Werewolf by Night (1972) #9

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For a while, I thought artist Tom Sutton would be Werewolf by Night’s return to art form. Or at least getting closer to it than it’s been since they started putting consecutively worse inkers on Mike Ploog, then lost Ploog altogether. Sutton’s probably the most successful since then, but he’s not good.

The first sequence has Wolfman Jack running through rainy Los Angeles while some scary-looking guy in a scarecrow outfit chases him in the sewer, eventually attacking. The werewolf holds his own until a supersonic dog whistle paralyzes him, letting the scarecrow guy escape, with the werewolf passing out in public. Jack wakes up in the morning in the LAPD drunk tank, with detective Lou Hackett waiting to question him.

There was also a Len and Glynis Wein cameo, which is cute, but probably shouldn’t be one of Sutton’s most successful “people” panels. Because while Sutton’s better than most at the werewolf and his sewer-dwelling, scary-looking foe… the people are the pits. And they get worse as the story progresses. Then it turns out the sewer-dwelling grotesques are just ugly people who were experiencing homelessness and then hypnotized by some guy with a pied piper pipe… it’s rather dehumanizing and icky.

Pied piper guy is named Sarnak. He works for the Committee. And he wants to brainwash the werewolf into helping them attack Century City, but it’s all actually a ruse to kidnap Lissa Russell (in addition to Jack, in werewolf form). Sarnak sent his bad guys to get Jack from step-dad Phillip’s place, where Lissa was asleep—before the full moon rose, they go to bed early in the Russell household—and the bad guys didn’t go to get her.

There’s a line in Jack’s narration about Lissa’s presence being inexplicable, but go with it, so there may be no explanation next issue in the resolve.

The rainy street scene’s really good. The bad guys fighting the werewolf in the Russell house is good. The rest is pretty blah.

We do get Hackett trying to strong-arm Russell into giving him some answers about the werewolf, but Hackett calls Phillip, who shows up and takes Jack home. Not sure why they didn’t keep questioning him. But then Jack and Phillip get to argue for the first time in almost ten issues (I don’t know if they’ve had a scene together in Werewolf by Night proper). And Jack and Lissa get to briefly talk about the werewolf curse.

She’s seemingly unworried about coming down with it herself.

Gerry Conway’s script is okay. The people talking stuff might work if Sutton didn’t draw the people poorly.

It’s good they’re finally getting to the Russell family drama stuff, but it’s been about a year since the series started putting it off. So hopefully, they’ve got something good planned for next issue’s resolution. But I’m also not holding my breath.

Dracula Lives (1973) #2

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There’s a thirteen-page Neal Adams warlord Dracula comic this issue, and I don’t understand why it’s not a bigger deal. Like, it’s gorgeous. Of course, the other stories have good art, too… well, the Gene Colan and Dick Giordano one, but the Adams one is kind of an immediate classic.

I started reading Dracula Lives because the Tomb of Dracula editors’ notes promised it’d fill in the backstory. Given Tomb’s unsteady continuity, I got curious; I’d also heard Dracula Lives was pretty good, the PG-17 version of TOD. But it’s not addressing the main series’s continuity issues.

Adams’s art is on the Dracula origin story, written by Marv Wolfman. Set in the fifteenth century, it begins with Dracula falling in battle against the Turks. They find him almost dead and decide to puppet him around to get everyone else to surrender, bringing him to a gypsy who swears she’ll make him right. Well, maybe, baby, the gypsy lied. She’s a vampire, and she’s going to turn Dracula for being such a shit to her people.

So, a note. Punishing a megalomaniac by making them immortal seems like a strange choice.

But the story does give vampire Dracula a better origin than, say, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He renounces his bad acts, which put his loving wife and little baby son in danger. He’s sympathetic, partially because the lead Turk is cartoonishly evil—though not cartoonish because Adams’s art is detailed and exuberantly so. It’s a good origin. Well-written by Wolfman, singular art by Adams.

Doesn’t answer any questions about Dracula knowing the vampire hunters from after the novel and before TOD #1.

Then there’s an old Atlas horror reprint; no credited writer, and Joe Sinnott art. It’s about a grave keeper swindling the local vampires. It’s a fairly by-the-numbers horror strip, and it’s pretty dang good. Sinnott’s got a good sense of humor, a lot of personality in his characters, and great use of shadows.

So there are two reprints, three original stories, and some of those one-page Dracula movie stills with new “dialogue,” but there’s also Chris Claremont doing a text piece. It’s a letter to the editor about how Bram Stoker got Dracula wrong. It’s not great, but it’s okay. What’s strange about it is the timing–Dracula Lives #2 came out in 1973, and two years later, Fred Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape came out. Tape’s all from Dracula’s perspective; it’s different from Claremont’s piece, but there are resemblances. Enough to wonder.

The text piece delays the weak comic. Written by Tony Isabella, from a Steve Gerber plot, with art by Jim Starlin (layouts by Jim Starlin) and Syd Shores finishing. Shores draws everyone like a caricature, which is something. But the story’s about Castle Dracula during World War II when Nazis occupied it and terrorized the local gypsies. One night a vampire appears, but it can’t be Dracula because Van Helsing killed him.

It should be good.

It’s not. But it should be. The art’s not good enough, the writing’s not good enough, but the concept’s not terrible. Though it directly contradicts TOD continuity.

The second reprint is a Stan Lee-penned entry, also an Atlas, about a corrupt politician who hires guys to vote using dead people’s names. Men, specifically, though that detail’s not a plot point.

Fred Kida does the art.

Art’s fine. Story’s really long without much pay-off.

The art in the final story, another original, makes up for it. It’s the Colan and Giordano art. Dracula in New Orleans. Gene Colan drawing the French Quarter with Dick Giordano inking. It’s glorious.

Roy Thomas writes. It’s an okay story about Dracula mysteriously waking up in New Orleans—directly following last issue’s New York adventure—and it’s got something to do with voodoo queen Marie Laveau. The story opens with a cemetery tour where the guide is talking about Laveau (then saying people who go into debt deserve to die, don’t you agree, which is a bizarre bit of dialogue), and it just happens to figure into the Dracula plot.

Story doesn’t matter; it’s all about the art. Art’s absolutely fantastic and not even as good as the Adams art on the first story.

The story also has a panel with The Zombie (Simon Garth), telling everyone to check out his new comic, which is an interesting bit of Marvel shared universe cross-promotion. It’s like reading a Spider-Man comic or something.

So, overall, three of the five stories are good, two are middling, the text piece isn’t terrible, and the photo dialogue things are bad but brief. Dracula Lives is a heck of a comic. Especially when it’s got such exceptional art.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #12

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You know, maybe I’m overthinking the writing on Frank Drake. Maybe he’s just a shitty racist who doesn’t Taj for being Indian. It sure seems like it. Especially after he has a “quaking in his boots” moment before Blade shows up and saves his ass.

Tom Palmer’s back inking Gene Colan this issue, which is good, but it’d be better if the story weren’t just about Dracula messing with the vampire slayers. Though they’re not very good at vampire slaying, apparently. Drac’s mistake is inviting Blade along because then Blade can save everyone’s butt.

Mostly.

The issue opens with the vampire slayers interrupting Dracula’s evening snack, so he kidnaps Edith (Quincy Harker’s kid, whose most personality to date was complaining Blade isn’t polite enough to her) and tells them they have to come to a haunted mansion, or he’ll kill her. Once he gets Edith to the haunted mansion, he explains she’s dead either way.

The vampire slayers show up and walk right into the haunted mansion—called “Whispering Hell”—knowing it’s a trap. They don’t do anything to prepare for the trap angle; they just muscle their way in, thinking everything will be okay. Basically, because Taj will eventually save them. Only Taj can’t save them this time. Instead, Blade has to save them.

It’s a strange comic—writer Marv Wolfman seems aware Frank Drake is a bumbler, for example, but he’s still got to be a hero. Dracula, meanwhile, is a mean dude—he’s literally just making the vampire slayers suffer for kicks—but he’s at least not incompetent at it. Sure, inviting Blade was a mistake, but the Count was right about Quincy’s vampire slayers not being up to the task. The story just serves to humiliate the heroes, deservingly humiliate them.

They’re even more unlikeable when they don’t acknowledge Blade saved their lily-white asses.

The issue presents the ending as a surprise, but it’s pretty obvious stuff. It initially seems like it’s going to be a new development in the series overall, only—again—Wolfman takes an easy way out with it.

The art’s good but the content—Dracula versus vampire slayers in an old mansion—limits what Colan and Palmer are going to be able to do with it. Especially since Dracula’s only idea for a trap is, like, a bunch of bats and a bunch of spiders. Admittedly, the slayers can’t contend with either of them, but still….

Stop playing with your food, Vlad.

Werewolf by Night (1972) #8

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Did Marvel have a market research department in the seventies? Was there some editorial edict to make Werewolf by Night aim younger? Despite being about a teenager who just turned eighteen and presumably feeling the weight of adulthood (legally, anyway), protagonist Jack Russell isn’t. Since the comic only ever shows him on his werewolf days and nights, he mostly walks around half-dressed, whining about the werewolf being hungry last night and sleeping away the day because the comic’s got no ideas.

Or maybe writer Len Wein was just going for a riff on schlock and failed because guest penciler Werner Roth has no sense of humor.

The issue opens with Wolfman Jack running off from the burning circus, leaving sister Lissa and pal Buck behind to answer the questions for the cops. Lissa’s less explicit about knowing Jack’s the werewolf. She just gazes out at the mountains, implying she knows her brother’s out there furry and hungry. Then Lissa and Buck are gone, their requisite page in. Wein also checks in on seemingly evil, murderous step-dad Phillip, who gets a threatening phone call (like he’s been getting since his second issue) and a visit from copper Lou Hackett. Hackett wants to talk to the family about a werewolf!

Presumably, these plot lines will be important later, but I’m worried I’m presuming a lot.

The main story is about Jack happening into a cave with a locked door at the end. When he hears noises behind it and opens it, but the chamber inside is empty except for a skeleton holding a book. Jack settles in for some light reading before he turns into the werewolf—for all the complaining about the werewolf’s constant hunger; otherwise, it doesn’t seem like Jack would eat at all—and reads about yet another Southern California warlock who called another demon into Marvel 616. The warlock locked the demon in the chamber and stayed inside until he and the demon died. The timeline’s shaky but maybe the demon picked the guy’s bones clean over the years.

Jack doesn’t realize he’s messed up, so he falls asleep, waking up to turn into the werewolf and discover there’s a very talkative demon he needs to fight.

The demon taunts the werewolf for, I don’t know, half the issue while they duke it out. The taunting is where it feels like Wein is targeting younger readers. It’s distinct, Bond villain taunting, but it’s contentless blathering.

Roth’s pencils leave a whole lot to be desired. It’s unclear if Paul Reinman’s inks help or hurt. It doesn’t matter. The issue’s entirely disposable.

Dracula Lives (1973) #1

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Dracula Lives offers a considerable bang for its six-bit cover price. There are three new Dracula features and three old Marvel (from the Atlas days) reprint strips. The reprints are from black and white horror comics and perfectly match Lives’s format. There’s also a Marv Wolfman article covering Dracula movies; Wolfman doesn’t contribute a script for any of the comics. The only places the comic’s not successful are the vampire movie stills with new dialogue; not sure if it was Bullpen interns or if the Marvel guys just aren’t funny, but they’re charmless. Worth skimming to get to the next comic, but charmless.

The first story is the main attraction—Gene Colan and Tom Palmer in glorious black and white. Gerry Conway writes; freed from the Comic Code, it’s so far his best work on a Marvel Dracula. The Count heads to New York City after reading a news blurb about a successful counter-culture psychic who says he’s reincarnated from some old foe of Dracula’s. So naturally, Drac’s going over to take revenge for past insults but isn’t prepared for the New York lifestyle… specifically sucking the blood of heroin addicts.

Though I suppose it’s the early seventies, they could’ve been potheads, which would make the entire thing much more amusing. Dracula whining about having too many edibles for a dozen pages.

But, no, it’s seemingly smack, so Dracula doesn’t just have to recover; he’s got to find a way to get around town in a beleaguered state. He meets a cool chick, and she helps him out—he keeps not having a good opportunity to bite her—before the showdown with the possibly reincarnated nemesis.

It’s a great comic. Colan and Palmer do a foggy, shadowy Manhattan with a good balance of horror and hip folks. And, again, Conway’s best writing on the character.

The second comic is another original Dracula, set in the past, about the first time the Count went to the United States. There’s a brief reference to it in the opening story (having been there before), but I wasn’t expecting an entire feature to explain it.

Roy Thomas writes, Alan Weiss and Dick Giordano do the art. It’s a Salem witch trial story. Dracula’s sick of his low-class vampire brides back in Transylvania, so he uses his dark magic to seek out a willing witchy wife. He, you know, murdered his current wives, turning them into vampires against their will, so they’re damaged goods. It’s not an inappropriate take, given Dracula’s an actual bad guy.

The art’s good, and Dracula’s kind of a swashbuckler-type when he’s around. Most of the story is about his bride-to-be’s problems with gross men (versus suave vampire men). It’s predictable but acceptable.

Then come the reprints, three in a row—interrupted, obviously, by the movie still bumpers and then Wolfman’s essay—and I kept wondering if there’d be another original story. They save it for last.

The first reprint is a Haitian zombie one with art by Tony DiPreta and no credited writer. It’s a little long at six pages but reasonably compelling. It’s moody as hell.

The second reprint is a two-pager about some guy wanting magic powers and the cost incurred from getting them. Bill La Cava art, no credited writer. It’s low okay, kind of set up for a punchline, but it’s a horror punchline, not a funny or ironic one.

The third reprint’s the best. Stan Lee script, Russ Heath art. An evil asylum owner gets what’s coming to him over seven surprising pages. The Heath art’s fantastic, but Lee’s has good characterizations and solid twists.

Then comes the final story, written by Steve Gerber, with art by Rich Buckler and Pablo Marcos. Buckler and Marcos somehow combine John Carradine’s Dracula with the swashbuckler to great effect. It’s the second-best, art-wise, with some great detail.

Dracula’s heard about a French scientist who can cure vampirism, and, feeling sad over that girl he knew from Salem a few hundred years ago, he heads over to see what’s up.

It’s not the best Dracula characterization—Gerber writes him a little too naive, especially if this story comes after the feature (though the loose continuity is only to the second, flashback story, not the contemporaneous one)—but the writing’s not bad. The plot’s predictable; the art’s where the story excels.

Dracula Lives is off to a superb start.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #11

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Jack Abel’s inking Gene Colan again, but the issue pulls through all the same. The art’s better than last issue, particularly on Dracula. The writing’s better too, but actually good, as opposed to just not the worst Abel can screw up Colan. There are some particularly great pencils Abel trashes this issue too. With better inking, this issue’d be a contender for best Tomb of Dracula so far. Even with the goofy Haiti voodoo subplot.

It’s been two weeks since the last issue, and Dracula’s still not used to Clifton Graves being dead. Dracula left him on an exploding yacht because Graves was so useless. Drac briefly ruminates on the departed leech, who’s been pointless since issue two, and it’s nice to know I wasn’t the only one who wanted Graves gone. Dracula, Prince of Darkness, agreed.

Dracula then goes to sleep, resting up to hunt down the biker gang who tried to drown him a couple issues ago. Now, Tomb of Dracula’s editorial notes are saying I need to read Dracula Lives! to understand Dracula’s Marvel history—which I think I’m going to do so I can better bitch about continuity issues.

This biker gang’s working for a dying rich guy who wants them to go kill his enemies before the final curtain. He’s got voodoo dolls of all his targets, so he can torture them from afar before the bikers end their miseries. It’d probably play better if there weren’t a “kidnapped in Haiti by savage voodoo natives” flashback. But that section’s quickly forgotten, as Dracula hunts the gang and they hunt their targets. Drac finally catches up when they’re on to the last victim, a mutual acquaintance (who apparently invited Dracula in at some point because he’s got no trouble entering the house uninvited).

Writer Marv Wolfman’s playing with Dracula character in more ways than just vampire rules or character history; Wolfman’s making Dracula more sympathetic and more personable. When it’s time to feed, Dracula doesn’t hunt the helpless young woman; he pursues the human guy also hunting the young woman. And when Dracula’s soapboxing, he doesn’t sound like a wannabe megalomaniac but rather a slighted aristocrat with anger issues.

It works.

It works enough to get through the disappointing art.

Wolfman hints at future plotlines for the vampire hunters, who mostly take this issue off. Frank and Rachel are on a weekend date, and they’re going to see a Dracula play; the narration promises we’ll hear about it later, presumably next issue. Or in Dracula Lives!. But this issue’s about Dracula and the bikers and their respective prey.

The ending’s particularly good. Wolfman reveals at the last moment the issue’s a lot more tightly constructed than it initially appears.

I really hope another inker comes on soon, though. I miss being excited for the art.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #10

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Well, they found the worst inker (so far) for Gene Colan—Jack Abel. But then they had to one-up it with a letterer so bad the comic’s visually unpleasant to read. Denise Wohl’s the letterer (credited as D. Vladimer, presumably because you can’t have too many girls working on a book).

This issue features the first appearance of Blade.

And it is a stinker of a comic book.

It opens with three vampires attacking would-be stowaways on the London docks. Or some docks in England. Doesn’t matter. Blade saves them, then Quincy Harker confronts him. Last issue, when Quincy got a phone call and had to rush away, it was about Blade being active in the area. Quincy’s mad Blade killed a teenage vampire. Blade asks what Quincy would do about it.

Quincy’s got no answer, then defends Blade when daughter Edith says he’s rude. I don’t know if it’s supposed to come off slightly racist, but calling confident, capable Black people rude doesn’t ever not have connotations. Swell.

The story’s about Dracula hijacking a yacht. The owner looks vaguely like Paul Williams. I say vaguely because it’s impossible to know what anything should look like after Abel’s inks have mangled Colan’s pencils. Dracula’s on board to convince all of this rich guy’s friends to be subservient to him. Dracula tells Clifton Graves (who’s got different color hair this issue) they’re all too wimpy to resist Dracula.

But Dracula’s first scene with the yacht party is being a sniveling dipshit. After he snacks on a blonde, though, he’s ready to hijack the ship and threaten to kill them all if they don’t pledge fealty. It’s a stupid plan. For an already stupid comic book, it’s a stupid plan.

Even with better art, it’d be a bad comic. It’s a lousy script, though Blade’s a fun character once the Harkers aren’t complaining he’s not articulate enough. But I can’t actually don’t know if anything could overcome the lettering. This comic contains a lot of text, and it’s painful to read. Wohl’s lettering is the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.

Yuck.

There are also a bunch of continuity issues—including notes about how we need to be reading Dracula Lives! to know what’s going on—but Dracula knows Blade, which makes absolutely no sense. He’s been making vampires for his legion, which we’ve never seen before in the comic.

It’s a stinker for sure, start to finish. However, I’m relatively confident it’s just writer Marv Wolfman having a (very) lousy month.

And at least they didn’t call him Black Blade.

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #9

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This issue starts with one of Tomb of Dracula’s most potent scares—Vince Colletta will be inking Gene Colan this issue. Beware all who enter. That said, it’s not as bad as I thought it’d be. Yes, Colletta ruins a bunch of panels, and he can’t do the shadows, but—at the very least—the art does have some kind of weird personality. The story’s also got a lot of personality, like writer Marv Wolfman going overboard with Dracula’s church-related panic attack but then doing a sublime tall tale recounting.

The action picks up—presumably—soon after last issue’s conclusion, which had Drac flying off into the night after he’d failed to resurrect an undead vampire zombie army. He starts this issue in the ocean, a group of young folks rescuing him and taking his wet, unconscious form to the only place in their village open at such an hour… the local church. Tomb of Dracula vampire logic allows vampires on holy ground, apparently, because it’s not until Dracula wakes up and sees the crosses all around him does he flip out. There’s a particularly poorly inked sequence where he tries to escape, eventually having to wait for the priest to open the front door.

Outside, instead of attacking the priest and the concerned locals, Dracula makes up a bullshit story to explain his condition, including lying to protect his pride. It’s reasonably subtle—especially for a Marvel comic—and very cool. He won’t accept help from the priest, but he will crash with one of the locals until he regains his strength.

Of course, he’s only got six hours until sunrise to regain his strength and get away to some good old Transylvania soil. So he goes to get something to eat, failing to realize turning one person in a confined village will soon lead to enough vampires everyone’s going to notice them feeding. Also, the priest sees some vampire activity and decides to get a lynching party together—the priest’s desperate to get his flock involved in church activities again, in whatever form.

Meanwhile, Dracula makes a new friend in his rescuer, a young man named Dave, who doesn’t want to spend his life in a crappy English fishing village. It would feel like a done-in-one if it weren’t for the flashback tie-in to the last issue or the brief aside with the vampire hunters (immediately recovered from the little kids trying to kill them earlier in the evening).

It’s a nice issue, despite the overwriting, despite the Colletta. Wolfman keeps making Dracula more interesting a character; for instance, in this issue, he’s in the protagonist slot. Not even the abysmal inks of Vince Colletta can mortally wound Tomb of Dracula!

Werewolf by Night (1972) #7

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Apparently, somewhere in between issues, Jack sat down with sister Lissa, and they had the “your brother’s a wolfman” talk because she knows it in this issue and it’s old hat. If it were a better comic, I might be disappointed, but so long as they don’t pair Lissa off with forty-something Buck Cowan… I’m not going to complain.

Not when writer Len Wein’s referring to the one Black character as a “Black giant.” It all feels very colonial. And very Christian; in his narration, which Wein writes with incredible detail and verbosity, Jack describes something like Moses’s cane separating the Red Sea, and you’ve got to hope they were smoking something.

The issue opens with lions versus werewolf—circus lions, which Jack explains in the narration means they aren’t as fierce as his surfer boy werewolf—only Wolfman Jack doesn’t beat them in a fight; instead, it’s the appearance of the Swami. He calms everyone down—and reveals he can mind-read for realsies—and it’s cliffhanger resolved. Jack sleeps off the shaggy dog syndrome, then spends the next day in a hypnotic trance until sister Lissa and buddy Buck arrive to save him.

Sadly, they’re no match for the Swami’s hypnotism, so it will be up to the werewolf to sort things out.

The Swami’s plan involves the Bloodstone, which will end up being a Captain America MacGuffin in the eighties—I’m not sure on the continuity. It’s just here to give the Swami an excuse to do a blood sacrifice, as well as to explain why the carnival flunkies work for him. The Bloodstone leads to incredible wealth somehow. It’s not important. Wein overwrites the narration so much and slowing down on it just reveals wanting (or problematic) content; why bother putting energy into parsing it all.

The art’s okay. Jim Mooney isn’t a good inker for Mike Ploog’s pencils, but he’s also not the worst.

The conclusion’s so perfunctory and bland—the Swami’s not some great villain—you’d think Wein was finishing off an arc he hadn’t started, but he wrote the last issue too.

I’m trying to think if there’s anything else notable. Maybe the way Wein writes Jack’s experience of the werewolf’s adventures—but it seems unlikely his approach (Jack’s more lucid observing the werewolf than his own existence) will carry over to the inevitable next writer.

Though, I guess Jack’s also never not hypnotized when he’s human in the issue. It’s a mess not worth unraveling. Werewolf by Night reads like a joyless churn for everyone involved.

And I think the series has used the same villain resolution before, which isn’t great given it’s only ten issues in (counting the Marvel Spotlight).

Tomb of Dracula (1972) #8

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Oh, no, Tom Palmer’s not inking Gene Colan this issue, and they got Ernie Chan to do it instead!

While I suppose Chan’s inks could be worse, it’s a profound downgrade in the art. During the human vampire hunter stuff, it’s reasonably okay—if chunky-lined. During Dracula’s vampire plot? It’s just wondering what it would’ve looked like with Palmer or someone better. Especially during the giant bat fight, which takes place over a few pages, and Chan does an abysmal job with.

The issue’s not just unsteady due to Chan, unfortunately. Writer Marv Wolfman employs an ill-advised declarative statement expository device, and it’s not good. His dialogue’s got more expository dumps, too; luckily, both devices go away by the comic’s second act, like Wolfman thought he had to keep it accessible for the potential new reader. Who wouldn’t have seen Chan’s name in the credits and put it back on the spinner.

Anyway.

While the vampire hunters try to survive a dozen hypnotized children trying to kill them, Dracula rushes off to tend his wounds. Quincy Harker shot him with a poison dart at the end of last issue, and it’s apparently toxic to vampires… which, obviously, makes no sense. How’s it going to move through the inanimate heart of a vampire?

It also doesn’t make sense when Dracula flies to a doctor’s house in a faraway village and reveals the doctor’s a vampire. Who’s got a twenty-year-old daughter, either meaning vampires can have babies the old-fashioned way, or Dracula wasn’t on ice very long before the first issue of Tomb. It wouldn’t be a big deal if they’d just establish some actual pre-series continuity instead of being so wishy-washy. They could even have vampires' hearts work if the swimmers still swim.

Dracula’s got plans, though. He’s in full Bond villain mode; turns out his vampire doctor pal has created a ray to awaken the dead and turn them into vampires. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t be zombies or how Dracula found a graveyard with so many still fleshy corpses, but it’s Chan inking Colan, so I also don’t care. I can’t imagine Chan would ink bony zombies any better.

The vampire hunters and the kids plot is less disappointing in terms of art. It doesn’t need to imply the supernatural, just the mundane gone terribly wrong, and Chan doesn’t detract. The writing, on the other hand, is a little pat. At no point do the vampire hunters consider killing the kids, which is dark, but it also should’ve been discussed. The resolution is a deus ex machina with a Bond gadget; the Dracula plot compensates, concluding with a whole lot of impressive dramatic heft.

It’s impossible not to wonder how the issue would read without the Chan inks. Still, it’s all right. The Dracula plot makes up for the vampire hunters one.

Also, they really need to deal with Renfield-wannabe Clifton Graves. He starts the issue with Dracula smacking him aside for being useless, then the vampire hunters smack him aside for being useless. It’s almost like he’s useless to the book.