MARVEL MASTERWORKS: WEREWOLF BY NIGHT VOL. 3 (Marvel Masterworks, 3)

Now is the hour to bark at the moon: The third WEREWOLF BY NIGHT Marvel Masterworks is here! This volume goes straight for the good stuff: A battle between the Werewolf and Frankenstein's monster - and another with Morbius! Then Jack Russell is framed for murder. It's going to be hard to find out whether Dr. Redditch's serum can cure Jack of his curse while the LAPD is in pursuit and the Hangman wants to play executioner! Next, dreams of Topaz will bring her together with Jack again as they face a resurrected Taboo and the machinations of Dr. Glitternight! And unfortunately, it runs in the family when Jack's sister Lissa's birthday arrives and the curse of werewolf falls on her too! Collecting WEREWOLF BY NIGHT (1972) #22-30 and GIANT-SIZE WEREWOLF #2-5.

In addition to runs on Fantastic Four and Thor, original Moon Knight scribe Doug Moench specialized in writing features outside the Marvel mainstream — including Adventure into Fear’s Morbius, Frankenstein, Inhumans, Ka-Zar: Lord of the Hidden Jungle, Master of Kung Fu, Werewolf by Night and Astonishing Tales’ Deathlok. Proving his eclectic abilities, he also wrote the full run of Godzilla, most of Shogun Warriors and stories for virtually every Marvel black-and-white magazine of the 1970s. He expanded on his Star-Lord and Weirdworld sagas in multiple anthology titles. At DC, he wrote memorable runs on Batman, Detective Comics and Legends of the Dark Knight — along with numerous Batman one-shots, cross-company crossovers and Elseworlds sagas. He further contributed such short-lived but unique series as Electric Warrior, Lords of the Ultra-Realm, Slash Maraud, Wanderers and Xenobrood.

A creative stalwart that put his all into his work on long-running series like Ghost Rider and Defenders, Don Perlin plied his talents in virtually every discipline in the comic-book field — penciling, inking, creating new characters and sometimes editing and writing. A student of Burne Hogarth’s, Perlin launched his career in 1951, drawing horror comics for various publishers and also penciling Will Eisner’s The Spirit. After serving in the Army, Perlin returned to comics with Harvey in the late ’50s as well as Charlton in the ’60s. In 1973, he began his long association with Marvel, finishing John Buscema’s art on Thor and inking several titles. He took over Werewolf by Night from Mike Ploog, penciling and inking the book for much of the next two years. He also penciled and inked the supernatural adventures of Johnny Blaze in Ghost Rider, his name becoming very closely identified with Marvel’s monster biker. In the ’80s, he drew Defenders for a long run before turning his attention to Marvel’s adaptation of Hasbro’s Transformers. His early ’90s work on Valiant’s Solar, Man of the Atom and Bloodshot was extremely popular, after which Perlin went into semiretirement.

In addition to inking his own pencils on Werewolf by Night, Monsters Unleashed and Vampire Tales, Yong Montano inked stories for Kull the Destroyer, Savage Sword of Conan and other 1970s titles. With Bill Mantlo, he co-created one of the Marvel Age’s earlier anti-heroes, Modred the Mystic. In Marvel Classics Comics, he adapted The Arabian Nights with Doug Moench, The Tell-Tale Heart with Don McGregor, The Iliad with Elliot S. Maggin and H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds with Chris Claremont.

Virgil Rendondo (1926-1997) had already achieved success as a comic-strip artist in his native Philippines, where he co-founded CRAF Publications, before relocating to the United States and Marvel. As both penciller and inker, he contributed to most of Marvel’s black-and-white magazines of the seventies — including Dracula Lives, Planet of the Apes, Savage Sword of Conan, Tales of the Zombie, Tomb of Dracula, Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction and Vampire Tales. Redondo also wrote and penciled for some of DC Comics’ horror anthologies.