Marvel Spotlight Vol 1 #02

Jack has dreams at night about him being a werewolf…soon he will find out they’re real.

A werewolf stalks the streets of Los Angeles. After killing an armed mugger, the creature is shot at, and wounded in the arm, by a police officer.

On his eighteenth birthday, Jack Russell awakens from nightmares to find his arm inured. He dresses and deals with the stresses of his family life: his step-father Philip rules the household with an iron fist, and his mother Laura argues with the chauffeur, Max Grant.

That evening, at his birthday party, Jack is suddenly racked with pain and runs from the house, barely noticing Grant under the hood of the family car. Jack finds himself at the shore, transformed into the Werewolf. He feels compelled to enter a nearby beach-house, where he encounters a vicious wolf. The struggle between the beasts ends with the wolf thrown off the cliff.

The next morning, the unconscious Jack is found on the beach by his sister, Lissa, and Philip. Back at home, Jack is told his mother was critically injured in a car crash while searching for him. The family doctor administers a sedative, and before Jack sleeps, he overhears Philip arranging a meeting with Grant at a warehouse.

Waking up that afternoon, he rushes to the hospital to see his mother. She sorrowfully tells Jack of his legacy: when she was a student abroad in Europe she met and fell in love with a Baltic baron. They married and she bore him two children. The only dark part of their idyllic life was the baron’s monthly exile to one of the castle towers, where he would remain locked in for three nights. This went on until the night the tower was damaged by lightning, and later, a carpenter was found brutally murdered in town. A group of villagers tracked down and killed the creature responsible, a werewolf who, in death, reverted to the baron. And now, Jack carries on his father’s curse.

With little time left, Laura asks Jack to swear never to raise his hand against Philip. He promises as she dies.

Soon, the third full moon brings on the transformation, and the Werewolf leaps from the hospital window and makes his way to the warehouse he dimly recalls. There, he finds Grant, who, thinking the Werewolf is merely a punk in a costume, overpowers the beast. But once Grant realizes it is no costume, he runs in fear, and is caught and killed by the Werewolf.

As the Werewolf lurks in the shadows, Philip arrives with an envelope full of cash for Grant, but sees no sign of his chauffeur. Jack’s promise is remembered by the beast, preventing him from attacking Philip, who gives up and leaves.

This issue also includes “Where Gargoyles Dwell”, a reprint of a story featuring Venus.