Giant-Size Creatures #1Issue(s): Giant-Size Creatures #1 Review/plot: Then Russell turns into the Werewolf By Night and the two "were" creatures fight... ...until Hydra can regroup and knock out both of them. Tigra is captured but the Werewolf is left behind. A Hydra agent pistols whips Tigra and says "Hail Hydra, baby!" but he is told that is not appropriate. Goons today, really. Another agent remarks that with the defection of AIM and the Secret Empire, their ranks are depleted. It turns out that Greer's mentor, Joanne Tumolo, is actually a member of a secret race of Cat People, and after a prior Hydra attack, Greer was wounded with radiation poisoning, so Tumolo brought Greer to her people, where they turned her into Tigra. Now Hydra wants the Cat People secret to destroy the world or something so they've captured Tigra and the other Cat People. Luckily the Werewolf wakes up feeling lusty for Tigra, so he hunts her down and attacks the Hydra agents, freeing her. The Cat People wipe out the Hydra agents with germ warfare: they release the Black Plague onto them. No really. Then the Werewolf remembers that he's a dog-person, not a cat-person, so he leaves. There's a text piece where Roy Thomas makes sure to take credit for Werewolf By Night even though it was written by Gerry Conway and really defined by Mike Ploog's art. There's also text by Tony Isabella talking about the attempt to create a line of books with female heroines, including the Cat, and the fact that the books were all canceled within 5 issues. This revitalization of the Cat as Tigra is an attempt to revive at least one of those characters by tying her in, believe it or not, to the popularity of the current horror line and were-monsters. The art in this book, especially the depiction of Tigra, is very simple and cartoony. Quality Rating: D+ Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A References:
Crossover: N/A Continuity Insert? N My Reprint: N/A Inbound References (14): show 1974 / Box 8 / EiC: Roy Thomas CommentsRoy Thomas has subesquently stated that he gave the idea of a werewolf book to Gerry Conway, and wanted to call it "I, Werewolf!". Posted by: Mark Drummond | August 18, 2011 12:24 PM Is she really called Pam Greer, like the "Black Mama" actress? Posted by: Kveto from Prague | September 30, 2011 6:51 PM Nope, it's Greer Nelson. What an odd brain fart for me to have. I found like 5 places on the site where i made that mistake. Thanks for the catch; i've fixed it (hopefully i caught them all). Secretly waiting for a Coffy/Tigra team-up... Posted by: fnord12 | October 1, 2011 12:42 AM In FOOM#9, Tony Isabella stated that Tigra(drawn by Mike Vosburg) would be the lead feature in the revived Giant-Size Chillers title, and she'd take on Jack the Ripper. I think that story eventually wound up in Marvel Preview. Posted by: Mark Drummond | February 24, 2013 3:46 PM I was going to mention this in Giant Size Werewolf #2 but I think it works better here: the reason "Giant Size Creatures" works better for this issue is because of the combo of Jack Russel and Tigra making her debut. Its two werecreatures for the price of one; sure it was still essentially "Giant Sized Werewolf-By-Night 1" ultimately but at least they gave Greer some respect in regards to her big change in status quo. (plus even with the cancellation of her book after four issues, the Cat was still at least notable enough to have a lot of supporters...enough to lead to them wanting her on the Avengers, but with Greer now a catgirl, we ended up with Patsy Walker instead...but that's something else altogether) Posted by: Ataru320 | January 8, 2015 8:58 AM Arrrgh! It drives me nuts when writers refer to Tigra as a "were-woman," and of course it started right here with her very first appearance! "Were" is an archaic term for "man." So a werewolf is literally a man-wolf. Which means that a were-woman would actually be... a man-woman! Silly, isn't it? Okay, I understand that Marvel probably couldn't call Greer Nelson's new persona Tigra the Cat-Woman due to not wanting to get sued by DC. But she could have always been referred to as a were-cat or a tiger-woman or something. Really, anything but a were-woman! Posted by: Ben Herman | August 12, 2015 10:47 PM Agree with your assessment of Don Perlin's art. Admittedly in part because I'm a big Mike Ploog geek and got used to his rendering of Marvel's supernatural characters. Hell, I'm such a Ploogophile (hope that's a word!) I bought a bargain DVD of Ralph Bakshi's "Wizards" in no small part because it featured some of his artwork. Wasn't disappointed! Posted by: Brian Coffey | May 14, 2017 10:59 AM Hell hath no fury like a horny werewolf scorned! Also, it was a pretty hardcore on Dr. Tumolo's part to release the the black plague on those Hydra goons. Guess beneath the sweet grandma outer shell lay the soul of a tigress (pun intended). Finally, my WBN omnibus contains the aforementioned text piece by Roy Thomas. It does come off as self-congratulatory, and even though Thomas was trying to be cute, Ploog was much more than a "boy artist". I would be curious, however, to see samples of the western comic Ploog and Thomas were working on before the project was scrapped. Posted by: Brian Coffey | June 22, 2017 11:37 PM Something I find funny now: the fact that the Cat People even had the plague. Seriously, flea-carrying rats were the original carriers...so I guess someone had to clean up after them. Posted by: Ataru320 | June 23, 2017 8:14 AM Odd, but I also used the word "self-congratulate" in reference to Roy Thomas only yesterday. This is clearly more than a coincidence, Brian. If Thomas wants to take "credit" for trading in Greer's perfectly acceptable yellow-black "cat-suit" for a bikini over cartoon fur, he can have it. She was already enough of a cat-lady for me as The Cat, but no, they just had to take it further. I'm not knocking Tigra as a character, but I see no reason why she couldn't have been a different character altogether. The way they did it though, takes The Cat out of the ring permanently (and she could have been a contender). Thankfully Roy's temporary mutation into Son-of-Stan didn't seem to be quite so permanent. Will success spoil Our Boy Roy? IMO it did for awhile but he eventually more-or-less mutated his way back out of it. Posted by: Holt | February 3, 2018 2:13 PM Comments are now closed. |
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