Wolf Moon
Cullen Bunn, writer; Jeremy Haun, artist; Lee Loughridge, colorist
Vertigo Comics, 2015
At this point writer Cullen Bunn had established himself as a horror story teller with The Damned and The Sixth Gun for Oni Press, and his Dark Horse series Harrow County had been announced (and begun publishing during this miniseries' run). Bunn's miniseries with artist Jeremy Haun (Detective Comics, Image series The Beauty) had a long development period.
In the end Bunn came up with a unique approach to the werewolf mythos: rather than being transmitted by a bite, the transformation leaps from host to host. So the damage extends far beyond the innocent victims of the wolf's violence. Each of the werewolf's innocent hosts have to live with the memory of what they have done--which usually includes the murder of family members and others close to them. Hence the theme of the story: The Wolf doesn't simply reshape flesh and blood. It reshapes lives.
Some victims cannot bear the guilt. But some become hunters, like Dillon Chase. Hunters are not seeking a single individual who transforms, but only the one who is infected during the current moon cycle. The hunt becomes increasingly complicated as his friends become involved, and he also must come to terms with the fact that killing the Wolf may require also killing an innocent host. As he closes in on his quarry he discovers the existence of other hunters, including one he thought he knew.
The climax is an exciting story which begins in a crowded mall and ends on a more intimate scale, surprising to the end. But the final page leaves room for a sequel. Haun's artwork is light on background detail, but it advances the action very effectively. Loughridge's colors set the mood of the scene, and do a good job delineating flashback sequences. Wolf Moon is a convincing werewolf story with original touches that are rare in the genre.
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