when the bullet of the police prove useless.
“The Last Hiding Place” (Hand of Fate #25b, December 1954) takes us to Madame Lizette’s wax museum in a traveling carnival. The cops are hunting two robbers and shoot up Lizette’s show. They destroy her two most prized statues, the werewolf and the tiger woman. The old woman uses black magic to replace them. The two crooks, Nita Dell and Hannigan are in the prison’s hospital ward. Lizette’s magic turns them into the werewolf and the tiger woman. They escape and are hunted by the police again.
Lizette summons them to her tent. She offers them magical potions to turn them back into normal humans. They drink but the potion is poison. Lizette has made a deal with the cops, to deliver the werewolf and tiger woman. The police see Dell and Hannigan, their bodies having returned to normal, and accuse her of murder. Lizette dies when she stumbles into a pot of melted wax.
Again Lou Cameron’s artwork is a treat, looking similar to Edd Cartier’s illustrations for Jack Williamson’s “Darker Than You Think” from Unknown (December 1940). I suspect that story may have inspired the author as well.
Conclusion
Like many Golden Age publishers, the werewolves of ACE Comics received harsh criticism from Fredric Wertham‘s Seduction of the Innocent and the legal fallout of that study. The company did not survive the coming of the Silver Age. Werewolves would become all fakes in that era, or else Science Fictionally explained. I like the classic lycanthropes better.
All of these comics are available for free at DCM.
