Lately, I've been reading Marvel horror series that feature the moody and shadowy art of Gene Colan. I discovered yesterday that Man-Wolf was scheduled to replace Brother Voodoo in the revived Strange Tales series in the early summer of 1974. As we know, M-W actually featued in monster mash title Creatures on the Loose and The Man Who Lived Twice was followed by a Wein/Buscema.Mooney creation, The Golem, for all of four issues.
With the demise of Creatures, as we've seen, M-W had a High Fantasy, sword-and-planet adventure in the try-out comic Marvel Premiere, then returned to his original status as a minor supporting character in Amazing Spider-Man. Here, we finally come to a comic I bought in the wild, as it were, at the end of the 70s.
In January of 1979, I accompanied my dad, who'd been VP of the Scottish Homing Union, to a racing pigeon Olympiad in Amsterdam. That was my dad's thing just as mine has been comics and Dr. Who (and theatre, until about a decade ago.)
It was dry and very cold, with icy pavements and spicy, Indonesian food- my first time in mainland Europe. I bought sci-fantasy paperbacks in Bruna and De Bijenkorf and in a bookstall/newsagent, a copy of Amazing Spider-Man 190.
At this stage, the series was laid out by John Byrne and finished by Jim Mooney. I've written many times about my opinion of Marv Wolfman's scripting so, suffice to say that this is part two of a story where John Jameson, formerly in cryogenic suspension, is revived and used as a pawn by mad scientist Spencer Smythe.
Jameson is being slowly poisoned by the Moonstone but, in an eerie recreation of Gwen Stacy's death, he plunges from the Brooklyn Bridge, vanishing in a burst of light-booby-trapped by Smythe. The whole thing reads like an uninspired and cynical retread of Conway's stories from the early part of the decade.
But, of course, that wasn't the end for Man-Wolf. His mid-70s scripter returned him in the first She-Hulk series in the spring of 1981. I saw these DAK/ Mike Vosburg stories first in the b/w Spider-Man/Hulk weekly and I didn't enjoy the series at all. In fact, I just found She-Hulk a tedious, derivative character until John Byrne transferred her from the Avengers to the Fantastic Four. I think that legitimised her, where she'd been a kind of B-movie monster. (However, it could be argued that she became more of a cheesecake character, from that point.)
Former Man-Thing supporting character, Peter Fonda analogue ( and I suspect Steve Gerber or Dave Kraft proxy) Richard Rory receives transmsissions from Man-Wolf ( in his Stargod persona), trapped on an alien world. Meanwhile, Hellcat has been kidnapped by M-W's Otherworld barbarian allies.
There's a flavour of the old '75 Marvel Kozmic here- Otherworld is a sub-atomic realm in She-Hulk's bloodstream. Maybe it's because it's a new decade and the era of New Wave but this seems more silly than mind-expanding. The stories are important in forging relationships with Hellcat (which continues into the 21st century) and with Jameson (as we'll see shortly) and Kraft is a better writer than Wolfman, IMO but I didn't enjoy these stories any better than I did in February, 1981.
J. Jonah Jameson and Kristine Saunders still think John is dead until Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man Annual 3. DAK scripts and LSH alumnus Jim Sherman draws, with Alan Weiss finishes. The art is typically early 80s Marvel- workmanlike and unappealing. The wonkiness of so many Shooter Era Marvels really drove me to DC at this time, where they had Perez, Colan, Aparo, Broderick, Giffen...
This is a bland, dull comic, which DAK didn't want to write but was instrcyed to do so by Shooter, allegedly. With the help of Curt (Lizard) Connors, John is cured and his body rejects the god-stone. It seems that Jim Shooter had a zeal for writing out characters. So many seemed to be killed off or retired during his tenure: Man-Wolf, Phoenix, Mar-Vell, Spider-Woman, Giant-Man, Jocasta, Lilith, Satana...they're all in those Books of the Dead MU Handbooks.
John Jameson was revived as Captain America's personal pilot, part of the Avengers extensive ground crew and operations staff in the late 80s, which was logical and appealing. However, those Simonson- Gruenwald innovations didn't survive into the 90s.
But, of course, the saga of Man-Wolf didn't end there. He was a catalyst for the 1992 "Capwolf" serial (Extreeemee!!) and from 2006, She-Hulk was briefly married to John Jameson. But those stories aren't the purview of the Complete Collection, any more than Jameson's minor role in 2002's Spider-Man 2.
I wouldn't necesarily recommend this trade paperback unless you were interested (a) in the development of George Perez's pencilling or (b) in a flavour of the more gonzo elements of Marvel's monster craze of the mid-70s. Aside from the desire to flood the market with more product to compete with DC, there wasn't much point to Man-Wolf as a serial character, when Marvel was already publishing Werewolf By Night. He had the advantage of being a vintage MU supporting character but a guest spot from Spidey in his own series was not forthcoming, strangely. His exploration of the Southern States could have been picaresque but the series ended before that might've happened.
I intended, a month ago, for a (single) Man-Wolf review to be a companion piece to a look at the Tigra Complete Collection. So stay tuned for that much- delayed post in the next week or so.
Take care and stay aware.
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