Creatures on the Loose #33
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCreatures on the Loose #33 marks the exact creative turning point for Man-Wolf: it is the debut issue written by David Anthony Kraft and the first to feature interior art by the young George Pérez, a pairing that would transform John Jameson from a routine Bronze Age werewolf into one of Marvel's more ambitious cosmic-fantasy characters. By resolving the Kraven the Hunter storyline that had carried over from the preceding two issues and then pivoting sharply toward science fiction, the Kraft-Pérez run that began here would eventually give Man-Wolf the Stargod mythology and the Other Realm dimension—concepts that defined the character for decades. The issue also demonstrated how a mid-run creative handoff, brokered behind the scenes by Kraft himself, could reshape an entire series' identity rather than merely continue its momentum. For historians of George Pérez's career, this issue stands as one of his earliest solo interior assignments at Marvel, predating his celebrated runs on Fantastic Four, Avengers, and New Teen Titans.
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Tony Isabella co-plotted the story but, having overextended himself across multiple Marvel assignments simultaneously, handed the scripting duties off to the then-newcomer David Anthony Kraft, making issue #33 Kraft's first solo scripted Man-Wolf chapter. The interior art fell to George Pérez through an unusual chain of circumstance: regular penciler George Tuska was pulled onto another assignment, Pérez was already ghosting Rich Buckler on other Marvel work, and Kraft—impressed by what he saw—lobbied editor Roy Thomas to retain Pérez as the ongoing artist rather than treat him as a one-time fill-in. The cover was penciled by Gil Kane with Klaus Janson inking, though subsequent research confirmed Janson's belief that another hand—possibly Marie Severin—penciled portions other than the central Man-Wolf figure, and that John Romita Sr. may have redrawn J. Jonah Jameson's face; an earlier indexer had mistakenly credited the cover pencils to Rich Buckler, a credit Buckler himself corrected in 2008. Roy Thomas served as editor, with Marv Wolfman listed as Editor-in-Chief for the cover date.
Trivia · 9 facts
- Cover date: January 1975 (Marvel Comics); story title: 'Deathgame!'
- First issue scripted by David Anthony Kraft on Man-Wolf, co-plotted with Tony Isabella—marking the creative handoff that defined the character's subsequent direction.
- Interior pencils by George Pérez with inks by Klaus Janson—one of Pérez's earliest solo Marvel interior assignments, secured only because regular artist George Tuska was pulled to another book.
- Cover penciled by Gil Kane with Klaus Janson inks and possible additional penciling by Marie Severin; John Romita Sr. may have redrawn J. Jonah Jameson's face on the cover—an attribution debated in collector research circles for years.
- The story concludes the Man-Wolf vs. Kraven the Hunter arc spanning issues #32–33: Kraven, having kidnapped both John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson, forces a moonlit transformation and engineers a hunt, before agent Simon Stroud intervenes.
- Spider-Man appears only in flashback, set at the Statue of Liberty; the Statue of Liberty location is likewise flashback-only.
- The letters page in this issue features new writer David Anthony Kraft discussing how he came to take the Man-Wolf assignment, rather than traditional reader letters.
- The issue includes Marvel Value Stamp Series A #24 (The Falcon) and a backup story ('The Stooge') by Martin Thall, credited under the pseudonym Martin Rose.
- The full Creatures on the Loose Man-Wolf run from #30–37, including this issue, was reprinted in Marvel's Man-Wolf: The Complete Collection trade paperback in October 2019.
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↩ Reprints Uncanny Tales #6 (1953)
Reprinted in Comic Reader #111 (1974), Frankenstein #8 (1977), Alter Ego #137 (2016), Man-Wolf: The Complete Collection #[nn] (2019), Άνθρωπος-Λύκος [Man-Wolf] #3
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