I’ve apparently been visiting my local comic shop with my head down for who knows how long because I wasn’t even aware of Image Comics and Skybound’s new Universal Monsters line of books until last month with the new black and white reprint of their Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! series. Thankfully, my eyes have been opened just in time to check out their new Wolf Man title, Blood of the Wolf Man! Werewolves have always been my favorite of the classic movie monsters (heck, I have a whole episode of my podcast dedicated to my love of werewolf films!), so I’m always on the lookout for new and interesting takes, and after Leigh Whannell’s lackluster attempt on the big screen last year, the Wolf Man, capital W and M, was due for someone else to take a crack at it. Thank God for comic books, right?
Joshua Williamson’s series takes us into the life of Adam Jaeger, an art student attending his first college party. But once the full moon is revealed, followed by a wolf’s howl and a title card, a time skip leads us to Adam’s father Henry receiving a call that his son is in the ER, the last survivor of a brutal animal attack, because those are always exactly what they seem in werewolf stories. It was definitely just the pack of wolves that are seen right outside the house in the opening, right? Right…?
©Universal
Williamson then takes us through some pretty familiar paces for anyone who’s watched a werewolf film before. The one really unique twist here that sets it apart from previous Wolf Man adaptations is the revelation that Adam actually remembers everything from the attack. A flashback is shown of the previous night that picks up right before the title card, shown to us through a gruesome first-person perspective in what is definitely one of the book’s highlights. Artist Leomacs and colorist Pip Martin very quickly shift an upbeat, chill party scene in warm, welcoming colors, to a murder scene that gets darker and redder the more blood is spilled, ultimately culminating in a two page-spread featuring the transformed Adam seeing himself in the mirror.
This knowledge of his lycanthropy sets Adam apart from the Talbots of previous adaptations. Both Larry in the original and Lawrence in Joe Johnston’s 2010 film both don’t seem to have an inkling as to what they did during the night, and have to piece it together over the course of the film. Adam spends a large chunk of the issue lamenting the loss of his would-be friends, yes, but the addition of the guilt of knowing he was responsible adds a layer to the story that will be interesting to see how it develops over the next few issues.
©Universal
While this is undoubtedly one of the more interesting things about this version of the Wolf Man, it’s also… kind of the only interesting thing. There’s some beats regarding Henry that call to mind Sir John Talbot’s role in the 2010 film, in that he knows a little more than he’s letting on which could also lead to more interesting developments later in the series, but as a whole, the book gives off a kind of “We’ve been here before” vibe. It feels a bit too familiar, and ends up feeling a tad forgettable because of it. Even Wolf Man (2025) at least tried to shake up the status quo a bit, even if it didn’t quite hit the mark. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. These are specifically the Universal Monsters, so the books do need to feel at least a little familiar to be on brand. Williamson does include a letter to the reader at the end of the book, mentioning that as the series goes on, the reader will figure out “why the story is called Blood of the Wolf Man,” (which also supports the idea that Henry is hiding something) as well as teasing connections to the original film, which all sounds really promising, but this is all from an afterword rather than the content itself.
Blood of the Wolf Man definitely has the foundations of what could become a really strong Wolf Man story. There’s absolutely more going on here than what’s on the surface, but as of yet, there’s no real hook other than “hey, this guy’s a werewolf.” Even the final panel, which most of the time in comics leaves a cliffhanger for the next issue, feels a bit anticlimactic. All it does is cement what we, the readers, already knew for sure. Williamson obviously has a lot of love for the Wolf Man character, and it will be interesting to see where he takes it, but so far I’m not quite sold just yet.
