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Successful comic-book characters nearly always demand a female doppelganger: Spider-Woman, She-Hulk, Supergirl, Batgirl, etc. Dracula was so popular in the 70s that Marvel spun off Lilith, his undead daughter, in a series of tales. They were scattered around various hard to find magazines, but fear not—I’ve got them all here!
Lilith debuted in Giant-Size Chillers #1, in a Dracula story by the regular team of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. The cover is by John Romita, so I must assume that he created the costume. For a female vampire, a sexy costume is a given, and this skin-tight number with a cleavage split certainly is appealing. I don’t care for that tiara—did Lilith die after winning a beauty pagent? In a way, this costume is almost the inverse of Vampirella’s red-strap band-aid outfit.
Lilith isn’t your usual garden variety vampire. In the first few pages, we see her soul rise from the grave. She’s summoned by the hatred that another woman, Angel O’Hara, feels for her father—who has just killed her husband.
It all goes back to before Dracula was a vampire. He was forced to marry Lilith’s mother. As soon as he can, Dracula dumps his first wife by threatening to have her impaled. Nowadays this would get you locked up for a long time, but back then Transylvania was a man’s paradise.
Lilith is taken to a gypsy, who raises the girl after the mother commits suicide. After Dracula becomes a vampire, he kills all the gypsies he can find—including this lady’s brother. In retaliation, she puts a whammy of a curse on Lilith to punish Drac. Lilith will be a vampire, but never fear the cross or the sun. If Lilith dies, she’ll be reborn in the body of a woman who wishes death to her own father.
Nothing much happens in Lilith’s first appearance. She tracks down Dracula, they take in a soccer game together, and Drac spurns her offer to rule the world together. From there, I had to hunt the black and white magazines to find Lilith’s adventures: Vampire Tales #6, Dracula Lives 10 & 11, Marvel Preview 12 & 16. Her solo tales contained 70s elements that are extremely kitsch thirty years later.
Marv Wolfman plotted the first solo outing in Vampire Tales #6, while Steve Gerber finished the scripting. We meet Martin Blank, an unpublished writer who lives in Greenwich Village, at the very same moment that his common-law wife is being murdered. Martin, who is innocent, is taken into custody by the police. He is released in a few hours after the same M.O. (axe murderer) is repeated in another part of the city.
What would you do in the first twenty-four hours after your common-law wife was murdered? Commit suicide? Drink yourself to death? Cry? Martin does none of the above—he goes to a bookstore and picks up Angel O’Hara.
You can’t blame Martin—Angel is a knockout and she’s probably using Lilith’s hypnotic powers underneath those blue eyes. Angel goes home with Martin and says: “I want you, Martin…here…now…with no strings, no commitments. Fair enough?” Yeah, baby, yeah! If Donald Trump knew women like you, he’d be $20 million richer.
Martin knows how to treat a lady with class. After some sex to take away the mourning, he goes out to get some burgers and fries, leaving Angel in his apartment. She gets naked and takes a shower, just like in any slasher flick—a nice lure for the axe murderer. Angel turns into Lilith, sucks him dry, and disposes of the body. When Martin returns, Angel says “I hope you ordered my burger with lots of ketchup.”
This black and white series allowed Martin's relationship with Angel to progress. Angel reveals her pregnancy to Martin, who sweetly takes it in stride and vows to help raise her child. He gives up his writing dreams long enough to work at a bookstore. The owner tells him to see a book (The Dirty Chateau) that is wrapped in cellophane. Martin assumes it to be related to sex, but it turns out to be full of heroin. Martin is jailed, but Lilith
Here’s the most unbelievable thing about the Lilith\Angel dichotomy: we clearly see that Angel is pregnant, with a modest bust. When she changes into Lilith, her bust expands about three sizes and her tummy is perfectly flat! I think many women would love this curse. Lilith clearly has a hatred for men—in this scene she goes to a bar to beat up some bikers who hate Joni Mitchell.
As Tomb of Dracula told its final story arc, Lilith made one last appearance in issue 67 of the color comic. Dracula, robbed of his vampiric powers by Satan, tracks down Lilith in Greenwich Village. He hopes that his daughter will turn him back into a vampire. Being an ungrateful bitch, Lilith takes advantage of the opportunity to attack her father and revels in unleashing her powers upon Dracula. At the conclusion, Lilith lets him go very easily: “Look at the fool run—well, let him! Wherever he goes, I shall find him.” She just can’t bear to exist without ol big Daddy Drac.
Lilith was definitely one of the weirdest horror series from Marvel. She hated all men as much as her father, although Angel’s love for Martin seemed to carry over. I thought the dual Angel\Lilith psyche split was interesting—the same device was used in DC’s series The Rose and the Thorn. It would have been interesting to see this developed further. What would happen when Angel delivered the baby and she moves to the suburbs with Martin? Nuff said.
Giant-Size Marvel: Marvel artwork, classic covers, reviews.
Where would I get this issue?
It depends which story you are talking about. Lilith appeared in scattered issues of Dracula Lives and one issue of Vampire Tales.