While comic books might be better known as a place for superheroes and villains to fight endless battles, fans know that there is so much more to the medium that crosses all genres. Superheroes share the comic spotlight with all kinds of characters that include fan-favorite monsters that are more at home on the modern movie screen.
Fans of the more macabre stories and creatures like werewolves share interests that date back to the earliest days of horror comics. We’ve gathered a few of the scariest comic werewolves to explore some of the best examples of lycanthropes in the comic book medium.
10 Warren Griffith Served With The Creature Commandoes As The Lycanthrope Wolfpack
DC‘s Creature Commandoes was a military operation in alliance with the secret Project M, which experimented on soldiers to create monsters they could use to help turn the tide of World War II. Warren Griffith was transformed into a werewolf and served alongside a pseudo-vampire and Frankenstein monster on the supernatural unit.
Griffith called himself Wolfpack when he was transformed, and while he looked terrifying, it was the unpredictable nature of his transformations that force him to occasionally lose control given that he wasn’t a typical werewolf.
9 Fables’ Bigby Wolf Is The Legendary Big Bad Wolf Who Terrified Pigs And Red Riding Hoods
Bigby Wolf is the Sheriff of Fabletown from Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham’s Fables, a series that explored the legendary characters from fairy tales and myths as they existed in modern times. Bigby Wolf was the legendary Big Bad Wolf from stories like “Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs,” though he devoted his life to protecting the other mythical creatures.
While Bigby doesn’t transform into his wolf shape very often in order to resist his former ways, when he does bring out the werewolf it’s easy to see how his terrifying actions became a part of our mythology over the years.
8 Jack Russel Deals With His Family’s Horrifying Curse As Marvel’s Werewolf By Night
After the era of horror comics was ended due to censorship and the Comics Code Authority, monstrous characters weren’t able to be used until the rules were relaxed in the 70s. This led to the debut of a number of new monster characters that included Marvel’s Werewolf by Night.
Jack Russell inherited the dark curse of lycanthropy from his ancestor, and he transformed every full moon into an uncontrollable werewolf that managed to fight his bloodlust. He was eventually given some control over his shape-changing wolf form when it wasn’t a full moon, which he used to help others when he could.
7 Jughead The Hunger Explored The Titular Riverdale Character’s Lycanthropic History
Fans of Archie and the Riverdale gang were introduced to a new side of the town thanks to the Archie Horror line of comics which mashed up the characters with supernatural elements. Frank Tieri and Michael Walsh’s Jughead: The Hunger revealed that his family carried the werewolf curse which had begun to transform him as well.
He unknowingly became a monstrous serial killer known as the Riverdale Ripper before he began turning other members of his friends’ group like Reggie Mantle into worse and even more terrifying werewolves that threatened the town and his closest friends.
6 John Jameson Was An Astronaut Who Was Transformed By A Moonstone Into Man-Wolf
While the Marvel astronaut John Jameson had dealt with previous empowerment after he was exposed to an extraterrestrial virus that uncontrollably enhanced his strength temporarily, that wasn’t the most terrifying that happened to him in space. During a walk on the surface of the moon, Jameson encountered a mysterious Moon Stone that bonded with him.
It transformed him into a mindless Man-Wolf during his first full moon back on Earth, bringing him into conflict with Spider-Man. He eventually managed to take control of his Man-Wolf form, though he often struggled with the wolf side of his personality in tough situations.
5 The Horrifying Lunar Cycles Were A Murderous Werewolf Biker Gang In Bad Moon Rising
A small town finds itself targeted by a terrifying biker gang of werewolves known as the Lunar Cycles who take out the sheriff before moving in for a massacre in Scott Rosenberg and Bong Dazo’s Bad Moon Rising. The werewolf gang starts off as a terrifying threat to the citizens of the town well before they ever reveal their true nature.
Unlike most werewolf stories, the werewolves of Bad Moon Rising have complete control of their transformation which makes them even deadlier. The fact that they are a bloodthirsty motorcycle gang further increases the horror and might appeal to fans outside of the horror genre as well.
4 Judge Dredd Dealt With A Wave Of Transforming Lycanthropes In Cry Of The Werewolf
A full moon in Mega-City One saw Judge Dredd forced to deal with a growing werewolf threat in the classic “Cry of the Werewolf” by John Wagner and Steve Dillon. Originally printed in 2000A.D., the story was beautifully reprinted in Judge Dredd: Deviations after the passing of Dillon.
Judge Dredd investigated the undercity of Mega City-One to locate the source of the ferocious werewolves that are preying on his city. However, Dredd himself is transformed into a monstrous werewolf, though he manages to still complete his mission before he is cured of the lycanthropic curse.
3 A New Victim Is Cursed As A Terrifying Werewolf With Each Full Moon In Wolf Moon
The curse of the werewolf was given an interesting new twist in Vertigo’s Wolf Moon from Cullen Bunn and Jeremy Haun, as a new victim was transformed into the Wolf and forced to hunt and feed during the full moon every new lunar cycle.
This made it nearly impossible to predict where the Wolf was going to strike next, as discovered by a former host of the curse who now hunted the monster that traumatized him. A serial killer also hunted the ever-moving and changing werewolf, hoping to usurp the power of one of comics’ most terrifying monsters.
2 A Small Town Sheriff Fights Against An Ancient Community Of Werewolves In Ferals
David Lapham and Gabriel Andrade introduced one of the goriest werewolf comic stories in Ferals from Avatar Press, which followed an officer’s investigation into a series of violent murders that uncovered the existence of a powerful clan of werewolves.
The small town found itself targeted first by the Ferals before it was caught between the FBI and the ancient clan that was beginning a terrifying expansion of their numbers in order to spread their gory violence. Fans of werewolves on the big screen will enjoy the bloody action along with the elements of crime fiction that made Ferals a must-read.
1 A Gangster Is Transformed Into A Werewolf During A Prohibition Deal Gone Wrong In Moonshine
The celebrated creative team behind 100 Bullets reunited for Image Comics’ Moonshine in 2016, which explored a mob deal for moonshine in West Virginia during the Prohibition era. However, the young gangster sent to negotiate the deal soon finds himself hunted by a terrifying and bloodthirsty werewolf who is connected to the feuding moonshining families.
The series featured some truly terrifying werewolf designs and brilliantly explored the transformation itself after the gangster was bitten and cursed himself while immersing readers into the era as the story moved across the country.
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