Werewolf by Night Writer Reveals Marvel Comics Inspirations

Marvel's Werewolf by Night was relatively distant from any recognizable source material when it first hit Disney+ earlier this month. While the likes of Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal), Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly), and Man-Thing are long-time favorites from Marvel's MonsterVerse, no particular series or story arc was adapted for the hour-long special.

Still, Werewolf writer Heather Quinn says she and Michael Giacchino paid attention to two single issue comics in particular while fleshing out the story of the special. The first was an issue titled "Carnival of Fear," or Werewolf by Night #6 (1973).

"Carnival of Fear is basically about Jack getting captured by this kind of magic man who works at a circus and throwing him in a cage and transforming him in front of people, charging people money to watch him get transformed as part of a freak show," Quinn said in a recent chat with Collider. "That was so haunting to us. It was written in the '70s, but it felt so dark, and it felt very human in a lot of ways. It felt like let's throw someone in a cage and exploit their shame to make money off of it and let you all watch. Like that, we were both ... And it also felt modern in a haunting way, so we thought that there was a lot to play with there."

The other issue was Werewolf by Night #4, otherwise titled "The Danger Game," a story about a big game hunter who's drawn tired of his latest hunts.

"Basically this guy's gotten bored hunting all the biggest animals in the world, and so he brings Jack to this old movie lot and just wants to hunt him. And that, again, was just so weird and dark and haunting," the writer added. "I guess the emotion of those kinds of villains, someone that's like, 'I want to just turn you for spectacle's sake and I want to turn you into a werewolf, so we can all watch what a freak you are,' that's intriguing. Then also, 'I want to turn you into a werewolf to hunt you because you're a monster. You're that far below me.' So that was also kind of one that we loved, and I think maybe helped us realize that we would bring in this idea of a hunt happening."

How to watch Werewolf by Night

Since Werewolf by Night didn't receive a theatrical release, the "Special Presentation," as Marvel Studios calls it, was lumped in with the rest of the television shows the outfit produced for Disney+. As such, Werewolf by Night is available to watch exclusively on Disney+ and nowhere else.