Okay - so what if Jughead was a werewolf.
Hey, where are going? Hear me out!
You know how Jughead is always ravenously hungry? Well what if that was just a symptom of the fact that he's actually a werewolf?
That's pretty much the concept behind a one-shot Archie Horror title that came out last year (2017). Jughead: The Hunger, written by Frank Tieri with art by Michael Walsh, opens in a Riverdale hunted by a serial killer called "The Ripper".
This killer turns out to be our own Foreyth Pendleton "Jughead" Jones III and using some pretty clear influence from The Wolf Man, follows Jughead as he becomes aware of just what his monstrous side has been up to in the last few weeks. In a fun twist, it also turns out that Betty Cooper comes from a long line of Werewolf hunters, and she's been waiting and watching in case Jughead were to change.
The initial story was well received and an ongoing series started soon after. As with Afterlife with Archie and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, it exists in it's own world (although Ms. Spellman has yet to appear), and, although extremely gruesome, tells a pretty interesting survivalist horror story of exactly what a young man tries to do once he discovers his own inner demon.
My only complaint of the series is the lack of a letters column, both for the interactions with the fans and as the creator comments have been a personal favourite part of the previous two titles.
In the end, a pretty fun read for werewolf fans, and one that begins to move beyond lycanthropy in issue nine...
Episode three (sorry gang, but spoilers abound), actually moves into some pretty interesting territory.
In many ways the series comes down to this.
Imagine you've got a pretty terrible secret (in the show's case, Peter is a werewolf), and then imagine that some horrible crime starts happening in your neck of the woods that really starts to point to you as the guilty party. The worst thing is, with your own knowledge and background, you indeed have the capacity and the inclination for this crime, but you know it isn't you.
What do you do?
Although I still kind of feel like I've started watching the second season of a show that should have done a heck of a lot of explaining previously, the third episode moves the mystery along, and for the first time, all of the side plots begin to feel like they are contributing to the main story overall.
Also two caste members from the Battlestar Galactica reboot? How cool is that?
As we head into the glorious month of October, it's time to gear up for another of my yearly dips into a horror theme.
This year it's the Netflix series Hemlock Grove.
As with my month on the Saw franchise a few years back, I'm going in blind, having never seen an episode of the show and with very little idea of what to expect.
Here's what I know so far:
1) It's based on a book (which I start reading today!)
2) There are sure to be some werewolves
3) It's currently in season three, but I'll be focusing on season one
Also, I may be talking about all sorts of other werewolf titles I'm fond of, so get ready, because on Friday
Bookmonkey visits Hemlock Grove!
