Villainess Review: Fria (Werewolves of the Rockies)

Some time ago, I stumbled on to some old horror comics online, and took a look at some of them. I found some intriguing ones, but of course, I entered "werewolf" in the search box, because, well, I'm a big fan of the werewolf subgenre. I found a lot of good ones, but one of the first ones I found was this excerpt: Werewolves of the Rockies. Since we're nearly in October, I may as well deliver with this delicious review.

The six-page story centers on Lars Norden, a ski champion who was traveling to the Rocky Mountain area for a big and important contest. Lars is accompanied on the train ride by his girlfriend, Fria, but the ride becomes a tad bumpy, thanks to a snowslide. The slide could have been worse; it could have been an avalanche. And I know what you're thinking. Avalanche? In Colorado? Sounds like someone's predicting the future.

Anyway, Lars and Fria are informed about a village that is "a day's walk" from the train, but Lars states that they can get there quickly on skis. Their journey includes the couple spotting what looked like dog tracks, though Lars deduced the tracks belonged to wolves. Even crazier, the tracks were headed right to the village, where the couple met a group of men who were oh so eager to help them out. One villager's trepidation about the incoming darkness was met with a response that a full moon was coming. It led to this following eerie chant:

"Full moon tonight! Full moon tonight! And a trainload of helpless people...WAITING!"

Yeah...that's not cringey at all.

Lars quickly notices something's up, but his suspicions are interrupted by a crevasse separating himself and Fria. A bridge needed to be built between the two sides, and while Fria went with one of the villagers, Lars waited out the night inside the cabin. However, as Lars looked out the window, he saw something shocking. The villagers, under the full moon, transformed into werewolves. So Lars and Fria were smack dab in a werewolf colony, and the former realized that the latter was with one of them. As for Fria, she fawned over the lovely moon and asked how long it would be up, only to be shocked to see her genial companion transforming into his own werewolf form.

Luckily for Lars, his knowledge of werewolf folklore helped him, as he cut down some saplings to use against the colony, who appeared in their human forms to Lars by sunrise. The group started to work on the bridge, but the werewolves' bloodlust started to rise. Lars was one step ahead of them; he cut the bridge down and sent the group of werewolves to their demise. After performing a ski jump over the crevasse, Lars rushed to save Fria, only to find a pair of werewolves terrorizing an innocent person. Lars kicks away one of them and uses a ski pole to kill the second, but could not find the first werewolf. He does find Fria, who appeared to be in a bit of a daze, with Lars believing that Fria fainted during the attack. The couple were on their way back to the train, with Fria and Lars riding double because the former's skis were missing. Lars voiced regret over letting that one werewolf get away.

Yeah, about that...

In quite a twist ending, Fria turned heel by suddenly beginning her own werewolf transformation, and teasing that Lars could encounter that same werewolf "sooner than he thinks!" Holy moley! Werewolves of the Rockies was part of the comic book, "Forbidden Worlds #17," and was released in May of 1953. I loved the story overall, but of course, the absolute best moment of the story was Fria's heel turn in the very end--mainly because it was easy to see coming. Fria transforming in that final frame clearly revealed that she was attacked by that werewolf companion from earlier in the story, and she fully transformed and was part of the attempted attack that Lars thwarted.

There are two things I loved about that reveal. First off, this was very ahead of its time. Female werewolves in cinema and literature were very rare for decades, despite the fact that the first known werewolf film, The Werewolf, featured a she-wolf--and that film came out in 1913! And secondly, the way Fria went from a sweet and innocent 0 to a maniacally villainous 60 was delicious. Fria didn't waste any time embracing her heel turn in that final moment, and based on that sly look she had in the midst of her transformation, the evil Fria clearly had sinister plans for Lars. Fria was quite an amazing plot-twist villainess in this story. Seriously, we need Lifetime to make something like this, pronto!

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Check out Fria's profile on Villainous Beauties Wiki!