Vlad Dracula, Lord of Vampires, has bad blood with the man who is Jack Russell by day and the Werewolf by Night. Marvel’s most macabre monsters clashed in 1974’s Tomb of Dracula #18 and Werewolf by Night #15, a classic two-parter by writer Marv Wolfman and artists Gene Colan (Dracula) and Mike Ploog (Werewolf). At Castle Dracula in Transylvania, the two creatures of the night battled as Jack sought answers about the ancestral curse of lycanthropy that afflicted the Russoff family for centuries — a blood feud born with a stake to the heart and a werewolf’s bite beneath a silvered moon in 1795.
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The bloodthirsty prince of evil and the lethal lycanthrope will meet once more in Werewolf by Night: Blood Moon Rise, a new Marvel comic written by Michael Giacchino, director of the Marvel Studios Special Presentation Werewolf by Night.
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The Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four: First Steps composer made his directorial debut with the black-and-white throwback to classic monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s, and now the first-time comic writer is partnering with David Messina — an artist on such Marvel titles as Ultimate Spider-Man, Star Wars: Han Solo & Chewbacca, Cloak & Dagger, and Ultimate Comics Wolverine — for a story set during the classic Marvel Spotlight and original 1970’s Werewolf by Night run penned by Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Doug Moench, Wolfman, and Mike Friedrich, who scripted a rematch between Dracula and the Werewolf in 1974’s Werewolf by Night #19.
“It could be a lost story from the original run, in a way,” Giacchino told Entertainment Weekly, which revealed Giacchino’s Werewolf by Night comic. “It’s Dracula who has tracked him down to exact some revenge from the last time that they were together in the comics. There’s a fun twist to it that I think is going to be really interesting for people who are into Jack Russell and that lore.”
And like the Werewolf by Night TV special — which featured such characters as monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone and the monstrous Man-Thing — Giacchino teased that there’s another character involved as a surprise. Giacchino noted the identity of the mystery character “probably will be no surprise” to fans, suggesting it could be Man-Thing or Moon Knight (who debuted in the pages of 1975’s Werewolf by Night #32 and went on to have an oft-memed interaction with Dracula).
“I like the monster stories. I like how they humanize what are otherwise described or seen by the rest of the world as awful creatures and…well, monsters,” Giacchino said. “I never saw them that way. I always saw them as people with some sort of problem that they needed help with. I always felt bad for them. I really did. So there’s this emotional attachment to those stories, which is still with me today.”
Werewolf by Night: Blood Moon Rise #1 goes on sale in July from Marvel Comics.
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