The Cross-Over From Hell. Tomb of Dracula #18 & Werewolf by Night #15.

 Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.

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The first Marvel multi-title crossover story I can remember ever reading was the nightmarish horror that occurred when Tomb of Dracula first collided with Werewolf by Night.

How I remember reading both books at the same time, as I sat in the raised cafeteria of Sheffield's indoor Sheaf Market whose main claim to fame was being next to the indoor Castle Market where the video for Tony Christie's Walk Like a Panther was shot.

How glamorous, but neither of these characters walked like a panther. One walked like a dog and one walked like a bat.

Still, I didn't let that put me off.

So, with Halloween looming, it's time for me to revisit that two-part trauma-thon and see just what's going down in Fang Land.

Jack Russell and his lady friend Topaz are travelling to Transylvania, in search of answers about his family's history of lycanthropy.

At the same time, Frank Drake and his lady friend Rachel Van Helsing are also travelling to that very same part of Europe, in search of Dracula who's headed out there for whatever reason.

Neither couple is aware of the other's existence, nor of each other's mission.

But the two missions soon intersect because it turns out the very first lycanthrope in Jack's family was his great, great, great grandfather who, after staking Dracula, was turned into a beast by a female werewolf the Count had been keeping prisoner.

Dracula, meanwhile, has decided he fancies getting his teeth into Topaz, even though he discovers she has a strange power to mentally repel him, thanks to her magic abilities.

Needless to say, this leads vampire and werewolf into conflict, one in which the werewolf does surprisingly well, thanks to the influence Topaz is exerting on both his and Dracula's minds.

Anyway, just as the fight's reaching its apex, Frank and Rachel show up to distract Dracula and seize a book that could enable them to destroy him, before fleeing in their helicopter, forcing Vlad to take off in hot pursuit and leaving Topaz and Wolfie far behind.

For a story that's spread over two parts, it's a surprisingly simple tale. What's good about it is we get to learn a little more of Jack's backstory and he, for once, isn't totally useless in a fight. In fact, he actually manages to win one.

Granted, it's against a drunken sailor but it's one more fight than he normally manages to win.

He, of course, doesn't defeat Dracula but that part is one of the story's main weaknesses.

In order to make the scrap not as one-sided as all logic suggests it would be, Dracula has to be portrayed as remarkably ineffective in this tale. Not only does he not manage to summon the wherewithal to defeat his hairy foe, he twice has a perfect chance to kill Rachel and Frank and twice departs without doing so, letting them off the hook for no real reason. 

He also tries to sabotage their helicopter - laughing maniacally as he does so - and does such a terrible job of it that, when they climb into it, they have no difficulty flying off in it at full pelt, leaving the villain to have to turn into a bat and flap like crazy to chase after them.

I think we can assume he's having an off-day.

Speaking of off-days, I'm not sure that either Gene Colan or Mike Ploog produce their best work in this tale, while Marv Wolfman sort of does what he has to.

This tale's set in modern-day Europe, which means it's, inevitably, somehow, still the 19th Century, and Transylvania seems remarkably British. Even the local inn's sign is in, "Olde," English.

I'm also not sure about Dracula's ideas about time management. We're told he's travelled all the way back to Transylvania, from England, in order to concentrate on hatching his next scheme.

But the scheme he then hatches is to return to England and carry on doing what he was already doing.

I can't help feeling that was something of a wasted journey.

So, in the end, it's all non-decisive and I feel the tale has to be seen as just another episode in the turbulent lives of both sets of characters, rather than an awesome and historic epic that fans will never forget.

Dracula Lives Special Edition. A voyage into the unknown.

As you may know, in my coy capacity as copious curator of this blog, I do occasionally ramble on about comics that I once owned but had forgotten all about until I'd accidentally stumbled across their covers online.

But there's another kind of comic. The kind of comic I remember having owned but that has always been an enigma to me.

One such example is the Dracula Lives Special Edition.

I remember seeing it advertised on the back of Marvel UK weeklies at some point in the 1970s and then, one Sunday, my dad returned from the shops with a copy of it.

It was something of a curiosity, having a card cover, being squarebound and printed in glorious monochrome, while featuring several tales of the Transylvanian terror.

At the the time, its nature meant I wasn't sure if it was a US Marvel publication, a Marvel UK publication or if it even had anything to do with Marvel at all. Perhaps it was some strange kind of licensed reprint deal along the lines of the ones that Alan Class had struck in the past.

I still don't know what the story behind it was but, having not seen a copy of it in over thirty years, my memories of it are vague.

All I recall is that, in one of the stories - a Gene Colan pencilled tale - one of the captions credits a character in London with being able to smell the Atlantic, which suggests he either had an incredible sense of smell or that the writer needed to invest in a map of the British Isles.

There was also a Don Heck tale that may have been called Let It Bleed, in which the vampire comes up against a giant heart in a shed.

I do remember feeling at the time that perhaps Don Heck wasn't the ideal choice to be drawing a Dracula tale, plus the idea of the bad guy being a giant heart in a shed seemed somewhat silly. I was also, at the time, completely unaware of the Rolling Stones song of the same title.

A quick Google tells me it was published by World Distributors and... ...well, nothing else. So it seems it's doomed to remain forever a mystery to me.

But perhaps that's how it should be. After all, what would Dracula be without his air of mystery?

Happy fortieth birthday to Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives!

Thanks to Colin Jones for pointing out that this is a very special week indeed for all British comics fans.

For it was forty years ago this week that Marvel UK unleashed two new mags on an unsuspecting public.

One of those mags was Planet of the Apes and the other was Dracula Lives.

Of the two comics, it would have seemed reasonable to assume that it'd be Dracula Lives that would have the longer shelf life, seeing as Planet of the Apes was launched purely to cash in on a TV show that failed to catch light so badly that it only managed to run for a few months before never being seen again.

On the other hand, Dracula Lives was built around classic characters who'd proven their staying power by already having had a long and distinguished career long before the comic had even been conceived.

But how wrong we'd have been in such an assumption. Dracula Lives was finally staked through the heart with issue #87, being forced to merge with its sister title, whilst Planet of the Apes held on for a walloping one hundred and twenty three issues before merging with Mighty World of Marvel where such simian adventures never quite fitted in with the likes of the Hulk, Daredevil and Captain Marvel.

Bearing in mind that Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's Dracula tales were nearly always more compelling than Marvel's ape-based fare, I can only assume that Dracula Lives' shorter lifespan was down to the fact that its back-up strips - featuring the likes of Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night - were noticeably weaker than such Planet of the Apes' backup strips as Ka-Zar, the Black Panther and Adam Warlock.

Or perhaps, by the 1970s, such traditional horror characters were merely seen as being too corny to live.

Whatever the reason, while I had every issue ever published of Planet of the Apes, I think I only ever had two issues of Dracula Lives, one of which I recall reading whilst stood just inside the entrance of Pauldins department store in Sheffield city centre.

Sadly, like Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives, Pauldins is no more. A grim reminder that, like the king of the vampires, ultimately everything in life will one day be reduced to dust.

Random comics I have owned. Part Five.

A far wiser man than me once said, "Shut up!" But I don't listen to wise men. That's what's made me the man I am today. Therefore, here's the latest instalment in the stunning new feature that's inducing catatonia on a scale never before seen in the history of the World Wide Web, as I take another random look at the covers of comics I once owned.

A crack team of hunters demonstrate the exact qualities you need if you're to catch your prey. Stealth, intelligence and razor-sharp alertness.

I acquired this comic on a Sunday morning. No comic acquired on a Sunday morning can ever be bad.

It's the third of the Black Orchid's original three appearances in Adventure Comics.  Sadly, it's another tale I can't remember that much about.

For those who've never read any of her original tales; blessed with invulnerability, super-strength and the ability to fly, she was basically like Supergirl but, for some reason, kept using a mastery of disguise to defeat her foes, when you would've thought she could have saved herself the trouble and just given them a punch in the bracket.

The Justice League come up against an alien called Nekron. I don't recall exactly what he was about but I do recall he was up to no good.

I'm not totally convinced Wonder Woman actually died in this tale.

If I remember right, this was the last issue before the X-Men all got dragged off into outer space for the trial of the Phoenix.

Needless to say, it was all cracking stuff and a highlight of its era.

The last issue of Conan I ever had.

From what I recall, Conan wanders into a village and it's not long before he's up against a deadly menace from the sea.

Poor old Conan, even a trip to the seaside turns into a life or death battle for him. I bet he couldn't even attempt to eat a toffee apple without it trying to kill him.

I always remember this issue as having great artwork but I can't remember who it was by.

Our third cover that involves a man carrying an insensate female.

One of my childhood faves, as our, "hero," finds himself up against a skeleton on a mission of revenge.

If you don't love that cover, there's probably no hope for you.

Then again, if you don't want to be a skeleton on a mission of revenge, there's probably no hope for you.

I really don't remember anything about this issue at all. I have no doubt though that it was all very strange.

Having blown up half of London, Iron Fist is still having trouble with his nuclear-powered foe.

Is this the issue where Misty Knight gets her bionic arm, or did she already have it by this point?

Tomb of Dracula - undead but animated.

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity at all will have encountered my contention that, along with The Defenders, Tomb of Dracula was the best American comic of the 1970s. Therefore thanks to Pum Spak of the Unemployed Monsters blog who's drawn my attention to the Japanese Toei Studios' 1980 cartoon version of Marvel's Tomb of Dracula. It's an adaptation of the Domini/Janus storyline from the strip's later issues. Dark stuff indeed for a cartoon to be tackling.

It has to be said you'd struggle to call it lively and, for some reason, it changes the names of major characters, including bafflingly renaming Dracula's wife Domini as Dolores(!).

It also suffers from ropey voice-overs and, of course, lacks the moody artwork of Gene (the Dean) Colan but, on the other hand, unlike many comic book based cartoons, it's clearly not afraid to show death. It also takes its subject matter seriously and is therefore spiritually purer than the infantalized Conan cartoon I remember watching in the early 1990s. No comedy relief phoenixes for Dracula.

It may not go down as a classic but, for those of a curious bent, here it is:

Tomb of Dracula #60.

Anyone who's ever seen a Hammer horror movie knows full well that things rarely end happily for everyone's favourite Transylvanian. And that's certainly true here as Dracula's attempts to play happy families has died with the death of his newly born son Janus, accidentally shot by Anton Lupeski, the head of the Satanists' church Dracula's taken over in his quest for world domination.

After killing the killer, Dracula spends the rest of the issue in a state of demented soul-searching, even if he has no soul to search. In his fit of rage, he looks back on his life and its failures and the fact that all his descendants, including his own daughter, have never sought anything but his death.

Able to bear no more, Dracula sets out to kill himself by being hit by lightning. But the attempt fails and he finishes the issue vowing to defeat the forces of virtue that he blames for his plight.

But, in the graveyard, things are afoot. It seems that, thanks to Dracula's wife Domini, Janus' death may not be a long-lasting one at all.

Writer Marv Wolfman continues to steer the strip away from the good-guy fights bad-guy formula that'd always served Marvel well, instead moving things ever further into the realms of tenebrous soap opera.

But, for all that, the issue's completely dominated by Gene Colan's art which has a frenetic energy that means characters often become little more than abstract shapes or amalgams of seemingly half completed light and shade. Dracula flies around, flings himself around, flings others around and is battered by a rain that looks like it could knock holes into your very soul itself, before he's finally blasted clean through by lightning.

The strip only had another ten issues to go, and the seeds of its demise were already being laid in this issue's editorial with Marv Wolfman announcing that, due to Gene Colan's other work commitments, the strip was switching to a bi-monthly schedule. But, while hindsight says the end was nigh, it doesn't show here. The title feels as vital as it's ever done, its pages practically an unleashed force of nature, meaning this issue does nothing to dissuade me from my notion that Tomb of Dracula really was the best American comic of the 1970s.

Tomb of Dracula #55. In the church of the poisoned mind.

I think we've all of us pretended to be Satan at some point in our lives. It is after all a great way to prevent people from sitting next to you on the train. Dracula, however, has his own reasons for such a subterfuge.

Seeking to extend his power in this world, the prince of darkness has taken to posing as Lucifer in order to gain control of a Boston-based Satanists' Church. Not only that but, thanks to the act, he's managed to acquire a wife, called Domini, and produced a new-born son called Janus.

Dracula might not be the one who has to change the nappies but that doesn't mean he's happy. You see, there's something odd about the boy. He's got golden skin and glowing red eyes. As if that wasn't enough for our villain to worry about, knowing full well that Dracula isn't really the Devil, Anton Lupeski - head priest of the Satanic Church - is plotting to kill the Transylvanian terror and install Janus instead as the cult's figurehead.

I once read an online overview of Tomb of Dracula that said the strip lost the plot after its first 25 or so issues. If so it hid that decline brilliantly because this issue's simply gorgeous. Gene Colan's art's as messy and awkward as ever - people're simply not put together the way that Gene draws them - but, with its use of light, shade and camera angles - not to mention Tom Palmer's moody inking - it looks sumptuous, as sophisticated a piece of visual story-telling as you'll ever see.

Marv Wolfman's slow-burning script's equally compelling. There's no action in this tale, no fights, no immediate peril, just intrigue, as a kind of supernatural soap opera's played out, with the various characters manoeuvring themselves into the positions they need to be in in order to achieve their ends. Everyone has an agenda, and everyone's out to fulfil it.

If I've not said it before, I'll say it now; Tomb of Dracula is, along with The Defenders, my favourite title of the Bronze Age - one that somehow seems to transcend its medium and, more than any other strip, hammer's a nail into the coffin of the notion that comics are inherently juvenile. The Devil might not be in my train seat and he might not be in his church but, if he's in the detail, the detail of this comic is at least a work of diabolical beauty.

Prez #4. A Vampire in the White House.

Some things defy all critical analysis. Prez has to be a perfect example of that, a comic from the early 1970s built around the adventures of America's first teenage president. It only lasted four issues.

But what a four issues.

In this, Prez #4, the USA finds itself at war with Transylvania and, after a legless Dracula's attempt to assassinate Prez fails, the Transylvanians hatch a plot to release a plane load of rabid vampire bats over the US.

Clearly something has to be done.

Happily, Prez's chief of security, a teenage American Indian who lives in a teepee (!) has just the answer.

It involves pigeons.

The thing was written and created by Joe Simon who, in the 1940s, had a hand in the creation of Captain America and was thus, presumably, well past his teenage years by the time he was doing this.

So, is Prez comedy?

Dunno.

Is it drama?

Dunno.

Is it good? Is it bad?

Don't ask me.

All I know is it's a law unto itself and that I had all four issues as a kid.

I also know that, having once again got my hands, almost by accident, on issue #4, I have the strange urge to buy the other three issues as well - not to mention the final issue of Supergirl's 1970s' run, in which she teams up with our hero.

All of which suggests that, in some strange way beyond human comprehension, a strip beyond human comprehension is nagging at my pleasure centres whether I realise it or not.

Tomb of Dracula #23.

What would happen if Dracula came up against Aleister Crowley?

He'd flatten him of course.

And that's exactly what happens in this tale, as the count of crepuscular comes up against the ghost of Alestar Dunwick, a villain so clearly based on, "The world's wickedest man," that writer Marv Wolfman couldn't even be bothered with changing his name completely.

Dunwick's ghost is being a naughty boy, keeping his niece prisoner in his ex-home for purposes of evil-doing. Needless to say, Dracula soon puts a stop to that and, in the niece, has a new recruit to his cause,

I might as well own up, when it comes to my favourite Marvel title of the 1970s, it's a toss-up between Steve Gerber's Defenders and Marv Wolfman/Gene Colan's Tomb of Dracula, and this issue, #23, was the first TOD tale I ever had.

It shows how perspective changes as you get older because, aside from the fact it was about Dracula, the thing that made me buy this issue as a kid was the front cover. Which is ironic because, with its cheap melodrama - not to mention wild misrepresentation of events within - I'd now see it as the weakest thing about the comic. Still, it does give Gil Kane and Tom Palmer a chance to join forces and I'm not sure if they ever did so outside the covers of Tomb of Dracula, so at least it has something to recommend it.

As always with this strip, the story inside's a wonderfully atmospheric thing. Gene Colan had a style that wasn't always suited to super-heroes - although he did have distinguished runs on Daredevil and Iron Man - but, when it came to horror, his love of light, shade and awkward angles was perfect. And who better to ink him than Tom Palmer, a man equally adept with light and shade and who was, along with the now sadly departed Dick Giordano, my favourite inker of the era.

With a villain clearly modelled on Crowley and a plot lifted from Roddy McDowalls' Legend of Hell House, Marv Wolfman wasn't exactly being original with this tale but that doesn't matter. Tomb of Dracula was always about style and mood and, as with most of the Wolfman/Colan run, this has it in spades. The only negative I'd have to make about it is it features a quick glimpse of Dracula's daughter Lilith who always tied Dracula's comic too closely to the mainstream world of Marvel by running around dressed like a super-villain. Whereas Werewolf by Night could somehow get away with inhabiting the same world as the likes of Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, the presence of such things in the world of Dracula was always jarring and, for me, had a weakening effect on the strip whenever they appeared.