"The End" Week: Creatures on the Loose #37!

We saw the previous issue 12 years ago; and what would be the next issue five years ago: please don't take this to indicate I have any sort of plan. From 1975, Creatures on the Loose #37, "Moonbound" Written by David Kraft, pencils by George Perez, inks by Fred Kida.

John Jameson had been sent into space to check a space station that had lost contact with earth; but now the Man-Wolf was caught between the station's crew, and "space brigands." They dressed like barbarians, had weird weapons, and seemed to know more about the Man-Wolf's moonstone than John did. Meanwhile, back on earth, J.Jonah Jameson was searching for the missing Kristine Saunders, John's long-suffering fiancé. A "mysterious associate" of Kraven's (from CotL #32 or so) takes JJJ to the estate where the Man-Wolf had nearly killed him and Kristine; but is interrupted by CIA agent Simon Stroud. The associate was Arisen "Harrison Turk" Tyrk, former ruler of Otherworld, and better known as Lunatik. Not the Keith Giffen Lobo type; and I think this plotline wouldn't get wrapped up until 1978's Marvel Premiere #46, although JJJ would continue in the Spidey books.

The crew of the space station fight Man-Wolf, who that close to the moon was pretty much invulnerable; but probably couldn't navigate zero-g as well as John could, either. When the moon is blocked by the earth, he loses power and is thrown into a cell, where he reverts to John. John nearly talks the crewmen guarding him into letting him out; but they're knocked out by Garth, who convinces John to join him in a trip to "the Other Realm" since he had "the Godstone." They take off in a rocket, while the space station crew checks out an x-ray, showing the stone had symbiotically bonded with John, with tendrils spread throughout his body.

Dave Kraft mentions in a farewell text column, that sales for the book had been going up, but in the pre-direct sales days "once a title has been established for, say, 37 issues, it's next to impossible to get distributors to accept more than the usual assortment of copies." Editorially, they had considered giving Man-Wolf a new number one; but there were already a mess of new books launching, so no dice. Still, Kraft and Perez managed to get back for the Marvel Premiere two-parter. Huh, I promised to get to the conclusion of that one sometime, and still haven't! Again, no plan.