Baron Grigory Russoff

Baron Grigory Russoff is a figure from Marvel's Gothic supernatural world and an ancestor of Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night. His cursed bloodline — traced to an encounter with a werewolf curse generations past — is the direct source of Jack's lycanthropy.

Few characters cast as long a shadow from so brief a page count as Baron Grigory Russoff, who stepped out of the Bronze Age darkness in Werewolf by Night #15 in 1974, conjured by the formidable pairing of Marv Wolfman and Mike Ploog. A Marvel figure whose name alone evokes old-world mystery and gothic dread, Russoff haunts the margins of some of the strangest corners of the Marvel Universe, sharing pages with titans of the supernatural like Dracula, Brother Voodoo, and Frank Drake. His appearances cluster around the mystic world of Doctor Strange, lending him an air of arcane significance that far outweighs his slim catalog presence — proof that in comics, a handful of the right appearances can make a character unforgettable.