I was so ready to cut Archie Goodwin some slack on this issue’s script. Not just at the beginning, but even halfway through when the dialogue’s at least terse, so not overly wordy. Only then Goodwin starts leaning in on the second-person narration, not for human protagonist Frank Drake. No, Goodwin does the second-person narration for Dracula, and, wow, is it bad. It goes from bad to worse, with Goodwin taking it up a notch (or down) like more bad will work better than less.

Dracula’s not in the lead-up to the cliffhanger; instead, it’s Rachel Van Helsing talking to his latest regretful victim, and—even though there’s way too much misogyny—the missing narration device helps. Plus, it’s setting up what ends up being a reasonably good cliffhanger. And Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s art is phenomenal; their talking heads scenes are superb, with lots of personality to the characters’ faces, but also to how they deliver the dialogue. But, of course, since it’s Marvel Style, the kudos go to Goodwin for the dialogue.

The issue begins with Dracula and the lady who bought his old castle, Ilsa. She used to be a fashion model, but now she’s old. She purchased the castle hoping Dracula would come looking for her and she’d be able to convince him to turn her into a vampire so she can be young again. Like it says in the Bram Stoker book. This issue breaks a little with the established series continuity. Or the implied series continuity; now it’s a direct sequel to the novel before there was some loosey-goosey with the timeline.

Dracula agrees—she’s going to give him a magic mirror in return, even though he doesn’t want it for the reason she thinks (it’s a time-traveling mirror, and she assumes he wants back to the nineteenth century, which he doesn’t). Unfortunately, Drake, Rachel, and Taj are all in pursuit; Dracula beat up Ilsa’s butler, and he called the cops, who called Scotland Yard, who called the vampire hunters. They’ve got special, super-modern (for 1972) vampire hunting technology, which surprises Dracula and suggests Goodwin got plot inspiration from “Batman: The TV Show” merchandise.

Thanks to Colan and Palmer, the gadgets do visualize well; art over silly.

There’s some more of Drake being shitty to Taj—is he just ableist this issue or racist, too, can’t remember. But it’s quick, and the vampire hunting action sticks more to Rachel. Or the cops who are helping them out. So less opportunity for Frank to be a dick.

The issue’s an improvement over the previous; the plot’s better, the guest star more interesting, and so on. However, that second-person narration from Goodwin is an unmitigated disaster, and I’m dreading any more of it.

This issue has Tom Palmer inking Gene Colan, so there’s very little one can actually complain about. Just observe. Archie Goodwin’s the writer; he employs the second-person narration to lesser effect than the previous writers. His dialogue’s overwrought even for a seventies Marvel comic, and then his exposition suggests he had a thesaurus on hand. The text is a tedious read.

The art more than makes up for it. The way the foggy London looks with the Colan pencils, the precise Palmer inks, then whoever colored it (they went uncredited in the issue), is genuinely spectacular. It’s beyond good-looking; I knew it was just a matter of time before Colan got his Palmer inks on the series, but I’d forgotten how perfectly they sync.

The story starts with Frank Drake bereft over killing his vampire fiancée Jeanie and about to throw himself in the river. Luckily, better timed than Clarence the angel, Rachel Van Helsing, and her sidekick, Taj, show up just in time to save him. Frank’s not happy about it and says something racist about Taj, who’s mute, but then Rachel explains she’s Abraham’s great-granddaughter, he’s Dracula’s great-great-great-grandson or whatever, and they should team-up. Frank agrees. It’s all done with Goodwin’s charmless dialogue but Colan and Palmer’s gorgeous art. Art covers script.

At the same time, Frank’s duplicitous pal Clifton Graves is out getting drunk because Frank’s dumped him. Dracula needs a modern Renfield, so he hypnotizes Clifton, and the two go about getting ahold of Dracula’s coffin.

Frank’s taking his new friends to the coffin as well, and there’s a way too constrained fight between vampire hunters, vampire, and vampire lackey. I really hope Colan someday gets to do a Tomb fight scene where the actors are in a confined space; last time, it was a hotel room, this time, it’s an auxiliary storeroom. Fight settings in this comic would be better suited to a Marx Brothers bit than a battle against the undead.

Anyway.

Goodwin then overwrites and under-delivers Scotland Yard getting involved, leading to the vampire hunters getting de facto deputized. I wonder if someone else would’ve handled it better.

The cliffhanger has Dracula tracking down the person who bought his ruined castle, a fashion model aged out of the industry and is now using the supernatural to regain her looks. Paper-thin (even for this script), probably going to be problematic characterizations aside, the art’s wonderful.