Giant-Size Chillers (1974) #1

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I don’t think I lost anything not reading the resurrectrion of Lilith in order. I missed out on some of the gimmick: Lilith is cursed with vampirism, not a natural vampire. She and her dad, Dracula, go to a rugby game because Lilith likes watching sports and she reminds him of her origin story. She was product of a political marriage when he was human, so when his father died, he cast her and her mom out. Mom paid a Romani to look after baby Lilith and killed herself; fast forward until Drac’s a vampire, he just killed a bunch of Romanis for turning him into a vampire, so the one who’s caring for now adolescent Lilith curses her as revenge.

The curse involves Lilith being a daywalking vampire, but also possessing the body of human girls whose fathers don’t want them. So, basically, her caretaker made sure the curse reminds Lilith she’s got a shitty dad all the time.

Lilith’s resurrection is never explained though. Thirty years ago—so during World War II, apparently—Quincy Harker killed Lilith, maybe as payback for Dracula killing Mrs. Quincy Harker, but they don’t sort out the order.

Or writer Marv Wolfman did and he overwrote it so much I couldn’t get through it. Wolfman starts the comic in second person, talking to Dracula about his return to London. It’s strange because Wolfman tries to be mysterious about it, but basically Drac’s just visiting with some lackey about getting a new mansion. It’s a lot of lead up for very little, so it’s nice when the Lilith story actually has some action. Even if—and again, reading Lilith’s first appearance out of order—she’s not quite the complex anti-hero of the Steve Gerber strips. She’s just feeding on folks left and right, including her human host’s father.

Also, had I read in order, I’d have known the human host’s pregnant. I just found that out with the human host’s current beau over in Dracula Lives; quelle surprise.

Gene Colan gives Lilith’s bat form long, flowing lady locks, which I feel like I’d have remembered in Lives. It’s a look, especially since inker Frank Chiaramonte really leans into the horror. The bats are icky monsters. Dracula is garrish. Gone are Tom Palmer’s noble inks; this Dracula is human, but demonic. So Lilith’s bat having some seventies hair is something. Maybe I love it, actually.

Doesn’t matter.

Lilith coming back is basically just to spin in her off. We get a scene where she tells Dracula it’s finally time for him to admit they’re both Draculas and she should rule the Undead with him. He says no, never, you’re no kid of mine, and leaves her to be upset about it. Despite the often overwrought narration, Wolfman does a good job with Dracula being a dick this issue. It’s a special too, so it’s a flex; you’re marketing the regular book as having an asshole lead.

Especially with the actual main plot, which involves that house Dracula wants. The mansion. There’s a girl living there and the house is haunting her. Her name’s Sheila Whittier and she’s mysterious and tormented, trapped in a British haunted house movie. When it crosses over with Dracula, she thinks he might save her, but then he doesn’t because he’s a dick.

It’s amazing.

Of course, he comes back because he needs the house and there’s a resolution, but still. He dumps this helpless woman right after accidentally saving her.

The art’s objectively not as good as on the main series, but for a special, there’s a certain charm to it being brusk. Similarly, while Wolfman’s exposition is a lot—in the British horror movie context it at least makes sense—the characterizations play through. It works out. Good special.

Then Wolfman spends a couple pages addressing continuity between Tomb of Dracula, Dracula Lives!, and Giant-Size Chillers Featuring The Curse of Dracula. Basically, they knew they were all over the place but they’re trying to do better and sort through it all. Wolfman promises a timeline, but I’m not sure Lives lasted long enough for them to do one.

A couple Atlas reprints (possibly colored for this reprinting) close out the Giant-Size.

First is a Stan Lee and John Romita (Senior) joint about an Austrian village’s vampire and public corruption problems. It’s middling.

Second is about a haunted house on a graveyard. Russ Heath does the art, no writer credit. The Heath art, including fifties horror good girl art, eventually sells the story but it’s a slog to get there.

The reprints do remind of how nice they were to have over in Lives.

Chillers is more than worth its 35¢ cover price.

Dracula Lives (1973) #1

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Dracula Lives offers a considerable bang for its six-bit cover price. There are three new Dracula features and three old Marvel (from the Atlas days) reprint strips. The reprints are from black and white horror comics and perfectly match Lives’s format. There’s also a Marv Wolfman article covering Dracula movies; Wolfman doesn’t contribute a script for any of the comics. The only places the comic’s not successful are the vampire movie stills with new dialogue; not sure if it was Bullpen interns or if the Marvel guys just aren’t funny, but they’re charmless. Worth skimming to get to the next comic, but charmless.

The first story is the main attraction—Gene Colan and Tom Palmer in glorious black and white. Gerry Conway writes; freed from the Comic Code, it’s so far his best work on a Marvel Dracula. The Count heads to New York City after reading a news blurb about a successful counter-culture psychic who says he’s reincarnated from some old foe of Dracula’s. So naturally, Drac’s going over to take revenge for past insults but isn’t prepared for the New York lifestyle… specifically sucking the blood of heroin addicts.

Though I suppose it’s the early seventies, they could’ve been potheads, which would make the entire thing much more amusing. Dracula whining about having too many edibles for a dozen pages.

But, no, it’s seemingly smack, so Dracula doesn’t just have to recover; he’s got to find a way to get around town in a beleaguered state. He meets a cool chick, and she helps him out—he keeps not having a good opportunity to bite her—before the showdown with the possibly reincarnated nemesis.

It’s a great comic. Colan and Palmer do a foggy, shadowy Manhattan with a good balance of horror and hip folks. And, again, Conway’s best writing on the character.

The second comic is another original Dracula, set in the past, about the first time the Count went to the United States. There’s a brief reference to it in the opening story (having been there before), but I wasn’t expecting an entire feature to explain it.

Roy Thomas writes, Alan Weiss and Dick Giordano do the art. It’s a Salem witch trial story. Dracula’s sick of his low-class vampire brides back in Transylvania, so he uses his dark magic to seek out a willing witchy wife. He, you know, murdered his current wives, turning them into vampires against their will, so they’re damaged goods. It’s not an inappropriate take, given Dracula’s an actual bad guy.

The art’s good, and Dracula’s kind of a swashbuckler-type when he’s around. Most of the story is about his bride-to-be’s problems with gross men (versus suave vampire men). It’s predictable but acceptable.

Then come the reprints, three in a row—interrupted, obviously, by the movie still bumpers and then Wolfman’s essay—and I kept wondering if there’d be another original story. They save it for last.

The first reprint is a Haitian zombie one with art by Tony DiPreta and no credited writer. It’s a little long at six pages but reasonably compelling. It’s moody as hell.

The second reprint is a two-pager about some guy wanting magic powers and the cost incurred from getting them. Bill La Cava art, no credited writer. It’s low okay, kind of set up for a punchline, but it’s a horror punchline, not a funny or ironic one.

The third reprint’s the best. Stan Lee script, Russ Heath art. An evil asylum owner gets what’s coming to him over seven surprising pages. The Heath art’s fantastic, but Lee’s has good characterizations and solid twists.

Then comes the final story, written by Steve Gerber, with art by Rich Buckler and Pablo Marcos. Buckler and Marcos somehow combine John Carradine’s Dracula with the swashbuckler to great effect. It’s the second-best, art-wise, with some great detail.

Dracula’s heard about a French scientist who can cure vampirism, and, feeling sad over that girl he knew from Salem a few hundred years ago, he heads over to see what’s up.

It’s not the best Dracula characterization—Gerber writes him a little too naive, especially if this story comes after the feature (though the loose continuity is only to the second, flashback story, not the contemporaneous one)—but the writing’s not bad. The plot’s predictable; the art’s where the story excels.

Dracula Lives is off to a superb start.

Adventure Into Fear 12 (February 1973)

Adventure Into Fear #12 Gerber does the stupid second person narration, but not a lot of it. Most of the Man-Thing story he does a close third person for Man-Thing; it works a lot better. Especially he confirms Man-Thing has no mouth.

Instead, Man-Thing listens a lot. He makes a new friend, a black guy on the run from a racist white sheriff. Gerber doesn’t shy away from the race issues. Gerber even takes it further, working race preconceptions into the surprise ending. He’s also turning Man-Thing into a real character, even if he can’t talk and doesn’t get any thought balloons.

Jim Starlin has a really fun time on the pencils. There are some really emotive pages. Buckler inks him well enough.

The fifties back-up, from Stan Lee and Russ Heath, has an interesting visual style but Stan must have been trying to impress his editor with how many words he could use.

CREDITS

Man-Thing, No Choice of Colors!; writer, Steve Gerber; penciller, Jim Starlin; inker, Rich Buckler; letterer, John Costanza. The Face of Horror; writer, Stan Lee; artist, Russ Heath. Editor, Roy Thomas; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Showcase 3 (July-August 1956)

There’s not much to this issue besides Russ Heath’s fantastic artwork. Robert Kanigher’s script is pedestrian and predictable (for the most part).

It’s the story of a new frogman during World War II. The protagonist is short, which leads to teasing (even in the Navy). The teasing is aggravated by the protagonist’s ability to lip read. It’s a nonsense detail Kanigher uses to pad out the story, which is told in three parts.

For a while, during the first chapter, it seems like the story might have some factual basis or some interesting information about the Navy Underwater Demolition Teams. But then there’s a shark attack and all reality goes out the window.

Worse, Kanigher continues the bullying against the protagonist after he saves his antagonists’ lives (from the shark). The antagonists don’t even acknowledge the protagonist’s heroism. It’s painfully obvious Kanigher is padding.

But there’s some great Heath art.

Showcase 2 (May-June 1956)

Good grief. I thought I was going to be able to talk seriously about this comic, starting with the story of a young Native American lad whose spirit animal keeps saving his butt, then through the story of a misunderstood youth and his mutt… but the final story is about a circus bear who escapes.

Now, the circus bear knows he has it pretty good at the circus, he just wants adventure. So the story–which, sadly, does not have an author credit–proposes the idea circuses (in the fifties) treated animals well. It’s also this Disney-like look at animals, which talk and think. It’s incredible. Russ Heath’s art is pretty charming, actually.

The Joe Kubert art on the Native American kid story is okay, some great vistas, but Ross Andru and Mike Esposito bore on the orphaned kid one.

This comic’s glorious nuts (and completely unaware of it).

Tom Strong 13 (July 2001)

While this issue features some incredibly cool writing from Moore (more on it in a bit), it also has amazing art. It’s a five-part story, with Sprouse and Gordon on for the prologue. Then it’s Russ Heath (doing a teenage Tom Strong), Kyle Baker (doing the bunny Tom Strong analogue) and, finally, Pete Poplaski doing the finish. Poplaski makes the whole thing feel very Golden Age and it’s simply a superior visual experience.

As for Moore, he plays a lot with time travel and its effects, but he also comments briefly on the “imaginary story” genre. Tom Strong, it seems, has no imaginary stories. Moore gets a lot of mileage in figuring out how to make this one real.

There’s some great villainy from Saveen, though a lot of the dialogue refers to very distant events.

It’s also a mini-Captain Marvel homage with the “wizard.”

Simply wonderful stuff.

The Immortal Iron Fist (2007) #20

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Okay, Swierczynski is finally back on track. Forgetting the special, he’s now written more good issues of The Immortal Iron Fist than mediocre or bad.

This issue resolves—maybe a little too conveniently (it should have taken eight)—Danny’s possible death at thirty-three. It also gets the search for the Eighth City back underway and brings in the Immortal Weapons to a more central role.

Not sure how much of it is Swierczynski’s fault for not plotting the arc right or if Fraction just left him with too much to do.

Swierczynski puts a solid bow on the whole thing, but all the stuff with Misty seems like a misfire. Though Foreman’s hat for her for her big farewell scene with Danny is brilliant. Swierczynski just never establishes their relationship as anything significant. It doesn’t feel like their goodbye has any real weight.

Still, I’m enthusiastically reading once more.

The Immortal Iron Fist (2007) #19

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Oh, there are other Immortal Weapons? Wonder if their appearance has anything to do with the issue working.

Just as Swierczynski gets out of his writing rut—well, I’m not sure if that’s an accurate description—he returns to a decent approximation of Brubaker and Fraction’s run on the title, Foreman just plummets.

He goes through maybe four different styles here, but the unifying factor is his people look different from panel to panel. Not like he forgot a facial characteristic, more like in one panel he draws one as a toad and in the next as a butterfly. It’s awful looking.

While Swierczynski does underuse the other Immortal Weapons (just having them show up is nice), he does return some intelligence to Danny, some thoughtfulness. The opening scene works great, even with Foreman confounding the whole thing.

Not sure the series is back on track, but it’s much improved.

The Immortal Iron Fist (2007) #18

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Okay, either Swierczynski is covering for Foreman or Foreman is covering for Swierczynski here.

There simply is not enough story this issue. It’s not so much a pacing question, it’s just… almost no story. Luke, Colleen and Misty rescue Danny from the guy who’s out to get him (a demon, I think), Danny recuperates, cliffhanger at Danny’s kung fu school for kids. Some scenes in K’un-L’un, establishing everyone but Danny knows about the Iron Fist-killing demon. Oh, and that new hire at Rand, the one I said was a bad guy?

He’s a bad guy.

I’m not quite given up on Immortal Iron Fist, but Swierczynski is definitely showing some problems here. He just doesn’t have an approach to the series. He’s trying to continue the Brubaker and Fraction run, not bring anything new (having Danny be funny about dating Misty doesn’t count).

My optimism is falling fast.

The Immortal Iron Fist (2007) #17

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Swierczynski’s approach to Iron Fist is to continue the Brubaker and Fraction format. We even get Heath doing the flashback art.

There’s one big difference. First is how Swierczynski structures the villain in the issue. He’s not mysterious. We get his story right away. And his motivation is pretty straightforward. He’s the guy who kills the Iron Fists at thirty-three–it’s kind of like Halloween: H20, but on a thirty-three year cycle.

Also strange is the way Swierczynski continues from the previous issue. He does a direct sequel (though a few pages are prologue to it). So the last issue has that amazing moment with Danny’s friends surprising him with a cake and this issue has it be a whole party.

I’m generally positive… except how Foreman keeps changing his style. Sometimes he’s finished, sometimes he’s rough. It’s too varied for a single issue.

Reading with guarded optimism….