We’ve done werewolves before. But it felt right to go back to the beginning and see what we had missed. Because we have done them before you won’t find EC, Marvel, ACE or ACG here. They all have (or will have) their own posts since they used the werewolf motif so often they have multiple stories to offer.
Why more werewolves? That seems obvious to me. They are my favorite of the classic monsters. You can keep Count Dracula or the mummy or any of the others that Universal did in black & white. The werewolf still intrigues me even after all the Pulps, all the movies, TV shows. There is more variation with the werewolf themes than other monsters. Are the werewolves evil? Cursed? Minions of a vampire? Pathetic or problematic? Silver bullets or some other method to kill them? The comics, even as early as the 1930s, looked at werewolves in different ways.
As with so many old comics, most of the authors of these comics are not known.
1935
Guy Endore wrote his classic werewolf novel, The Werewolf of Paris in 1933. By 1935, it was on film as The Werewolf of London. The appearance of werewolves in comic strips and comic books begins about that time.
“The Werewolf” (Mandrake the Magician, comic strip, November 4, 1935-February 29, 1936) was written by Lee Falk. This one is interesting to me because it pre-dates Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s “Doctor Occult” werewolf, which I thought was the first in comics. Mandrake keeps surprising me. I always thought it was a crime-fighter strip but it often uses strange elements, even alien invasions.
1936
“The Werewolf” (More Fun Comics #10-13, May-September 1936) was written by Jerry Siegel. Dr. Occult and a young girl are attacked by a werewolf. The monster proves to be a man named Westly, who asks Occult to cure him of his curse. In the process, Occult discovers an entire boarding house full of werewolves.
1939
“Batman vs. The Vampire Part 1 and 2” (Detective Comics #31-31, September-October 1939) was written by Gardner F. Fox. This two parter has a villain who dresses in a red hood and cassock who is called the Vampire. He can turn people into wolves. These are not wolf men per se. The early Batman has a supernatural edge that faded after all the Joker stories.
1941
1941 was the year of Lon Chaney Jr. and The Wolf Man at Universal. It shouldn’t be surprising that werewolves and Wolf Men are back in the public eye.
“Captain Marvel Battles the Vampire” Captain Marvel Adventures (March 1941) was written by Manly Wade Wellman. A vampire has a pack of werewolves at his command. It is interesting to compare this to the last one. For more on this and other werewolves by Wellman, go here.
1942
“Murder At Midnight” (Jumbo Comics #43, September 1942) is accredited to house name Drew Murdoch. This was a long-running series of tales that morphed over the years. Sometimes it featured Murdoch and other times it was an anthology comic. This is a Murdoch adventure with a werewolf terrorizing Old Man Fogg. But not everything is as it appears! The werewolf can speak in this one, which is unusual. It is also dispatched with a wooden stake like a vampire.
“The Werewolf Hunter” (Rangers Comics #8-41 (December 1942-June 1948) was written by unknown writers. The series begins with werewolves before moving off into a ghostbreaking with other kinds of monsters. Despite that, the name never changed. The first four episodes feature a lycanthrope. For more, go here.
1946
“Ghost Woman” (Star-Studded Comics #1, May 1946) has a wife killed in a car accident. As a phantom, she helps her husband to escape a pack of werewolves. She remembers silver bullets kill lycanthropes. Forks become bullets for a blunderbuss. When the leader is shot, the rest flee.
“Lady Satan” (Red Seal Comics #17, July 1946) has our heroine stop for three pathetic-looking waifs who turn into werewolves. Lady Satan is worried about even being scratched by the attackers, since she would become one of them. She uses the Xanda Powder on them and drives them away. The leader of the wolves takes them to an old castle. Lady Satan uses Tibetan magic to track them down and even throws herself onto the back of a fleeing car. The vehicle crashes and the werewolf thinks his nemesis dead. Our Lady tracks him to the castle where the children will be turned into werewolves for the last time. Lady Satan burns the werewolf to death, saving the kids.
“Frankenstein Meets the Terrible Werewolf” (Frankenstein #4, September-October 1946) was written and drawn by Dick Briefer. This was the first of three encounters for Frankenstein’s monster. They get progressively more serious. In this one, the werewolf becomes a pet.
“Ibis the Invincible and the Werewolves of Doom” (Whiz Comics #79, October 1946) was written by Bill Woolfolk. Ibis is a superhero armed with a magic stick that can do just about anything. Ibis and Taia go to Western Ontario with its snow and rustic cabins to visit John Loring and his sister, Mary. Too bad they turn out to be the werewolf leaders! The ibistick burn the werewolves to a cinder. This one is my favorite because it is a strange Northern.
1947
“The Terrible Werewolf” (Frankenstein #10, November-December 1947) was written and drawn by Dick Briefer. The second werewolf comic has a Gypsy lad with a hair problem. Hair-remover is the solution.
1948
1948 saw werewolves being used for laughs for the first time with Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, which featured the return of Lon Chaney Jr. as the hairy monster. Dick Briefer beat them to the punch with his Frankenstein comic two years earlier.
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