The issue ends with an afterword from Dick Giordano talking about finishing the Dracula adaptation thirty years after he and writer Roy Thomas started it. He confirms my suspicions they didn’t actually have it plotted out; rather, they did that work thirty years later. Or twenty-eight or whatever. Plus, it sounds like artist Giordano did a lot of the scene breakouts—it’s a Marvel book, after all—but also, no wonder the story’s got no pacing.

I can’t remember the last quarter of Dracula, the novel, but assuming the big events in this issue are correct, there’s not much Thomas is responsible for doing poorly. The fearless vampire hunters treating Mina as damaged, sinful goods? From the book. I do wonder if Van Helsing’s journal, written in awkward, stilted, but proper English, is from the novel or if Thomas paraphrased. When Van Helsing speaks, he jumbles his word order (a non-native speaker, he’s Dutch). It’s distracting.

Also distracting is white-haired Jonathan Harker (his wife was unfaithful, regardless of being brainwashed and mind controlled, his hair was bound to change). He gets the narrator seat a bit, and even though I’m only a few months delayed, his diary doesn’t sound like his diary at the beginning of the series.

I’d also forgotten how we were headed towards a terribly anti-climatic ending, which the comic does nothing to improve. Over-reliance on the narration, workman art from Giordano, stamp, done, move on to the next. The epilogue’s bewildering and, I suppose, where Thomas is most at fault. There must’ve been something better, maybe even something relevant.

The art’s okay. This new material is about getting through, not showing off. Almost everything is a montage sequence of some kind or another (with the narration tying the panels together). It doesn’t let Giordano work up any moment with the characters.

In the end, however, it’s not Thomas or Giordano’s fault Bram Stoker left the villain out of the last fifth of the story. It’s Giordano’s fault Van Helsing looks like a mischievous but not malevolent Keebler Elf, but whatever.

And the weird “follow the money” investigation the boys conduct is boring. They found Dracula thanks to accountancy.

Yawn.

I really wish they’d gotten to finish this back in the seventies. It’s cool they got to finish it thirty years later. But cool isn’t enough to make it succeed. Thomas and Giordano are just being too rote, especially for the finish.

Like all faithful Bram Stoker’s Dracula adaptations, Stoker’s Dracula has hit the point where the source material’s bad writing is causing problems. Or, at least, lazy plotting. But it’s not writer Roy Thomas’s fault; it’s all on Stoker.

The most obvious example is someone screwing with Van Helsing’s plan to save Lucy’s soul. Last time it was Lucy’s mom, who died almost immediately following as a comeuppance; this time, it’s a maid. Thomas leaves in Van Helsing’s being super classist about the maid.

This issue is entirely “new” material. Artist Dick Giordano no longer draws Dracula exactly like he appeared in Tomb of Dracula, though sticks pretty close. He does not play up the Count’s gauntness, which makes it odd when multiple people comment on it. This issue’s got Jonathan and Mina seeing the Count in London and fairly soon getting involved with the vampire hunting plot.

There are numerous plotting conveniences straight from the novel. The boys exclude Mina so she can go and have an offscreen arc with Dracula as his steady victim, Mina not reading Jonathan’s journal until after they see Dracula, not to mention Jonathan not being able to tell Mina about his experiences and instead demanding she read the journal. She also types it up when she reads it, which, fortunately, we don’t see. Stoker’s Dracula leverages the finest in cheap mid-aughts computer lettering, including the horrendous newspapers. There are some notes and telegrams; they also look terrible and anachronistic, not just for the nineteenth-century setting but also with Giordano’s artwork. The “new” Stoker’s isn’t as, well, slutty as seventies Marvel black-and-white magazines, but it’s pretty bloody. Slick, barely better than Comics Sans lettering doesn’t fit.

Other weak sauce plotting includes Van Helsing’s trips back to Amsterdam to keep him away from the story, Jonathan’s boss dying off-page and leaving him the business, and numerous other recently deceased characters. The adaptation also draws attention to how little impact Dracula has on London, other than having turned Lucy into the “Bloofer Lady,” something Thomas rushes through. Unfortunately.

Given the adaptation’s previous success with Mina and Lucy and not with the boys, one would’ve hoped Thomas might stick closer to her. He does not. She’s off doing her own thing; no girls allowed. Thomas also doesn’t fix frequent narrator Jack Seward’s weird obsession with Lucy. It’s nowhere near as bad as before, but it is concerning when it comes back to start off the comic. This issue covers Jonathan and Mina in England, Lucy’s resurrection and destruction, and Dracula’s (romance-less) pursuit of Mina.

In a fun twist—I can’t remember if it’s from the novel—Dracula seems very aware he’s messing with his former victim’s new wife and taking delight in being that guy.

Stoker’s is an admirable exercise, but the new material isn’t as good as the old material. It’s not just thirty years taking its toll on the creators; it’s the novel getting into its muddy parts. Back in the seventies, they got stopped at just the right point before the book got too busy and messy.

I expect the last issue to be an entirely acceptable, entirely underwhelming read.

Stoker’s Dracula collects and then continues Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano’s seventies novel adaptation, which ran in the black and white horror magazines, Dracula Lives! and Legion of Monsters. Thomas and Giordano only did six entries back then, and since they’ve only got one chapter of new material in this issue… they stopped before they were halfway done.

Fast forward thirty years, and Marvel gets them to finish it.

The cool part of this issue is it’s all the best material. The first issue would have Jonathan Harker getting to Castle Dracula and his discoveries there. This issue is all the England stuff, first from Mina’s perspective, then Seward’s, and now Lucy’s. Giordano excelled at the British Gothic material.

This issue also introduces the mixed media aspect of the novel. There are newspaper accounts, multiple diarists, and Seward’s monologue to his phonograph. Thomas and Giordano’s best work on the adaptation—as was—is in this issue.

So obviously, there are some differences thirty years on. The lettering is digital. Chris Eliopoulos. They lack the energy of the previous entries’ lettering. There are also some typeset newspaper reprints, which come off wrong, including a really bad “Lorem Ipsum” moment.

But the lettering disconnect is nothing compared to the Giordano art disconnect. While Dracula does look quite different than pages (and decades) before—not for the better–Giordano’s overall work is good. He can still do the Gothic good girl art, which is crucial since it’s mostly a Lucy issue.

There’s some hubbub with Seward, but he’s just a plot mechanism, just like all the characters. Thomas brings in Texan Quincy Morris, clean-shaven with sideburns like Giordano didn’t want to do too much work on him.

Giordano did put a lot of work into Stoker’s, but there’s a difference. He’s older and slicker—just like the letters—but the energy’s different. Stoker’s Dracula isn’t adapting the novel to fit Tomb of Dracula; it’s just adapting the novel to match what’s come before.

The new entry’s greatest success is giving Lucy—even temporarily—some agency. She doesn’t do much with it besides write in her diary, but her insight into her situation is very nice. Hopefully, Thomas will find someone else to have good instincts with going forward….