Issue(s): Marvel Spotlight #3
Cover Date: May 72
Title: "The thing in the cellar!"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
Mike Ploog - Penciler
Mike Ploog - Inker

Review/plot:
If you are going to do generic werewolf stories, one of your regular plots will be the one where bad guys capture the werewolf for their own nefarious purposes. And that's what this story is (and it won't be the last of this type). But what makes it interesting is why the bad guys are after our Werewolf By Night. It's not because of any of his werewolf attributes; it's because they want information on Jack Russell's father, specifically the location of his book known as the Darkhold.

Another key thing to keeping these stories interesting is to have other monsters. I am actually kind of surprised that we're already having a monster mash with the second issue, but i'm not complaining since i generally prefer a Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman to just a regular werewolf movie. In this issue, our monster is the hunchbacked and metal clawed Kraig.

Kraig kills the male villain in the same scene where the name of the Darkhold is first revealed.

Jack actually doesn't know anything about the book.

And in this story, he doesn't find out anything more. He escapes, and fights Kraig...

...who eventually dies when his metal hand is struck by lightning.

Having failed to get the Darkhold from Jack, the female villain attempts to cast a spell without it, and dies.

The ongoing mystery of the Darkhold gives us something more to look forward to than the Werewolf threat of the month. The fact that i know the Darkhold to be important to the larger universe also helps hold my interest.

The beginning of this issue has Jack defending his sister from a gang of marauding bikers. You'll notice that the Werewolf continues to have his own befuddled thoughts and the continuation of the "that's no mask!" trope.

In addition to the thought bubbles, there is first person narration, but this is possibly meant to be after-the-fact as opposed to real time.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - first mention of the Darkhold

Chronological Placement Considerations: One thing we'll have to watch for with this series is the fact that the Werewolf only comes out for three nights a month. So it has to have been at least a month since last issue, and in fact Philip Russell says that Jack's mom died "two months ago". Jack says to himself that "each month I try to believe it's over", which seems to imply that it's been even more than two months, but at a minimum we must have had at least one set of transformations that was (relatively) uneventful. Due to Marvel time compression, there's no point in being too specific about what a "month" constitutes in terms of spacing between issues, but i will try to create some space to distinguish the "months". In this case it happens naturally anyway since last issue had a February cover date and this issue's is May.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Werewolf By Night vol. 1

Mike Ploog's art is expressive and a bit different from the standard Marvel artists of this time period. I never read this series but I kind of like what I've been seeing here.

Now I'm left wondering what werewolves do on all of those nights when they stay under the radar and out of sight of us untransformed humans. Probably a lot of such nights. Prowling around. Sniffing for other werewolves and trying their best not to be found. Pretty sneaky. Keep a light on.