Tomb of Dracula Part II: Dracula Spreads His Wings

In Dracula Lives 3, the storyline of Dracula’s origin was continued (click to expland the page above). After a brief recap, which includes seeing Dracula’s child left in the care of gypsies (leaving a bloodline that will descend to Frank Drake in TOD), we see Dracula challenging the current leader of the vampires—Nimrod. The worst name for any villain in comics. Nimrod demands Dracula’s allegiance, but how can he bow to a man with that name? He refuses to bow to any man in any capacity—in this sense, Dracula resembles Conan. After some turmoil, he fights Nimrod, wins, and becomes the King of the Vampires.

Dracula Lives survived for thirteen issues, plus an Annual full of reprints. The quality was best in the first four or five issues; after that it dropped off. Wolfman was preoccupied with color comics and did not contribute after Dracula’s origin. Other writers seemed to have trouble coming up with new locales and time periods. Roy Thomas and Dick Giordiano adapted Bram Stoker’s novel, which was recently finished and collected.

In 1974, Marvel decided to launch a series of over-sized color comics. They were designed to have special tales, in current continuity, and appear every quarter. Dracula received his due in Giant-Size Chillers #1. This had an excellent tale, written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Gene Colan, featuring Dracula’s daughter, Lilith. (I’ll cover Lilith in a future article.) It’s worth noting that Marvel abandoned the Chillers title (meant to feature a rotating series of horror stars) and it was named Giant-Size Dracula with issue #2. Again, the later stories had varying quality as Wolfman/Colan didn’t do them.

It’s hard for us to imagine how popular the non-superhero titles were in the 1970s. Dracula, Conan, Ghost Rider, and Howard the Duck were all giants back in the day. When Marvel released Giant-Size Spider-Man, they decided to make it a team-up title. But it needed to be team-ups that were extra special, as Spidey already had Marvel Team-Up. Thus, Dracula became the guest star for the first issue in the most unlikely pairing ever made. The writer, Gerry Conway, devised a plot where Peter Parker and Dracula needed to be on a cruise ship in search of a MacGuffin. Dracula and Parker run into each other (sans costume), but there’s never a fight between the two characters. The emphasis is on a mystery that both characters are trying to solve.

Back in Tomb of Dracula, even Wolfman wouldn’t be able to resist having Dracula interact with the Marvel Universe. It happened twice—one event was superb, the other one was pointless. Dracula met Dr. Strange in a mystical battle for his very survival. It was a tale that crossed-over to Dr. Strange’s title. This team-up was almost mandated by the fact that the Colan/Palmer art team also worked on Dr. Strange. The battle ended in a bizarre draw—Dr. Strange thought he had killed Dracula by searing the flesh from his bones. But in TOD 45, we saw the Dracula had hypnotized Strange into believing that he was dead.

The most controversial guest star appeared in TOD #50, where Dracula fought the Silver Surfer. In this period of time, the Surfer made very rare appearances. Stan Lee had an exclusive claim on the character. To use him even as a guest star, a writer had to solicit Lee’s approval. Wolfman chose to use the Silver Surfer in Lee’s preferred mode—as a Christ-like character. He served this up straight, having the Surfer fly through a painting of Jesus in order to reach Dracula. The battle itself was pointless. The Silver Surfer could wipe out Dracula in a few seconds, but he was hypnotized by a magician and stumbled while Dracula swatted him around. It was merely an empty way to celebrate 50 issues, as the Surfer flew off, believing that Dracula would be smitten down by a higher authority.

After the Dracula craze died and TOD was cancelled, other writers could not resist using the character. X-Men Annual 6 featured Dracula as he took on Marvel’s merry mutants. Dracula had lots of fun seducing Storm, and there’s a lesbian-subtext moment where Storm wants to turn Kitty into a vampire. This unfortunate story turned Rachel Van Helsing (one of the key vampire hunters) into a vampire. Wolverine stakes Rachel and gives her eternal peace. Lilith also makes an appearance.

Dracula’s big swan song in the Marvel Universe came when Roger Stern embarked on a multi-part storyline in Dr. Strange V2, Master of the Mystic Arts 56-62. Strange went on a quest to retrieve the Darkhold (a mystical tome often referred to in Werewolf by Night). The Darkhold contained spells that would annihilate the entire race of vampires forever. Naturally, Dracula opposed Strange but it ended badly for Vlad. Vampires were eradicated and Hannibal King turned into a human being. This was a result of Marvel’s editorial thinking at the time—vampires (and other ghoulies) had no place in the Marvel Universe. Eventually they would return, but with far weaker storytelling.

In his own title, Dracula had a much better ending (click to expand the above image). With issue 70, Marvel knew the series was ending and gave Wolfman/Colan a double-size issue to finish off their story. Quincy Harker faced off against Dracula for one final time, alone in his castle. The series had a nice conclusion, wrapping up most of the sub plots and ending the stories of the vampire hunters. In a way, Dracula was the first maxi-series, one that had a beginning, middle, and end. Vertigo series, such as Sandman or Preacher, would also allow their stories to end after 60-70 issues.

Dracula’s Marvel story is typical of many great characters in popular culture. They start with an excellent series guided by a skillful team of creators. Then the character gets spun off into multiple titles or guest appearances which water down the character’s strengths. As time goes on, even the lead creator may succumb to using the character in ways they should not (although in this case, Wolfman only stumbled once or twice; his entire run is well worth reading). And then, because of misuse, or simply the passing of an era, the character fades away. But they are always remembered by fanboys. Nuff said.