Hit! (1973, Sidney J. Furie)

Hit! is multiple movies all at once. It’s a heist procedural, with Billy Dee Williams putting together an unlikely crew of experts to take out the Marseille heroin syndicate. It’s a rogue secret agent movie—Williams’s boss, a profoundly under-cast Norman Burton, doesn’t want him showing up the U.S. government by taking out the bad guys. It’s a muted, detached character drama; Williams is after the Marseille gang because his teenage daughter died from a heroin overdose, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to avenge her, even as it makes him a much worse person. It’s an anti-drug movie, though very careful to humanize the addict. Astoundingly problematic humanizing, but the effort is sincere. It’s anti-lesbian. There’s a little homophobia with Richard Pryor doing an impression, but there’s a lot of anti-lesbian stuff (his impression involves making fun of lesbians). One of the villains is a woman who forces herself on various unwilling but terrified young ladies. It’s exceptionally anti-French. All of the French people—except maybe the evil lesbian—are gluttonous caricatures.

And, finally, it’s a McDonald’s commercial. There’s not just McDonald’s product placement; one of the characters frequently laments the lack of good Mickey D’s in France.

As a heist procedural, Hit!’s exceptional. Director Furie has this great device to show where Williams is going (he’s got to travel the continental United States to put together his team), always showing a license plate in the establishing shot. The first seventy or eighty minutes is Williams putting the team together. In addition to Pryor—an underwater demolitions expert whose (way too young) wife was murdered by a junkie—there are another six team members. It ought to be seven more team members, but Hit! wants all the heist details to be surprises, so we never find out how Williams adjusts when fate changes his plans.

There’s sniper, Renaissance man, racist, and drug smuggler Paul Hampton. Hit! takes full advantage of the Vietnam War allowing for various demographics to have the types of skills Williams needs. Hampton and Pryor are both Vietnam veterans, though there’s no bonding between those two. Hampton does appear to bond with San Francisco tough cop Warren J. Kemmerling, the surveillance man. Gwen Welles is an Ivy League French club superstar turned working girl and—more importantly—functioning heroin addict, which Williams leverages for her participation. Everyone else has a relevant heist skill; Welles apparently is just a fetching young woman who speaks French. She falls for Williams, who’s got no time for love (much less with a heroin addict).

Lastly, there’s older adult couple Janet Brandt and Sid Melton. They have a very particular set of skills but have gone straight and are running a lunch counter. Their son recently died from an overdose. Hit!’s got a lot of good acting, but Brandt and Melton get to show the most heart. They’re lovable. Even though Pryor’s likable, relatable, and sometimes adorable, he’s not lovable in the same way. Welles is very sympathetic, especially as Williams tries to motivate her through cruelty, but she’s not lovable. Hampton’s always a prick. Kemmerling’s fun, albeit a piece of shit cop (the film’s careful to only show him roughing up white hippies, who are all into heroin anyway).

And then Williams. It’s a fantastic lead performance from Williams. He manages to survive all the silliness the film throws at him, which mostly involves CIA boss Burton sending goons after him. Zooey Hall and Todd Martin play the goons. They’re assholes but amusing (purposefully), while Burton’s a lukewarm dishrag. They really missed their chance on the stunt cast. But Williams also has the worst third act heist action. Heist with an asterisk; they’re all on assassination runs (the film’s not shy about a Godfather nod either). Williams gets the silliest, least dramatic one. While Argyle Nelson Jr.’s editing is sublime, cutting between subplots, even he can’t compensate for Williams’s heist focus being so inert.

Technically, the film’s phenomenal. Furie and cinematographer John A. Alonzo do gorgeous work. Everything’s exceptionally deliberate and thoughtful during the setup and training phases of the film, while the conclusion—set in Marseille—is hurried. There are occasional shades of the earlier quiet, but once the action starts, it never lets up. Until the ill-advised epilogue.

Great music from Lalo Schifrin. It occasionally seems like it’s not fitting—Schifrin’s almost always doing a score for the drama, particularly with the various members of the gang—but it always works out thanks to Furie. Furie also does an outstanding job with the actors, particularly Williams, but also Pryor, Welles, and—of course—Brandt.

Hit!’s got a rocky finish, but it’s an excellent, distinctive picture.

Death Smiles on a Murderer (1973, Joe D’Amato)

Until Death Smiles on a Murderer gets so inane it’s exasperating, at least the music (by Berto Pisano) isn’t terrible, and the editing (Piera Bruni and Gianfranco Simoncelli) is excellent. I don’t think either of them get worse once the rest of the movie does, but at that point, the film’s so bad it’s not like not incompetent music or even good cutting will make a difference.

Murderer opens with Luciano Rossi mooning over sister Ewa Aulin’s corpse. In flashback, we learn Rossi assaulted Aulin at least once and planned to take her somewhere else so they could live as a couple, not siblings. Not surprisingly, Aulin runs away into the immediate arms of older man Giacomo Rossi Stuart. Rossi is chasing her when she meets Stuart. Basically, Aulin sees Stuart on a park bench and is like, take me away.

I need to mention Rossi–the actor and his character—is a man with a hunched back. The film codes it as terrifying and evil.

The action then jumps ahead approximately three years, where bored landed gentry marrieds Sergio Doria and Angela Bo watch a speeding carriage crash at the front gate. The driver’s dead, the passenger’s unconscious. The passenger… is Aulin, alive and groggy and suffering from amnesia.

Police inspector Attilio Dottesio comes out but doesn’t bother interviewing Aulin or even checking in on her (later on, the movie says it’s important; it’s not). Instead, he just tells Doria to have doctor Klaus Kinski check on her and then write the death certificate for the driver. Kinski then inspects Aulin with Doria and Bo, then tells them to leave so Aulin can undress for his further inspection. It seems suspicious because Kinski can’t do anything without it being suspicious, but we’ll soon learn he’s not a perv. Or, at least, he’s not just a perv. He’s got his reasons for being curious about Aulin.

Could they have anything to do with what maid Carla Mancini finds so interesting about Aulin? We’ll have to wait for that answer, which will never be satisfactory.

Kinski tells Doria and Bo to keep an eye on Aulin until her memory returns, then heads off to his laboratory to do a bunch of chemical mixing. There’s got to be six minutes of chemical mixing montages. The first act of Death is incredibly padded, which ends up being okay because at least the music’s pretty and the editing is good. The less story, the better.

But pretty soon, Doria confesses his love to Aulin, who reciprocates (albeit without much enthusiasm). She’s a lot more enthusiastic—or at least director D’Amato’s more enthusiastic—when Bo also confesses her love to Aulin. Apparently, D’Amato convinced Bo to do a lot more nudity than Aulin; in addition to Bo and Aulin’s Skinemax scene, Bo’s also got one with Doria. Their scene—intercut with other footage of the throuple possibly happy (it’s very unclear)—also implies a new status quo, which we soon learn isn’t accurate. Except the inciting incident isn’t shown in scene. It’s like D’Amato knew not to ask his actors to do too much acting. Especially not Aulin, who spends the film looking diminutive and subservient in various outfits.

Everything eventually comes together—inspector Dottesio, Kinski’s experiments, older man Stuart—except D’Amato and his two co-writers are rather bad writers, so instead of tight knots, it’s a loose jumble of threads, less tied than tangled. Except for the music and editing, it often seems like no one’s invested in Death except to get Bo or Aulin undressed. Then there will be some gory sequence and, even though the gore’s low budget, at least the filmmakers were engaged.

D’Amato also photographed, and he’s most competent in that role. He’s downright bad at directing actors, regardless of who dubbed them later on (Death’s Italian), and low middling as far as composition, but his lighting’s fine.

I guess the best performances are Bo and Dottesio. Bo because she gets the only honest part, which helps her through the exploitative aspects. Dottesio’s just the most obviously competent.

Death is gory, lewd, lurid, and inordinately bad.

Scream Blacula Scream (1973, Bob Kelljan)

Scream Blacula Scream has a dreadful moment during a crucial sequence, and even though the film takes the hit, it somehow can build up almost enough goodwill—in mere seconds—it could easily succeed. The ending’s a little too confused, though, with a very questionable end credits song and design. But the film’s excellent throughout, surviving a bold, misguided attempt at camp and then a wishy-washy seventies finish.

The film’s got five spectacular elements. First, there’s lead William Marshall. He gets to play a tortured vampire, but without a subplot about reuniting with a reincarnated wife. He’s just trying to get by in 1973, and he’s willing to manipulate, maim, and murder to do it. Scream takes almost right until the third act becomes a cop concerned about his girlfriend hanging out with a vampire and decides to do something about it. Until then, it’s Marshall’s movie, with the deliberate script giving him a lot of space to just act his way through.

Second spectacular element is director Kelljan. While Scream’s scary when it needs to be and generally disquieting when tasked, Kelljan also directs the heck out of the actors, starting with Marshall. After Marshall, Kelljan’s attention is mainly on leading lady Pam Grier, but Kelljan pays attention to everyone. He takes all the victims seriously, and there are so, so many victims in Scream. The first movie didn’t show Marshall building his army of the undead; this one does so in detail, with Marshall’s mistreatment of his “soldiers” being part of his character development.

Third spectacular is Grier. She’s either playing brainwashed, naive, or infinitely altruistic. Grier’s a voodoo priestess, and Marshall wants her to exorcize him. She can’t say no to him, even as the body count around her starts rising. Marshall’s come across Grier through his first victim, her voodoo “cult” rival, Richard Lawson. Lawson’s fourth lead, though Grier’s usually alternating with her ex-cop boyfriend, Don Mitchell.

Mitchell’s the only weak performance in the film. He’s not unlikable; he’s just not good.

However, once the fourth spectacular shows up, Mitchell becomes a lot more welcome because it means more Michael Conrad. Conrad is the police lieutenant (credited as a sheriff in the end titles, like they forgot they weren’t taking place in L.A. again), and Mitchell was his star detective. The latter retired young to get into African cultural studies or something. It’s unclear why Mitchell’s incredibly wealthy.

Conrad’s an absolute delight, and he enthusiastically lifts Mitchell in their scenes together. Conrad doesn’t believe in vampires, while Mitchell can’t think of any other explanation. Well, there’s a brief period they’re investigating Grier, Mitchell’s girlfriend, because of the voodoo, but it gets quickly forgotten thanks to vampire antics.

The last spectacular is a shared one because caveats—Isidore Manofsky’s photography and Fabien D. Tordjmann’s editing. Manofsky’s photography is absolutely fantastic and wonderfully complements Kelljan’s direction. Except for the day-for-night shots. They’re terrible, and there are way too many of them. So, caveat.

Tordjmann doesn’t have quite the same caveat because the editing’s never inadequate or inept like the day-for-night. It’s just okay. Then the third act has some breathlessly cut sequences.

Add them together, and they’re spectacular.

Good music from Bill Marx, nice supporting turn from Lynne Moody.

Scream Blacula Scream’s good. It’s nearly really good, but it’s still damned impressive.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #12

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Don Perlin makes his first appearance in the Werewolf by Night credits, and I felt the tinge of inevitability. He’s inking Gil Kane’s pencils; about the only okay thing ends up being Wolfman Jack. Kane and Perlin’s regular people are pretty bad, Perlin’s fault, but Kane’s layouts for the action aren’t very good, not Perlin’s fault. But the real disappointment this issue is writer Marv Wolfman. He’s got absolutely nothing going with the main plot, the new villain, the Hangman. And then the subplots stumble too.

The main plot fails because the Hangman doesn’t turn out to be a very good villain for Werewolf. Since Wolfman Jack can’t understand what’s going on—he’s found a Christian fascist psychopath vigilante with kidnaps the women he saves—writer Wolfman compensates with lots of monologuing from the Hangman. It’s not good monologuing, especially since at some point the Hangman becomes afraid of the werewolf, only we never see that moment occur in the comic. Somewhere between the werewolf dodging a blow and the Hangman outrunning the cops, he becomes terrified. Only Wolfman doesn’t write the monologuing like he’s terrified, just fanatical. Maybe Wolfman thinks he’s doing a transition, but he’s not.

Of course, the Hangman monologues are much better than the regular people’s dialogue. Wolfman’s Jack Russell is an entitled white bro asshole who’s potentially racist to the first regular Black character in the book. Maybe the guy is being a dick to him, but Jack’s barbed responses don’t not seem racist. Luckily, there are two girls who think he’s hot stuff, and he spends the day flirting with them, even though—the comic reminds us—he’s technically got a lady.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old (or younger) sister Lissa has told mid-forties Buck about Jack’s lycanthropy, and Jack blows them off for the chicks after his fight with the Hangman in front of them. Plus, step-dad Phillip is still off being tortured. Wolfman revved all the existing subplots only to let them go cold again, an issue later. He really was just keeping the pans hot.

Strangely, Wolfman’s Jack Russell narration is fine, sometimes near good—it can’t quite get there because the plot’s failing—it’s some of the best Jack narration in ages. We also get the first mention of Marvel superheroes existing in the real world. Jack thinks about how he’s not Spider-Man.

Anyway. I was expecting the art to be the most disappointing thing, but it’s the writing. Bummer.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #15

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It only took fifteen issues (plus some Dracula Lives), but I finally get my Marvel Comics Dracula origin details. The issue’s somewhat coy about the revelations, starting with an incredibly entertaining sequence where Dracula’s journaling. A record must be kept of his thoughts and so on, as he’s Dracula. It ought to be obnoxious, but instead, it’s thrilling. He’s so wonderfully full of himself.

First, he recounts his adventures after last issue. Some evangelical psychopath preacher (hashtag oxymoron) was planning on resurrecting and killing him night after night for his brethren; only Drac escaped. In the exposition last issue, writer Marv Wolfman implied Dracula was scared; that fearfulness doesn’t carry over to his journal. Rejuvenated, he went for a night flight, where some hunter shot him down in bat form. Annoyed, Dracula let the hunter think he’d bagged a giant bat, only to transform and send rats and wolves to finish the guy off.

Somehow, that recollection leads Dracula to remembering his wife’s murder in the 1400s, which leads him to an anecdote about modern marriage. Some guy kills his wife for her money, only Dracula’s there to help her get revenge.

That story then leads to something about a pool of infinite blood, leading to 1969 and the significant origin details.

Dracula and Quincy Harker have been battling since the 1910s, presumably when Quincy was in his teens. Dracula’s been building his legions around the globe, Quincy’s outfitting vampire hunters. The one who gets Drac in ‘69 is a Scotsman in a full Technicolor kilt. The Scotsman ends up in the pit where Dracula kept his snacks in the castle; Dracula ended up in the coffin, waiting three years for Tomb of Dracula #1.

It’d have been nice for these timeline details to come earlier—especially since the comic toggled between Dracula having some presence in the nearby village and the comic being a direct sequel to the Bram Stoker novel—but it’s relatively worth the wait. Wolfman and artists Gene Colan and Tom Palmer turn in a fantastic anthology issue; with gorgeous art and excellent Dracula narration (both in journaling and direct address to the reader).

It’s awesome. So, worth the wait. What’s particularly impressive about the art is how well Colan and Palmer do in all the different settings; it’s a breathtaking mix of horror and fantasy. They’ve cracked Tomb of Dracula; Wolfman’s justified egomaniac Dracula is a terrifying delight.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #11

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It took Marvel until Werewolf #11 to get Marv Wolfman writing the book. Just the credit alone is worth it, which they seem to get—the credit reads: “finally a Wolfman written by a Wolfman.” Wolfman does get to create a new villain—The Hangman; I’m pretty sure he goes on to more in Marvel. The Hangman’s a fascist vigilante who goes around with a noose and scythe, killing bad guys.

Oh, he also kidnaps all the women he saves, taking them down to his sewer lair. Presumably, a different sewer liar than the last villain in Werewolf. Thank goodness L.A.’s so big.

Gil Kane and Tom Sutton do the art; Kane penciling, Sutton inking. Wolfman Jack Russell is great. The rest varies from okay to good. Sutton inks Kane’s faces wrong. At their best, Sutton’s inks feel like they’re bundling and intensifying Kane’s pencils. At the inks’ worst… well, Sutton takes too much out of the faces. He flattens too much and leaves the eyes and mouth floating. It’d be okay a couple times, but it’s most times.

The issue opens not with Jack or the werewolf but with Jack’s kidnapped step-father, Phillip Russell. It’s a torture scene. The shadowy group of evil white men—I think the Council but so many of these comics had them—is willing to forgive Russell’s still unrevealed transgressions if he’ll just give them his stepson. We found out last issue the bad guys know Jack’s a werewolf. Also, last time they wanted Jack’s younger sister, Lissa, who hasn’t become a werewolf yet.

Russell won’t give Jack up, so they have to keep torturing him. It’s weird to have some dad getting tortured in a Bond villain lair but… fine. What’s weirder is how writer Wolfman does a bunch of work on the running subplots. The comic introduced them way back in its Marvel Spotlight days, then forgot about them until a few issues ago when original writer Gerry Conway returned. Conway lined some pieces up, and now Wolfman’s doing the finishing touches?

I don’t know if Werewolf needed a more constant writer, but it definitely needed better plotting. There’s decompressed storytelling, then there’s taking two years to get to a basic reveal.

Wolfman also gets to send Jack out on his own; he has a big scene telling Buck and Lissa he’s moving out on his own (he’s got his trust fund). Given we’ve seen Buck and Jack hanging out half a scene in ten issues, it’s not the last episode of “Friends.” Then there’s the on-the-nose moment where the Hangman sees Buck and Lissa together and is like, that old man better not be messing with that teenager.

There are a few good plot points opened up for next issue; Buck finally sees the werewolf, there’s the big cliffhanger with Hangman, and Phillip’s still kidnapped. But waiting ten issues for anything whatsoever to happen with the character arcs is way too long.

Even for the seventies.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #14

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There are two ways to read this comic. I mean, there are many other ways, but in terms of the vampire hunters—either writer Marv Wolfman and editor Roy Thomas are missing some obvious plot points, or the vampire hunters are just a little dopey. The "little dopey" fits more.

Like, when they've killed Dracula and check for a pulse—they're not establishing themselves as very knowledgable. So after the brainwashed villagers take Dracula's corpse and go for a walk, and the fearless vampire hunters do not follow the otherwise harmless brainwashed villagers… it makes sense. They're bad at their job.

Especially since the villagers are too brainwashed to remove the knife from Dracula's heart, so his body decomposes and without a brain to mind control them, they drop the coffin and run off. Somehow Dracula thought to program them to get his corpse into his coffin, but not to remove any impalements.

Days pass, during which time the vampire hunters sit around playing board games, and then Frank comes in with a handbill announcing a church tent revival centered around resurrecting… you guessed it, Dracula! See, a preacher suffering a mental breakdown found Drac's discarded coffin and decided he was a gift from God.

The vampire hunters assume the preacher is ignorant of what he will unleash if he pulls the knife, and even Dracula will be confused about the motives. It turns out the preacher is not delusional about what he's found. The plan is to resurrect and kill Dracula repeatedly for the delight of good Christians.

I mean, it tracks, right? Like. It's inhumane and evil, and it tracks.

There's also some subplot about a Doctor Sun who's interested in vampires, enough to kill for one from the morgue. No explanation why the vampire's… dead. It doesn't have a stake through its heart, right? But, whatever. The comic promises it'll be more important later.

The art's awesome this issue—Gene Colan and Tom Palmer working in glorious synchronicity–and it makes up for the rocky storyline. And Dracula seems somewhat tragic at the end when he's at the mercy of the murderous preacher. Though the scene where none of the vampire hunters want to decapitate Dracula and instead try to pass the buck to someone else should've been played as comedy.

Oh, right: Taj survived his unsurvivable fall into the rapids. Frank Drake’s condescending but not racist when they find Taj, apparently entirely uninjured.

It's incredible how much genuinely great comic art can compensate for.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #10

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I know people buy Marvel superhero comics in Marvel comics. Still, when a kid’s floppies get knocked from his hands during Sarnak the evil sound engineer’s attack on Century City, and the kid wishes Spider-Man or Thor were here… it feels like he’s talking about his comic book heroes. Otherwise, wouldn’t someone just be whining about how L.A. doesn’t have any good superheroes?

It’s a pretty good issue. Tom Sutton’s art is slightly better this time. Last time he made an excellent first impression, this time, he opens with some of his weakest stuff—not sure what’s going on with Lissa Russell’s head, but it looks painful—and then mostly improves. The Century City attack sequence is goofy—pissed off Jack escapes, Sarnak unleashes his army of mind-controlled sewer men on the citizenry. It doesn’t really play into the main plot, but I guess writer Gerry Conway thought any set piece would do.

While that attack’s happening, Lissa’s presumably passed out in her sewer pit jail, while Jack goes to Venice Beach to get help from Buck, who doesn’t wonder why Jack’s shirtless and smelly. Weird norm.

At the same time, copper Lou Hackett wants to question Phillip Russell, but the bad guys from the Committee show up and—literally—karate chop Russell into submission before kidnapping him. Lots going on at once, but none of it for this issue. We met the Committee earlier during Sarnak’s origin flashback; he was once a great sound engineer, but he started bootlegging records. Apparently, the label guys burned him alive for it. But he still knows his stuff, so he can create a mind-control device and do the Committee’s bidding.

Their bidding in this case? Capture Jack and Lissa; the Committee knows Jack’s a werewolf and suspects Lissa will be one too. They want to control the werewolf siblings, and Sarnak’s just the man to do it, right after he organizes a brainwashed sewer army.

It’s all extremely contrived, but it also makes the story much stranger than it would be without such a silly series of events.

The finale’s good—Sutton obviously enjoys doing the werewolf scenes—and it’s nice to see Jack and Lissa on the same page about his lycanthropy. Even if she only plays damsel in distress when she was actually the Committee’s primary target.

The Larry Talbots… I have it, my father had it, my sister has it.

Conway and Sutton pull it off, rescuing the two-parter.

Dracula Lives (1973) #3

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There aren’t any pages of the Dracula movie stills with new dialogue. There are still some movie stills with accompanying text, but it’s not for laughs. It’s a welcome change to Dracula Lives, though the pages instead seem to be going to somewhat middling text material.

But first, the comics.

Writer Marv Wolfman contributes another part of Dracula’s Marvel origin. After becoming a vampire, killing his captors, and dropping his infant son off with some gypsies because a vampire can’t be a daddy, a flock of vampire bats descend on Dracula and again take him captive. He’s off to see Nimrod, Lord of the Vampires, only Dracula’s not going to bow to anyone, so he and Nimrod schedule a duel. Only then Nimrod’s lady tries to seduce Dracula, who isn’t into vampire ladies. Too cold.

John Buscema pencils, Syd Shores inks. It’s probably the best art in the issue, with only one real competitor, but it’s somewhat uneven. Close-ups are great, medium and long shots are iffy on the faces. And then the final battle eventually runs out of steam and ends abruptly. Good writing from Wolfman, though, and lots of the art’s solid.

The second story is one of the two fifties reprints in this issue. Larry Woromay does the art on the story, which recounts the tale of a man born disfigured who wants to become a vampire to make people pay for mistreating him. Only he can’t stand the thought of drinking blood. The end has a “twist,” but the story’s primarily successful for Woromy’s art. Lots of personality to it.

Then comes the first text piece—Doug Moench writing about Bela Lugosi and the 1931 Dracula movie. It’s a thoughtful piece examining how the film’s aged. Probably a little long, but Moench’s got good observations.

The following story is Dracula versus Solomon Kane, so Marvel did a multi-license crossover decades before the competition. Only not exactly because Dracula was never copyrighted in the United States, and the British one had run its course already.

Solomon Kane’s trying to find a missing girl in Transylvania. First, he’s fighting bandits, then wolves, with Dracula showing up to save him at the last minute. Dracula doesn’t know anything about the girl, but wouldn’t Solomon like to spend the night at the castle.

Roy Thomas writes, Alan Weiss pencils, and the “Crusty Bunkers” ink. They must sit at the same table with Many Hands. Supposedly Dick Giordano and Neal Adams did some of the inking. The art’s good but occasionally sparse. There’s great action, though, because obviously, Dracula didn’t offer Kane a place to crash not wanting to suck his blood.

It’s a Solomon Kane story guest-starring Dracula; it’s okay.

Next up is Chris Claremont’s text piece from the perspective of Van Helsing, set to pictures from the Hammer movies of Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. I get they needed to fill the pages, and the story’s better than the movie still rewrites, but it’s still a quick gimmick dragged out over six pages.

The second reprint has Chuck Winter art and is a reasonably straightforward Macbeth adaptation until the last panel. Winter’s art is emotive but rushed, and the big reveal at the end isn’t an improvement on Shakespeare. Shocker. The adaptation also severely reduces Lady Macbeth’s part.

The final story is from Gerry Conway and Alfonso Font. It continues last issue’s New Orleans adventure for Drac, this time getting him all the way to Paris. A mystery woman is out to kill him, there’s a gargoyle flying around the city, lots going on.

Font’s art is design-oriented and fairly good, except Dracula looks a little silly. He’s very formally dressed and finely coiffed, but in a very distinct, very not Dracula Lives style. Font does a fantastic job with the Paris setting, just not the count. It might feature the best “bat” action, though it might also just be Paris.

The Conway story is okay. But, unfortunately, it’s a little too busy for the story we end up getting.

Dracula Lives doesn’t have any home run art outings this issue, which really hurts it. It’s a string of “not bad,” though at least the Wolfman one has some emotional weight. Then the text pieces seem like filler even when they’re okay.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #13

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It’s only taken a dozen issues, but Tomb of Dracula finally lets the vampire hunters get the upper hand. They get there the same way Dracula usually does—the writer surprising both the reader and the targets. The move isn’t quite a twist—it comes as a hard cliffhanger—and it’s nice to see writer Marv Wolfman mixing things up a bit. Not sure how many times he’ll be able to do it before it’s a trope, but this first time it works.

The issue ends with a lengthy, exciting action sequence. The vampire hunters—recovered from Edith Harker’s death—have tracked Dracula to the little English town where he’s been hiding. He’s going into the battle with a handicap; it’s almost daylight, and he’s got tired brain. But he’s still got time to do away with those pesky vampire hunters.

Gene Colan and Tom Palmer are on art, and it’s a lovely issue in that department. The art’s always good, starting with the vampire hunters bickering immediately after Edith’s death. Except when they show a shopkeep a sketch of Dracula, which alerts the Count and seemingly mind wipes the shopkeep. That sketch is a hoot. Colan and Palmer’s art is quite successful in its verisimilitude, bringing together all the comic’s disparate elements—modern London, Blaxploitation star Blade, Dracula himself—but that sketch is silly. The comic’s going into its most thrilling portion, but the most compelling question is who drew that picture and was it with crayon.

It was probably Frank Drake, who starts the issue not consoling girlfriend Rachel Van Helsing about dead Edith, leaving it for Taj. Frank’s got to pontificate instead. Blade tells him to snap out of it, Frank yells at Blade, they calm down, then Quincy agrees with Blade. That pattern repeats itself a few more times in the issue. I get unexceptional white male leads, but events always showing they’re wrong, but they never learn from their mistakes is not good writing. It’s reality, but it’s not good writing.

Anyway.

We also get a flashback to Blade’s origin, though not the half-vampire stuff yet. Just his mom getting murdered while giving birth to him. The vampire they call is a doctor, which makes him the third vampire doctor in Tomb. At first, the most interesting part of the flashback is how they’re coding the mom giving birth in a brothel, but then it’s how could Blade possibly know most of the story since the only person in the room with the vampire is his dead mom. Exquisite art and all, but it goes on long enough for the incongruity to solidify.

More interestingly, we get some insight into Dracula’s plan. He’s been biting people, not turning them into vampires, but instead into sleeper agents. His first victim is another woman he saves from a rapist. I’m not sure the last time we’ve seen Dracula kill a random woman in Tomb; he’s done it off-page, but we haven’t done the hunting in a while. So my idea for a Gene Colan art book of his panels of the bat swooping in on an unsuspecting British girl on the countryside won’t work out.

The sleeper agent bit is cool, as is Dracula going to a boxing match and deciding sports are dumb, and so are the humans watching them. He says it more artfully. His hideout, however, is a little silly. It’s the village mortuary. Functional, sure, but weird Dracula’s going to screw up this small town’s only funeral service.

Oh, speaking of weird. The timeline is a mess. The story opens at the end of last issue, then presumably jumps ahead to the next night. Dracula goes to the boxing match, then goes home. It takes him a long time to get home, and it’s almost dawn, but he sees a carnival in town. It’s only important because a cop working the carnival duty knows Quincy and calls in the vampire bat. The vampire bats are apparently ginormous, so they’re noticeable.

The overnight carnival is just odd.

But, odd aside, it’s a good issue. Dracula’s a personable villain protagonist, the art’s phenomenal, and the end action sequence is aces.