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.

Well. Writer Marv Wolfman reveals a lot this issue; it’s almost entirely nonsense, but there’s a lot of it. There are conclusions (of sorts) to Taj’s Indian sojourn and Frank Drake’s South American capitalist exploitation. Taj can’t stop the villagers from breaking in to kill his vampire son; Frank discovers he’s surrounded by worker zombies who move to kill him after he says hello to one of them. Not sure what they’d have done if he had ignored them.

It’s all part of Dracula’s plan, which includes something for Rachel, too—teased in an editor’s note but not revealed until the cliffhanger. He’s spent a dozen issues maneuvering nemesis Quincy Harker’s friends away, and now it’s time to strike. Despite Wolfman dragging out these subplots for ages, they make almost no sense, given Dracula’s plots over the same issues. He’s going to Harker’s now because Harker has a file about how Dracula is losing his powers. Like a white paper. Dracula apparently knows he’s losing strength, but not why, nor does he know the author of the white paper.

So Dracula had been isolating Harker—though, not really because Frank Drake’s just a shitty white guy who abandoned the vampire hunters—just in case he had need to call on him for a MacGuffin. Harker’s finally got the MacGuffin handy.

In the ensuing “battle, “ Dracula runs afoul of all Harker’s traps in the house. Or if he doesn’t get caught in one, Harker shows it to Drac to humble brag. All the while, Harker narrates in the present tense—presumably his internal monologue—and it’s awful. There’s this gorgeous Gene Colan and Tom Palmer art and this terrible narration from Wolfman. So much terrible narration.

But the narration isn’t the only problem: we’ve already seen Dracula in a trap house before. Maybe not this exact one, but he’s done a haunted house, he’s done a trap skyscraper… put them together, and it appears Dracula hasn’t learned shit over thirty issues; good thing for Harker.

We also learn why Harker wears dark sunglasses all the time. It’s a strange detail, revealing Dracula hasn’t just been incompetent since waking up in Tomb #1.

The cliffhanger promises we’ll get more resolution next issue, but I’m not sure I believe Wolfman.

The “Taj in India” C plot has been running seven issues, so half a year, and it’s just now getting to him staking his vampire son. The cover shows Taj thrilled to do it and the wife begging him to stop; the interior’s the opposite; the entire point of Taj going home was to stake the kid before the villagers do it. And to slap his wife around for being… a woman, basically.

Anyway.

Writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan cover the Taj C plot simultaneously with the Frank Drake C plot. Frank’s down in South America working for his shitty white guy pal and not noticing all the workers seem to be literal zombies. Neither subplot gets any resolution (and Frank’s doesn’t even get a real cliffhanger), but maybe next time, we’ll finally get some movement on the Taj story. I mean, we won’t, but still. I’ll pretend.

Then we get a half page of Rachel Van Helsing (once the series lead) moping around with an ominous, text-only cliffhanger. Great art from Colan and inker Tom Palmer, but it’s the laziest check-in Tomb could do.

The actual A plot involves Inspector Chelm finally getting the upper hand in his hunt for Dracula. The issue opens with Drac killing a member of Parliament’s daughter (a week after killing the wife), assuming such loss will inspire the guy to vote for “The Master.” It’s unclear the guy doesn’t know “The Master” is Dracula, but there’s also a conspiracy group subplot (almost entirely in expository dialogue) and then a qualified reveal of Dracula’s great scheme.

Qualified because Wolfman reveals the good guys know there’s a great scheme, and they reveal to Dracula they know it, but the reader doesn’t find out. If it goes at Taj pace… it’ll only be four issues before we hear about it again.

Wolfman does a neat little “mixed media” thing with a newspaper report about the Parliament member’s daughter’s death.

Quincy Harker making his own speakerphone, so he doesn’t have to hold the receiver because he’s too busy reading papers, is less neat and makes it hard to sympathize with the heroes. Sure, they’re not trying to take over the world and kill everyone, but Dracula’s not out there making Rube Goldberg speakerphones either.

Gorgeous art from Colan and Palmer, some of their best even: it’s a police conspiracy thriller guest-starring Dracula, and they make it happen.

I love how writer Marv Wolfman makes sure Dracula’s racist towards Blade to in-virtue signal, except van Helsing and his daughter were racist towards Blade too. And hero Frank Drake is constantly racist towards Taj. It’s an unfortunate trivia note to an otherwise solid fill-in issue. Or at least, the Tomb of Dracula version of a fill-in. It’s the same team; it’s just nothing to do with the main story.

Instead, it’s a series of flashbacks as Dracula works on his diaries. He’s just buried Shiela and is standing over her grave, working through some mental gymnastics to escape any blame for the situation. He told her he was Count Dracula, Lord of the Undead, didn’t he? Maybe if she’d listened to him, she wouldn’t be dead now.

Joking aside, it’s… character development. Wolfman’s in a pickle with character development on Dracula because any character development will make him sympathetic at this point, and Wolfman wants to keep him a villain. Hell, Dracula wants to stay a villain—he’s rambling about people expecting something different from him.

He’s got three different journal entries for the evening, with Blade showing in the final one; it’s a recounting of their first encounter.

The first flashback is about a Prussian politician’s wife convincing Dracula to kill her husband. While Dracula’s narration complains about her being a bother, he still agrees to do the deed. Only he’s in for a surprise once he gets there. I think Wolfman must’ve been reading some World War I history based on the cameos.

Great art on it from Gene Colan and Tom Palmer makes up for a lot. The story peaks early when Dracula’s thinking about how the wife is pretending his rotten flesh doesn’t stink when he usually has to hypnotize the ladies into not smelling it.

What?

Major detail. Should’ve been in issue five or something. It’s issue thirty.

The next flashback is about Dracula getting involved in a family squabble where the dad doesn’t want to pay for his daughter to go to blind school anymore because he’s a selfish prick. Meanwhile, the daughter asks Dracula to play dolls with her. Great art, somewhat oddly paced story, decent finish. However, Dracula’s inability to understand complex grief and panic ring false.

The Blade story’s the last one. It takes place in 1968, so pretty soon before Tomb starts (the series, at least its start time, is rather well-established for a comic). Dracula’s holding court in China, and Blade wants to talk to him. Cue some racism.

It’s the action story, the one where they can put Blade on the cover to promise an appearance while really delivering a glorified cameo. Despite being their first meeting, Blade doesn’t need to be Blade for the story to work. It’d be better if it weren’t him. And not just because it’d (presumably) cut out racist Dracula.

Still, excellent art, of course, because Colan and Palmer aren’t going to deliver anything else.

The issue starts much better than it finishes, and, despite whatever he’s doing with the racism bit, Wolfman’s tentative character development for the Count is something new in the book and something good.

I can’t believe how well writer Marv Wolfman ends up doing with this issue. It very much should not work, yet it ends up working (in no small part due to Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s superb artwork; it’s one of their best issues). But the story… wow wee. Dracula starts the issue attacking a random babysitter, and after the splash page, Colan goes with the vampire bat attacking from above, which was a visual trope for the first few issues of Tomb. Colan dropped it almost noticeably, and it’s only one panel here; not as much terrifying the victims, I guess.

See, Dracula’s upset because he got dumped. Familiar Shiela left him for Yeshiva student David and so Dracula’s rampaging. He goes to bed, planning to kill David the next night. Luckily, since Shiela’s so upset about Dracula, David goes to kill him. Even though Shiela and David can’t be more than friends—“right or wrong,” their differing religions get in the way—he wants her to feel safe, so he’s going to succeed where everyone else has failed.

Sure.

Wolfman’s second-person narration mainly just lectures Dracula about being such a son of a bitch (Boris Karloff should’ve done readings of this narration, a la The Grinch). It’s not great and initially seems like it’s going to do the issue in. It does not, however, because Dracula’s actions—separate from the close second-person—reveal a much more complicated character arc. I’m sure Wolfman didn’t intend for the narration and the narrative to work against each other, but it’s a success.

Less successful—though very weird by the end—is Taj’s origin story. Dracula attacked Taj, his son, and his wife. The wife ran and got her legs crushed, a vampire bit the kid, and Rachel Van Helsing showed up in the nick of time to save Taj from Dracula. The wife narrates the origin and tries to trick… well, the reader, but apparently also Taj. It doesn’t matter because even though he’s been shitty to her—presumably okay because she ran out on him during the attack—they get busy in a very sexy scene from Colan and Palmer. Looks like a romance cover.

The resolution to the main plot’s a little abrupt, but the rawness helps with the emotion. It’s a rather good issue.

Writer Marv Wolfman starts this issue with a….

Okay, here’s a welcome to the future moment. Wolfman starts the issue with a quote about a Hindu king, making me think this issue was the third in his “religion” trilogy of issues (beginning with the Jewish issue, then a generally religious one) with Hinduism. But not only doesn’t Wolfman return to it—he’s just doing it to South Asia up Taj’s brief appearance, which reveals what I remember it revealing—it’s not even from a Hindu text. It’s from A Man and a Woman, an 1892 novel by one Stanley Waterloo, an American newspaperman turned novelist. Despite being a hit in the 1890s, Waterloo didn’t maintain popularity long enough for anyone to turn his works into movies.

He apparently made it into a book of quotes unless Wolfman was really into willfully forgotten pop literature.

Anyway.

After Taj’s scene, which has his wife taking him to see their vampire son, who the villagers have decided—out of fear but no inciting incident—should die. The villagers had been donating their blood for years to keep the kid “alive,” but not anymore. He’s got to go. It’s a well-illustrated scene but dramatically inert. Wolfman’s narration when Taj is protagonist is at best condescending and often worse.

The main story is Dracula, familiar Shiela, and her new de facto beau, David, fighting an unrevealed villain for control of the Chimera statue. No more spoilers than the following, but the Chimera statue is basically like if the Infinity Gauntlet were made out of toothpicks glued together. It can conquer the universe, but it’s really, really, really delicate.

The villain gives the leads hallucinations, good and bad, so Shiela dreams of Dracula loving her as a woman. David’s scared his dead dad was actually an atheist and thought his son going to Yeshiva was stupid. Dracula has a fight scene with the vampire hunters. Dracula’s hallucination ends with daughter Lilith delivering the fatal blow as she’s the one he fears the most. I wonder if that detail will come back.

The ending suggests the series is undergoing another change in supporting cast, which is peculiar for several reasons.

There’s excellent art from Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, and some of Wolfman’s character development is, if not successful, at least engaging. But there are definitely causes for concern. The series has been in a kind of limbo for a half dozen issues, and Wolfman’s just heading in deeper.