Stoker’s Dracula (2004) #4

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.

Stoker’s Dracula (2004) #3

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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 (2004) #2

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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….

The Legion of Monsters (1975) #1

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Legion of Monsters opens with a defensive letter from editor Tony Isabella, responding to the Marvel faithful who were mad at the inglorious cancellation of the other black and white magazines. Isabella explains the books weren’t ever losing money; it’s just not in Marvel’s best interest not to make money. If readers really want black-and-white monster magazines, they better buy Legion.

They did not.

Although there’s a subscription form in the issue, Monsters only had this one issue.

And kind of for good reason.

There are four features. One Monster of Frankenstein, one continuation from Dracula Lives, and two original horror stories. All of them are uneven, starting with Doug Moench, Val Mayerik, Pablo Marcos, and Dan Adkins’s Frankenstein story. It’s after the Monster has woken up in the modern age, and he’s wandering around. He sees a princess, and even though he knows it always ends with villagers and pitchforks, he follows her.

Now, if it were just about the Monster following some girl, it’d be tired fast. But the Monster finds himself amid intrigue; it’s a costume party, and the jester tells him someone’s out to kill the princess, will the Monster help? Of course, he will. But will it be helpful help or disastrous?

The art’s sometimes excellent. Mayerik inking himself, Marcos inking Mayerik, it works out. The Adkins inks are wanting. And the story’s really dang long.

But at least it’s not the Secret Origin of Manphibian, the following story. Tony Isabella scripts from a Marv Wolfman plot. Dave Cockrum pencils, Sam Grainger inks. It’s about a Creature from the Black Lagoon type coming up through an oil well and getting in a fight with another monster from the same species, as well as some husband out to kill his wealthy wife. Or something.

It’s tedious. Maybe if the art were more distinct.

Ditto the next story, about kids picking on a former circus “freak” whose only friends are flies. It bleeds empathy, but the story’s way too long, and the art lacks Paul Kitchener pencils, Ralph Reese inks. They also share story credit with scripter Gerry Conway.

Maybe if Marvel wanted more people to be excited about Legion, they should’ve gotten together a better first issue.

The next chapter in Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano’s adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula wraps up the issue. After a lengthy (and welcome) recap of events to date, this installment covers Mina going off to marry Jonathan in Europe while Lucy’s condition worsens in England. There are multiple diary and journal keepers: Mina, Steward, and eventually Lucy.

It sure seems like Lucy has no idea she’s been Dracula’s steady blood bag for months, and, to this point, Mina hasn’t read Jonathan’s diary, even though he wants her to do so. But what Thomas doesn’t fix—and Giordano doesn’t help with—is Dr. Van Helsing, who arrives this issue to commit medical malpractice.

With the timeline visually broken out so nicely, it’s even more apparent than usual Van Helsing messes up with Lucy’s initial diagnosis and then waits too long to tell everyone what they’re dealing with.

Giordano draws Van Helsing like a combination of Santa Claus and a leprechaun.

Otherwise, lots of good art, but Lucy’s the only sympathetic character, with Seward whining almost nonstop about her marrying someone else and Van Helsing blandly kind and incompetent.

There’s one page of single-panel strips from Stuart Schwartzberg. They’re a highlight and shouldn’t be. There’s also another text article recapping monsters in other media, like it’s a real magazine again. Too little, too late.

Is it a bummer Legion didn’t continue? Sure?

But it makes sense why it didn’t.

Detective Comics (1937) #479

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I wasn’t expecting much from this issue; the team of writer Len Wein, penciller Marshall Rogers, and inker Dick Giordano hasn’t impressed in their one-and-a-fifth (they did a bookend on a reprint) issues of Detective so far. Wein’s writing a sequel to Rogers’s arc with Steve Englehart, trying to maintain continuity, like Batman hallucinating a woman is Silver St. Cloud, so he shakes her. He can’t handle her breaking up with him. I think Wein’s done this issue; did he have an outline for Batman stalking Silver St. Cloud, secreted away in the DC vaults, perhaps? Pretty much nothing else makes sense from here.

Once again, Batman’s trying to stop Clayface II, who’s trying to cure himself of being a murderous jelly protoplasm monster. Batman doesn’t care about any of that nonsense. He’s not interested in the who, the why, or the how, just the where and maybe when. It’s one of those resolutions where Batman doesn’t put the dynamite in the clown’s pants and push him in a hole to blow up, just, you know, doesn’t tell the clown he’s got dynamite in his pants–not murdering on a technicality. Englehart wrote Batman as a childish thug. Wein writes him as a callous one.

As for the art, Rogers and Giordano occasionally have good panels. There are also lots of lazy ones; anything over a medium shot, and neither artist gives Batman a face in the distance. There are some nice moody city shots and rural road shots because Rogers does a swell job with the scenery, but the Batman fights don’t impress much.

After that underwhelming feature story, Wein’s back to writing the Hawkman backup, which features Hawkman talking to birds, who fly him and Hawkgirl across the country or something. Like a few dozen birds getting together, lifting them into the air, and flying with them.

It’s camp.

Even though the story only runs eight pages, it feels longer than the Batman feature. Hawkman and Hawkgirl are back on Earth after getting kicked off their planet by the new leadership, only to discover they’ve apparently lost their jobs at their museum. There’s something strange about the new curator, who has a teleportation cape, which sets up needing bird friends.

Rich Buckler and John Celardo’s art is mostly okay. The eventual supervillain’s absurd even for this story, and Wein’s got the same ending to both this story and the feature as far as villain reveals.

Maybe if the Hawkman weren’t so slow, it’d be better. As is, it’s more sluggish pages in an already sluggish comic.

Detective Comics (1937) #478

Detective Comics 478

When Steve Englehart started his Detective run, he quickly settled on a fascist, macho narration style to describe Batman and his male perfection. When Hugo Strange showed up and proved to be just as cut, the two men complimented each other’s physiques and prowesses, with Strange’s evil assistant lady making fun of them.

At the time, I thought Englehart was self-aware.

Turns out he more likely was making fun of the lady for not knowing how to appreciate men appreciating men.

Englehart’s been off Detective two issues now, for some reason taking inker Terry Austin with him and leaving penciller Marshall Rogers with Dick Giordano to ink. Giordano’s an odd choice for Rogers, unless they wanted someone with the technical skill to turn Rogers’s pencils into inks without any personality or agency.

Len Wein’s writing now, and in Englehart’s fascist, macho style. This issue takes place the evening of Englehart’s last issue (which means the previous issue, a reprint with bookends, took place earlier in the same day). Batman’s pissed off because Silver St. Cloud left him, so he takes it out on some punks, beating the shit out of them like Frank Miller’s writing.

After going home—Wein’s got some weird narration details, but Batman deciding the one burglary was the only crime in Gotham for a night is something—Bruce Wayne gets mad at his parents’ portrait; if they hadn’t died, he wouldn’t have lost Silver!

Bruce Wayne yell whining, and breaking things is obnoxious.

Pretty soon, the cowl’s back on because there’s still the actual comic—there’s a new Clayface II. This one’s not a criminal but a scientist who tried to cure his congenital disabilities, which went wrong, of course, and left him a science supervillain. He occasionally has to turn people into protoplasm, blood lust a side effect of the procedure.

The Clayface II origin’s not great, but it’s so much better than Wein sorting through the Englehart refuse; it gets the comic to a barely tolerable but not terrible cliffhanger.

Detective Comics (1937) #477

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Despite my youthful indiscretions in reading the famed Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, I had no idea what came after it. Turns out neither did DC at the time, since this issue’s got Len Wein, Rogers, and new inker Dick Giordano doing three new pages around a reprint from 1971.

Batman and Commissioner Gordon go to visit Rupert Thorne in Arkham—Rogers’s Arkham is situated right next to the Gotham Mountains—and Thorne tells Batman about Hugo Strange’s ghost. Gordon says it’s a bunch of hooey, but Batman met a mysterious ghostly figure last episode (not to mention he’s Batman, and he’s met ghosts before, right, he’s friends with aliens and gods).

As Gordon soapboxes about ghosts being stupid, Batman remembers back to the previous issue, which is reprinted. Wein and Marv Wolfman get the writing credit. Giordano’s inking too, but it’s Neal Adams pencils. Lots of great art, but the writing’s so insipid the art doesn’t matter. There’s the curse of bad superhero comics… sometimes the writing can ruin the art as a narrative. Individual panels look great but taken as a whole, super yuck.

Batman has tracked a missing Robin to a newly appeared haunted mansion somewhere in Gotham. Robin’s in college in the story, which means Dick Grayson took a long time to graduate, no doubt too busy superheroing.

The mansion’s haunted and starts scaring Batman, who takes to whining, especially after he walks in on his funeral, and all his friends show up to talk about how much he sucked. Superman calling him “The Caped Conman” is nonsense but more amusing than the rest, especially when a tweenage Robin decides with Bats out of the way, he can run Gotham his way.

The reveal’s terrible. Racist too. Be terrible even if it weren’t. It also doesn’t have anything to do with ghosts. It’s got to do with “Batman: The TV Show” levels of silly death traps, but no ghosts.

The last page, back to the present, has a cliffhanger involving a new villain.

Wein and Wolfman write the story in second person “tension” talk, directly addressing Batman and telling him how and why to be concerned or afraid. It’s a bad device once, terrible twice, but then they do it another forty-five times or whatever. It’s atrocious and succeeded in making me miss Englehart.

It’s certainly not a good sign for the post-Englehart but not yet post-Rogers Detective Comics.

Dracula Lives (1973) #11

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I had planned on opening bemoaning Dracula Lives only having two issues left just when the series has found itself again, but then I did some research and discovered it’s worse than the series just canceling. They’re not going to finish the Bram Stoker’s Dracula adaptation here; there’s no more Lilith (more on her adventures in a bit). I wish I hadn’t looked ahead. However, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known where to go for the next (and temporarily final) Stoker adaptation entry.

There’s a reason reading monthly comics is a pain in the ass, even fifty years later.

Anyway.

This issue’s great, and I’m super duper sad there are only two more issues.

The magazine aspects of Lives are gone this issue; letters column, but no features—lots of ads. But the stories are all good. The art on the Lilith story’s a disaster, but if Lilith had been well-executed back in the day (writer Steve Gerber’s finding his legs fast), we’d remember it.

We’ll go in reverse order, starting with the Lilith story. It’s a long story, and Bob Brown’s pencils are terrible. They’ve got Frank Chiaramonte inking him, which is a choice, but then Pablo Marcos also has a credit, and even though I’m lukewarm on Marcos (or do I like him, it’s been so long since Lives had top-shelf artists), I was expecting the art to not be terrible.

But it’s terrible. Oddly, Brown’s pencils look like they were meant for digest size, not a magazine page, like seeing them smaller would improve things. Like the frequent lack of faces. Though the story’s all about there not being a face. Lilith’s human half runs afoul of some incel planning to do a mass shooting—no shit, in 1975–and Lilith takes over to stop him. Except there’s only so much she can do. It’s intense.

There’s some character development for Lilith and her human half. It’s good. The art’s an incredible problem, but the story’s good. I had wondered what was wrong with Gerber on the previous story, but he’s got it here.

The middle story is the Bram Stoker adaptation, and it’s a good argument Dick Giordano’s career should’ve been spent illustrating journals with accurate scenery. This portion of the adaptation is Mina and Lucy still at Lucy’s mom’s house, no suitors around, just Lucy sleepwalking around the English countryside. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, it’s when werewolf Dracula assaults Lucy. Only there’s a whole thing about there being a stone chair and gravestone, and it’s the girls’ favorite spot, and it’s lovely. Gorgeous art from Giordano eighty-five percent of the time. It’s a delight.

It’s also where writer Roy Thomas (and, obviously, Giordano) get to do some adapting. Because they’re not doing werewolf Dracula, they’re doing (close to) Tomb of Dracula Dracula, and it adds some very interesting layers to the adaptation. Presumably. Dracula is just around this issue in the background.

I’m positive I read this adaptation (Marvel finished it in the aughts), but I don’t remember it being so impressive. Probably my bad (or it falls apart).

Then there’s a two-pager from Doug Moench and Win Mortimer, done sort of in a fifties horror style. Some European city’s problems with vampires over the years. It’s solid, with Moench finding a good tone for the exposition.

The first story is also Moench; he and artist Tony DeZuniga finish their “husbands vs. Dracula” story, which started in the last issue. Dracula has just thrown some widower into a pit—possibly the pit from Tomb, but also possibly not—and the guy quickly discovers it’s where Drac’s been keeping his latest vampire brides.

Including the hero’s wife.

What follows is horror action, with the hero coming up with a scheme to avenge himself while also saving the town or something. He also has a plan to save his wife’s eternal soul, which seems to be entirely in his head and the dialogue because Moench goes nowhere with that aspect (souls). The exposition’s a little overwritten, but who cares, the DeZuniga art is gorgeous. Great Gothic good girl art, fantastic horror trappings.

The finale’s a little bit of a miss, especially given the build-up, but it all works out. Especially since the comic goes uphill as it continues, with the Lilith finish graded on a different, Bob Brown-related scale, of course.

Dracula Lives (1973) #10

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The secret to Doug Moench on Dracula Lives is the art. Tony DeZuñiga does a great, sometimes sketchy, always emotive style for their story this issue, and it’s fantastic. The art’s moody enough to sell Moench’s more turgid exposition.

They’re on the first story, which takes place in 1809 Transylvania, though the outfits and mannerisms make me wonder if DeZuñiga thought it was 1909, and they moved it back after the art was done. The vampire living in the big scary castle on the mountain keeps killing the town’s wives and daughters, but the mayor and police chief don’t want to hear about it.

One angry husband decides he will not let Dracula have his wife and fights back, with multiple terrible consequences and an excellent cliffhanger. Such good art. So, so good. I’d been impressed with DeZuñiga’s last work on Lives, but this one’s even better. Lots of range.

The magazine continues to suffer format adjustments—less funny text pieces, a letters page—but Gary Gerani’s Dracula A.D. 1972 review fits the Lives review pattern. Gerani gives a lengthy recap of the Hammer Dracula movies, mentioning the one or two he thinks are good, then does a very brief, disappointed review of the subject sequel. It’s a lot of filler for anyone reading Lives regularly.

Then comes the next part of the Bram Stoker adaptation by Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano. Giordano excels at drawing Victorian Good Girl art but can’t manage to draw a dog close-up. It’s an outlier panel in an otherwise gorgeous entry.

The action has moved to England, where Mina is writing in a new journal all about how much she misses her fiancé, Jonathan Harker, and why doesn’t he write more. She’s staying with her newly engaged friend Lucy, who’s taken to sleepwalking. It’s standard Dracula adaptation fare, but Giordano’s enthusiastic, and the chapter’s the first to really engage with the novel’s epistolary style. First Mina’s journal, then a newspaper report about the ship crashing. It’s one of the most successful entries, even if the source novel’s prose ain’t great.

The following story is a tedious sixteen-page story from Steve Gerber, Bob Brown, and “Crusty Bunkers.” It’s not a Dracula story; it’s a Lilith, Daughter of Dracula, story. My bad for reading things out of order, but at least this way, I know I don’t want to backtrack and read Vampire Tales for Gerber’s Lilith stories. Lilith is a Marvel attempt at a sexy female vampire who lusts for male blood. It’s very awkward wish fulfillment.

Lilith’s a good guy, though, beating up Mongols who interrupt Village hippies’ acoustic sets. This story has her getting involved in the problems of her human host’s boyfriend. He’s been framed; it’s up to Lilith to save the day. Or night, as it were.

Gerber writes a lot. A lot. Some of the action is good, but the endless exposition and Lilith’s tepid characterization are big minuses. Then there’s the art. Brown clearly needs a strong inker, and even though the Bunkers were Neal Adams, Bob McLeod, Terry Austin, and Russ Heath, apparently their Voltron combination was not what the art needed. As a result, it feels amateurish at times.

Not a strong finish to an outstanding issue—the best in a while, but also the most accomplished.

Though it does remind me to read Giant-Size Chillers in-line with my Tomb of Dracula read-through.

I also forgot the two-page finale: uncredited Moench script, uncredited Win Mortimer art. It’s in the style of a fifties horror quickie but way too overwritten by Moench. They obviously should’ve gotten DeZuñiga to even him out.

Dracula Lives (1973) #8

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I may be committing sacrilege, but I’m not a fan of Pablo Marcos’s Dracula. Sure, the outfit looks good, but Dracula himself—with his seventies stash—looks more like a plumber than the prince of darkness. The issue opens with a Marcos pin-up; I’m not just taking the chance to gripe.

In other words, I was again concerned a few pages into Dracula Lives. Would the book continue its seemingly inevitable downward trajectory?

Nope.

There are still causes for concern. The issue has even less content than the previous one, with no movie review, no Atlas horror reprint, just an even longer prose piece. Chris Claremont has the honors this time. He’s better than many of the prose writers—possibly the best even—but it’s still… a prose piece in a comic book. Also, Claremont repeats the same paragraph structure every third or fourth one, which leaps out. Marcos contributes the art.

And the Bram Stoker’s Dracula adaptation is losing momentum, primarily because of Dick Giordano. This issue’s entry involves Jonathan Harker loitering around Castle Dracula, waiting for the story to take off; Giordano’s got very little enthusiasm for Jonathan Harker. I get it; lack of enthusiasm for Jonathan Harker is the big problem with Dracula.

Harker spends most of this chapter alone, during the day, no vampires in sight. I’m guessing Roy Thomas faithfully adapted the novel because the doldrums are familiar. It’s not a horror story right now; it’s a Victorian hostage thriller; Giordano’s not the guy for Victorian hostage thrillers.

Just like all Dracula adaptations, they promise once Drac gets to London next issue, it’ll start getting good.

But the issue’s also got two excellent original stories. The first is from Doug Moench and Tony DeZuñiga. DeZuñiga’s art is lush and gorgeous and a perfect fit for the plot. Though I just realized the story’s somewhat out-of-order; it’s a “Dracula’s U.S. Vacation,” which Lives has been loosely doing, only I thought he already went home.

Anyway.

Drac’s in New York to get back the artifacts Americans grave robbed from his castle. Moench’s got a simultaneously thin and potent subplot about Dracula becoming a pop icon and everyone being fascinated with him. Neither Lives nor Tomb addresses the general Marvel-616 public’s reaction to Dracula being real. I’m not even sure Moench’s making that flex (it’s thin, after all), but there’s also potential.

But this one’s not about the artifacts (maybe next time). Instead, it’s Dracula versus New York beat cop. Moench cuts from Dracula’s perspective to this copper’s; he hates his job, hates the working poor, and wants to quit; just one more night. And, wouldn’t you know it, Dracula attacks the streetwalker the copper didn’t arrest, and the cop intervenes.

It quickly becomes an action piece; the cop injures Dracula (slightly), but enough Dracula decides to destroy the cop. But he’s also hungry.

Great art from DeZuñiga, good script from Moench. It’s really effective.

The second original is from Len Wein, Gene Colan, and Ernie Chan. Once again, Chan proves a perfectly able inker for Colan—at least in black and white—which continues to surprise.

Thank goodness for the art. Wein’s script is surprisingly okay, but the story’s absolutely goofy. The year is 1936, and Dracula is in Rome. He’s hitting on the ladies, even when those ladies belong to the local mob bosses.

Except these mob bosses aren’t like the Sicilians from The Godfather Part II; they’re 1930s Hollywood gangster types. In the extremis. Incredibly, Colan and Chan can get away with it even as the story lends itself more to a spoofy style. It ought to be absurd comedy; thanks to the art, it’s not.

The more interesting part of the story is Dracula and the ladies. Wein writes brief flirtation and courtship scenes for Dracula and his lady victims, only without Dracula—in his thought balloons—acknowledging he’s going to kill them. They’ll be dead, and he’ll wonder what happened to that lovely Italian gal he liked so much. Still, there are some stories only Len Wein could write, and this story is one of them. Multiple times it seems like it ought to be entirely derailed, only Wein’s chugging along just fine.

Also, Colan and Chan’s Rome is absolutely incredible. Such good art.

Even as its problems continue piling up, Dracula Lives remains a very worthy read.