Marvel was all about making monsters as the Bronze Age tumbled along. Dracula and Werewolf by Night were buttoning down the supernatural side of the market, while Morbius the Living Vampire spoke to monsters more in line with the modern day. In that vein the Man-Wolf was born. As with Morbius the Mam-Wolf was first allowed to prowl in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man.
In a two-part tale by Gerry Conway and pencilers Gil Kane and Ross Andru we again meet John Jameson, the son of the blustery publisher of the Daily Bugle J. Jonah Jameson. Jameson the younger was an astronaut and while on the Moon had collected a bauble he wished to keep as a souvenir, but when hung around his neck that "Moonstone" had a nightmarish effect and transformed the young man into a ferocious werewolf. Spidey is able to stop the transformations by ripping the stone from the Man-Wolf's throat and tossing it into the river.
Soon thereafter Morbius the Living Vampire rescues the "Moonstone" and giving it back to Jameson creates for himself an ally in an attack on Spider-Man. The face off against the Web-Slinger in the first and only issue of Giant-Size Super-Heroes. The story is by Conway and art is by Kane.
It is decided to give Man-Wolf his own series and no magazine was better titled to host that series than the reprint comic Creatures on the Loose. Doug Moench is given the writing task and the reliable George Tuska takes on the art chores assisted by Vince Colletta. A sturdy police lieutenant named Stroud is given the task to bring the Man-Wolf in when he transforms yet again and thinks he's done his duty when Man-Wolf falls from the top of the Statue of Liberty.
But of course, he survives to prowl again. I love this cover by Gil Kane, so full of intensity and emotion.
The Man-Wolf is next pursued by Kraven the Hunter for a mysterious employer. Kraven does what he does best and captures the werewolf. Tony Isabella handled the writing on this one.
A new team takes over the feature in the next issue. David Anthony Kraft becomes the new writer, and an up-and-coming George Perez makes his mark on color comics. Perez was intended only as a fill-in but he ends up staying with the series until its demise. In this one Stroud learns that Man-Wolf is alive and battles against both Kraven and the Man-Wolf to bring him in.
The scene shifts dramatically to Georgia when we learn that Jameson escapes the trusting Stroud and rides a doomed train into the far South. Jameson is helped by a young couple but then runs up against a deadly mob who surprisingly operate a massive technologically advanced installation underground.
His battles with this offbeat gang continue as he learns the leader is the vile Hate-Monger. But Nick Fury and his agents of SHIELD arrive to save the day. Meanwhile his girlfriend Kristine Saunders falls under the spell of an untrustworthy man named Harrison Turk. John Jameson survives but one of his new friends does not.
The adventures of the Man-Wolf take a bizarre turn when John Jameson ends up in orbit and transformed. It's all exceedingly complicated but as he battles against himself and other mysterious barbaric agents we learn the stone is called the "Weirdstone" and the Man-Wolf is defeated.
Man-Wolf is confronted by three people, a blonde barbarian named "Garth", a bearded brute called "Gorjoon", and a seeming sorcerer named "Lambert". At the same time he battles against raiders who seek to take over a space station. It's a melee to say the least but at the very end we learn that the "Weirdstone" has taken over all of Man-Wolf's nervous system. It's a stunner and sadly also the final issue of Creatures on the Loose. The saga of Man-Wolf will have to wait to be completed.
That robust finale comes in the pages of two issues of Marvel Premiere. We learn that the "Weirdstone" is from another dimension and in that dimension the Man-Wolf is called "Stargod". Jameson has control of his powers in this dimension and leads a team of barbarians into battle against the Harrison Turk who turns out to be a rival leader. He uses his captive Kristine as leverage but in the end Stargod and his forces prevail despite heavy losses. This wild fantasy turn in the strip comes to a halt when both John and his love Kristine are returned to Earth.
Man-Wolf is off the board until he becomes embroiled in a struggle between Spider-Man and the Frankenstein Monsters in the pages of Marvel Team-Up. This is a rather ho-hum effort by Conway, Sal Buscema and Vinnie Colletta. At the end Jameson is once again captured. And we learn that later in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man that he is put into a cryogenic chamber to await the time when science can remove the stone from his body without killing him.
In a rousing two-part tale by Marv Wolfman and John Byrne in Amazing Spider-Man, the Man-Wolf is revived and becomes a weapon of vengeance against both Jonah Jameson and Spider-Man. At the end Jameson falls into the river but his descent is interrupted by a strange flash of light.
That flash of light took him back to the dimension in which he was Stargod. In two issues of The Savage She-Hulk by Kraft and artist Mike Vosburg we get a convoluted tale of what has become of the civilization Stargod left behind. The problem is helped by the Hellcat and her dimension-spanning cloak. It's a rather ramshackle story to be honest though it was nifty see Man-Wolf again. At the end he is zapped back to Earth yet again.
He shows up in full ferocious Man-Wolf mode in a Spectacular Spider-Man Annual. This story is again written by Kraft and drawn by Jim Sherman, Al Weiss, and Steve Mitchell. Jameson is captured and allows himself to be brought into a facility operated by Doctor Kurt Connors and there with Spider-Man's help a cure is finally found and the "Weirdstone" is at long last freed from Jameson's body and falls into bits. At long last Man-Wolf's strange journey ends eight years after it began during the monster boom in 1973.
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