I only have the vaguest memories of my previous Tomb of Dracula read through, but when Harold H. Harold appears this issue… I remembered he was going to be obnoxious beyond compare. In not disappointing my expectations, writer Marv Wolfman succeeds in disappointing my everlasting soul.

The issue opens with Dracula in Boston, messing around with a bunch of American young people. They just want him to chill out and groove, and Dracula, weakened by Doctor Sun’s mystery attack, is having none of it. He doesn’t feed, however; he’s too weak. When we next see Dracula, he will be feeding with no real explanation of why he didn’t feed before. And the comic will have skipped over the question of his Boston lair, which theoretically must be a thing.

Because instead of spending the day with Dracula, Wolfman instead tags along with Harold. Harold is a hack writer who’s been trying to get over his current case of writer’s block for three years. At least, I think it’s three years. Harold’s had writer’s block for three years; Harold writes worse than a three-year-old plant–lots of threes.

Wolfman tracks Harold from his failed drafting, where he decides just to plagiarize for his freelance assignment, then to the office where he sexually harasses and demeans the office girl, Aurora. She’s just a pretty face, he tells her, and dumb as a box of rocks. Except after he comes across Dracula in the street—Harold thinks there’s been a car accident, but Drac really dive-bombed a couple on a motorcycle and made sure to eat the girl because he’s sick of how empathetic he’s been lately. Where’s empathy gotten Dracula? Nowhere.

Anyway. Harold calls Aurora at like two in the morning for help, thinking about how she’s stupid, but she’s pretty, so maybe he’ll get laid after they take care of the vampire on his couch. I really hope Drac eats him next issue. Or lets Aurora eat him.

Capping the issue is a scene where Brother Voodoo tells Frank Drake even though Frank doesn’t seem like a white savior (he’s so ineffectual compared to lady friend Rachel Van Helsing, after all), Brother Voodoo sees the white savior in him, and all he needs to do is act with unwarranted confidence, and he’ll feel better.

It’s an eye-roll of an ending. Thank goodness for Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s sublime art. Though their soft, lascivious cheesecake of Aurora juxtaposed against Harold (i.e., Wolfman) deriding her is weird and off-key.

Maybe Dracula can turn Aurora, and she can eat Harold. Just so long as he doesn’t become a major supporting player. Now, there’s a scary thought.

This issue’s a wonderful showcase for how seemingly nothing can go right for Tomb of Dracula, but thanks to the creators—even as writer Marv Wolfman crafts a silly tale, he’s still got the right artists with Gene Colan and Tom Palmer to give the issue a pulse. The cover promises Dracula’s coming to the United States. The issue delivers, with some caveats. First and foremost, the issue ends with Dracula at the airport. There are some hints at what’s next, but Wolfman’s padding.

It’s also a bad Dracula issue. He’s ostensibly losing his shit because Doctor Sun—now stationed in Boston—is sucking away the Count’s vampiric life force and whatnot, but it leads to Dracula going on a murderous rampage at London Heathrow. In the ticket line. He’s mad his flight’s delayed. Wolfman sets the whole thing up like Airport UK, then lets Dracula kill off the cast. Then he hijacks a fighter jet so Colan and Palmer can do a fighter jet comic for six pages. It’s weird and poorly concocted. Like, if Dracula’s really losing his shit, do that story. Don’t do Dracula in familiar modern settings just for filler.

Then there’s also the weird framing. Rachel, Quincy, and Inspector Chelm (who doesn’t get a single line, I don’t think) are getting a briefing from Dr. Scott. I think they’re in the UK still, but it’s also not worth the detail. Rachel and Quincy bitch about Dr. Scott taking too long to get to the point–i.e., he can’t stop expositing—and he tells them, no, he’s going to exposit as much as he damn well pleases, and now he’s going to do it twice as much. So he’s knowingly blathering.

And he’s super-sexist to Rachel. Like, so sexist Wolfman’s using it as a disparaging characteristic (as opposed to the series’s regular levels of sexism leveled at Rachel). But Dr. Scott alternates between calling Rachel “Dr. Van Helsing” and “Ms. Van Helsing,” and the latter is bolded because he goes from calling her doctor to not. Because he’s a dick. Maybe it’s all typos from Wolfman, and letterer Joe Rosen just thought it was something better.

But it’s kind of wild. And goes nowhere.

Dracula gets to the United States, come back next issue—an actual joke Rachel makes at Dr. Scott’s expense. The issue’s way too self-aware about being filler. All the characters should just remark on how gorgeous everything looks so we know the comic’s acknowledging Colan and Palmer doing transcendent work is the real draw for the comic. It could be Tomb of Cthulhu and just as revelatory.

There’s also a bit with Frank and Brother Voodoo in Brazil. Frank has tracked down his treacherous, murderous best friend, only to find the dude’s lambed it, leaving his lady friend to take the heat. So Frank starts threatening to slap her around—which the lady comments on—before Brother Voodoo gets the issue on track.

Tomb of Dracula’s a weird book. Even for the seventies. Everyone in it is a combination of dope and dickhead, with Dracula usually the least offensive. Such gorgeous art, though.

Besides the cover art having very little to do with the issue content—the cover shows Brother Voodoo fighting zombies; more on that adventure in a bit—this issue is an exemplar Tomb of Dracula. Writer Marv Wolfman has time to go overboard with the narration and exposition while still fitting a full horror comic story into the still very serialized Tomb narrative. It might also help there’s nothing with the other vampire hunters (and Frank Drake’s appearance comes with an asterisk).

Let’s get the cover (and Frank) out of the way.

Frank is still in South America, tricked into running a plantation by one of his old rich kid friends. Little does Frank know the friend now works for Dracula. I think. It’s been a while since this subplot started, but I’m nearly sure Dracula was behind it. Immediately after Frank got to the plantation, the zombies attacked him. He’s been on the run from them for five issues or something. Time means nothing in Tomb of Dracula (especially here, when Drac’s quest involves him averting his death in two weeks).

Brother Voodoo showed up last issue to save Frank’s lily-white ass. This issue is Brother Voodoo fighting off zombies while talking to himself. It’s much better than the adventures of Frank Drake, which Wolfman seems to be acknowledging by focusing on Voodoo.

That subplot is a few pages (and still one too many); all action with great art from Gene Colan and Tom Palmer.

The main plot has Dracula agreeing to perform four hits in exchange for the report about his impending demise (the two weeks thing). His employer is fashion designer Daphne von Wilkinson. She also agrees to feed him her fashion models but assumes he won’t be feeding on her targets.

It’s a good Dracula plot, as he travels around London meeting various caricatures—beautifully rendered by Colan and Palmer—and disposing of them. There’s a good, though somewhat pointless, twist at the end, and the whole thing is—no pun—a marvel of pacing.

There are some caveats, of course. Wolfman’s script ups the misogyny whenever it can get its hands on the dial. Von Wilkinson wants these men dead for stealing from her because they thought, as a woman, she couldn’t do anything about it. They all say she’s a silly woman, so they had to steal from her. Wolfman’s pro-victims. Especially since von Wilkinson’s so happy to give her fashion models to Dracula. Patriarchy says what.

Though Wolfman having a problematic diversion does just further inform the issue as an exemplar Tomb of Dracula. Wouldn’t want to have one where he’s not writing everyone being racist to Blade or Taj, or sexist to Rachel or whatever.

Thanks to the art, it’s hard for Tomb not to be a good comic, but it’s also a successful execution of the concept. Dracula’s got his big “Doctor Sun is hiding in the United States and killing me, and all he sent me was this postcard” arc, and he’s tiptoeing into it. Drac’s on a bridge, walking between significant plot points, and Wolfman’s making things interesting around him. The story moves forward easily; the peripheral scenery is compelling and fluid.

Very good comics-making here.

I’m resisting the urge to go back and figure out how many issues this day has been taking place–at least three, possibly four. Writer Marv Wolfman opens checking in on Frank Drake, who’s down in South America with some zombies after him. They’ve been after him for at least an issue, maybe two. Wolfman’s narration makes fun of Frank not being courageous, which is interesting since… we haven’t gotten anything out of him being a sap. Like, he’s not on some great character arc. He’s a jackass. It’s just never been clear Wolfman’s third-person narration thinks he’s a jackass too.

Then the action goes back to London, where Dracula’s fighting with the police. Despite the editors remembering to tell readers to pick up Giant-Size Dracula and Vampire Tales, they’ll miss the cops already suspecting Dracula’s nemesis, Doctor Sun, is behind Dracula losing his powers. Later in the issue, when the vampire hunting team gets back together—partially, Frank’s still gone, and then Taj is apparently leaving the book—obnoxious Inspector Chelm isn’t aware of Doctor Sun.

It’s messy, but it’s also the first time Wolfman’s had any forward progress on the plot in ages. There’s even a somewhat interesting hook—Dracula’s scared of dying again because he’s worried he won’t return–but it’s unclear if he’s justified. It’s better if he’s not, of course, because it’d be character development. Wolfman doesn’t like character development, though, so it’ll probably end up disappointing.

But it’s well-plotted. There’s the wrap-up from last issue, the vampire hunters, but then a new character shows up—fashion designer Daphne von Wilkinson, who hates all men and promotes incompetent women because she’s an incompetent woman too (the sexism pulses). It seems she’ll be important in the near future to Tomb. It’s problematic, but it’s also energy.

Great art, as always, from Gene Colan and Tom Palmer. The Dracula action’s particularly dynamic, then Daphne’s moody scenes are also phenomenal.

It’s better than the series has been lately. Fresh plots help immensely, even if Wolfman’s still dragging out Taj and Frank’s C plots.

Artists Gene Colan and Tom Palmer have done some stunning issues of Tomb of Dracula, but this issue’s their best (so far). They’ve got the horror—the A plot is Quincy Harker watching a decomposing Dracula die on the carpet—they’ve got the time Dracula broke Harker’s back, so a flashback to an opera. There’s a political thriller sequence; there’s Dracula being regally evil, there’s Dracula as a bat in the winter, and there’s even a British pub scene. Plus, an epilogue (apparently) for Taj, and then checking on Rachel to make sure she’s alive.

Rachel is alive—despite the vampire brides doing unspeakable things to her, but really they could’ve just been reading her The Feminine Mystique. Writer Marv Wolfman’s got plotting and pacing problems galore, both in the overall arc of the series but also in these last couple of issues. Luckily, there’s the great art to get it through. And the Harker and Dracula showdown has an exceptionally mean (and appropriate) finale. The problems all come in the epilogue.

After a one-page farewell (perhaps) to Taj, Wolfman checks in on Dracula in the last twenty minutes since he’s left Harker’s, does a two-page mugging to establish the British Parliament has been taken over by evil vampires (evil meaning not-Dracula’s goons), has a lengthy exposition from Dracula about the secret foe who’s wearing him from afar (it’s not a surprise, since Dracula’s only ever had one secret adversary in Tomb), and then does a cliffhanger. It’s the front part of one comic, and then another rushed to fit into the latter third of pages.

But the art holds, even through Wolfman’s sad revelation of the secret villain and Quincy’s tough personal decisions following the Dracula fight. Wolfman’s spinning his wheels a little, but the book’s fine as long as Colan and Palmer deliver such glorious issues.

Just a little thin at times, no matter how many plots Wolfman tries to stack.