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) #6

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I’m trying to decide if this issue is lackluster or if I’m just peeved I’ve managed to outpace Tomb of Dracula in my Dracula Lives read-through. The first story refers to future issues of Tomb, which would be spoilers if the comics weren’t fifty years old and I hadn’t read them already. Well, except this Lives.

The first story is from Steve Gerber, who does a better job than his last story in Lives, but it’s just a Tomb of Dracula story. Complete with Gene Colan pencils. Inked by none other than Ernie Chan, who does… dare I say it… a fine job. It’s easily the best art in the comic, though they’ve only got one serious contender, unfortunately.

Dracula’s off in Rome, hunting a priest who knows a dangerous spell—dangerous to Dracula, anyway—except there’s all sorts of Christian imagery around, which Drac doesn’t like. Crucifixes don’t cause physical damage; Dracula just really doesn’t like looking at them. It’s a far more amusing distinction than it should be, especially since it just means they haven’t thought through the 616 vampire lore.

But it’s Colan illustrating the Vatican, Dracula in disguise; it’s a good read even if it’s just a “too extreme for Comics Code” story. No way they’d let Dracula off a bunch of priests in the regular series. So it’s rote, I’m reading it out of order, but it’s also perfectly okay. And it’s gorgeous.

The text pieces might be some of the issue’s luster lacking. Doug Moench contributes a lengthy historical Dracula piece, which is fine, but it doesn’t allow him to show much personality. Later, when Tony Isabella takes over the Hammer film criticism (Dracula Has Risen from the Grave), the write-up severely lacks Moench’s personality from previous entries.

Then Thompson O’Rourke writes a prose story with Chan art. It fills pages, not much else.

The only Atlas reprint is a quick one illustrated by Mac Pakula; four pages. A man is convinced his newly arrived brother is a vampire terrorizing the town and has to deal with it before the villagers get wise. It’s middling; Pakula’s art always seems like it’s going to get better but never does, then ends up working against the story.

The second original story’s the weakest in the issue, though for complicated reasons. Isabella writes, with John Buscema and Pablo Marcos doing the art. I read the credits thinking I was in for a treat. Instead, I got a decent French Revolution history lesson from Isabella and a meandering Dracula tale. All Isabella’s energy goes into the lesson, not into integrating Dracula.

The story’s a direct continuation from last issue—a different team—and continues the Dracula vs. Cagliostro stories they’ve been doing since Lives started. Only Cagliostro has almost nothing to do with this story, certainly not the rivalry between him and Dracula, and instead focuses on the French Revolution aspect. Fine, but it’s a Dracula comic… right?

I don’t know if it’s Buscema’s pencils or Marcos’s inks, but the art never delivers either. While some of the faces are good—not Dracula’s, ever—the figures are usually off, like Buscema’s drawing them too big for Marcos’s inks.

It’s a rather disappointing story.

Luckily, the second chapter in the Bram Stoker’s Dracula adaptation is fine. And has Jonathan Harker realizing Dracula was his carriage driver last issue, though he makes the connection in narration, not thanks to the art.

This entry covers Harker’s arrival at the castle—burning through at least a page on recap, which is interesting—and Dracula attending his guest. They get through the shaving scene, Dracula telling Harker to write home and say he won’t be back, and Harker getting lost throughout the castle. No vampire brides yet. The cliffhanger’s the wall walking.

I’ve read the adaptation before—they reprinted it in the early aughts—but reading it in the context of Dracula Lives is a little different. The details echo not just through the adaptation but into the new continuity; is this Dracula story the 616 Dracula story?

Harker’s not so obnoxious this issue either; he’s a victim-in-waiting, far outclassed by the count. The cliffhanger’s at a weird point; writer Roy Thomas is keeping straight to the novel’s narration now, so he’s too tied to Harker.

Dick Giordano’s art is good too, but I remember it being better in the previous issue. His Dracula looks a bit like an old guy playing dress-up. Hopefully, it’ll get better once they get to England.

So, it’s not a bad issue; it’s just not a particularly special one. Except for making me compliment Chan.

Dracula Lives (1973) #2

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There’s a thirteen-page Neal Adams warlord Dracula comic this issue, and I don’t understand why it’s not a bigger deal. Like, it’s gorgeous. Of course, the other stories have good art, too… well, the Gene Colan and Dick Giordano one, but the Adams one is kind of an immediate classic.

I started reading Dracula Lives because the Tomb of Dracula editors’ notes promised it’d fill in the backstory. Given Tomb’s unsteady continuity, I got curious; I’d also heard Dracula Lives was pretty good, the PG-17 version of TOD. But it’s not addressing the main series’s continuity issues.

Adams’s art is on the Dracula origin story, written by Marv Wolfman. Set in the fifteenth century, it begins with Dracula falling in battle against the Turks. They find him almost dead and decide to puppet him around to get everyone else to surrender, bringing him to a gypsy who swears she’ll make him right. Well, maybe, baby, the gypsy lied. She’s a vampire, and she’s going to turn Dracula for being such a shit to her people.

So, a note. Punishing a megalomaniac by making them immortal seems like a strange choice.

But the story does give vampire Dracula a better origin than, say, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He renounces his bad acts, which put his loving wife and little baby son in danger. He’s sympathetic, partially because the lead Turk is cartoonishly evil—though not cartoonish because Adams’s art is detailed and exuberantly so. It’s a good origin. Well-written by Wolfman, singular art by Adams.

Doesn’t answer any questions about Dracula knowing the vampire hunters from after the novel and before TOD #1.

Then there’s an old Atlas horror reprint; no credited writer, and Joe Sinnott art. It’s about a grave keeper swindling the local vampires. It’s a fairly by-the-numbers horror strip, and it’s pretty dang good. Sinnott’s got a good sense of humor, a lot of personality in his characters, and great use of shadows.

So there are two reprints, three original stories, and some of those one-page Dracula movie stills with new “dialogue,” but there’s also Chris Claremont doing a text piece. It’s a letter to the editor about how Bram Stoker got Dracula wrong. It’s not great, but it’s okay. What’s strange about it is the timing–Dracula Lives #2 came out in 1973, and two years later, Fred Saberhagen’s The Dracula Tape came out. Tape’s all from Dracula’s perspective; it’s different from Claremont’s piece, but there are resemblances. Enough to wonder.

The text piece delays the weak comic. Written by Tony Isabella, from a Steve Gerber plot, with art by Jim Starlin (layouts by Jim Starlin) and Syd Shores finishing. Shores draws everyone like a caricature, which is something. But the story’s about Castle Dracula during World War II when Nazis occupied it and terrorized the local gypsies. One night a vampire appears, but it can’t be Dracula because Van Helsing killed him.

It should be good.

It’s not. But it should be. The art’s not good enough, the writing’s not good enough, but the concept’s not terrible. Though it directly contradicts TOD continuity.

The second reprint is a Stan Lee-penned entry, also an Atlas, about a corrupt politician who hires guys to vote using dead people’s names. Men, specifically, though that detail’s not a plot point.

Fred Kida does the art.

Art’s fine. Story’s really long without much pay-off.

The art in the final story, another original, makes up for it. It’s the Colan and Giordano art. Dracula in New Orleans. Gene Colan drawing the French Quarter with Dick Giordano inking. It’s glorious.

Roy Thomas writes. It’s an okay story about Dracula mysteriously waking up in New Orleans—directly following last issue’s New York adventure—and it’s got something to do with voodoo queen Marie Laveau. The story opens with a cemetery tour where the guide is talking about Laveau (then saying people who go into debt deserve to die, don’t you agree, which is a bizarre bit of dialogue), and it just happens to figure into the Dracula plot.

Story doesn’t matter; it’s all about the art. Art’s absolutely fantastic and not even as good as the Adams art on the first story.

The story also has a panel with The Zombie (Simon Garth), telling everyone to check out his new comic, which is an interesting bit of Marvel shared universe cross-promotion. It’s like reading a Spider-Man comic or something.

So, overall, three of the five stories are good, two are middling, the text piece isn’t terrible, and the photo dialogue things are bad but brief. Dracula Lives is a heck of a comic. Especially when it’s got such exceptional art.

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.

Foolkiller (1990-1991)

The last time I read Foolkiller, almost fifteen years ago, I really liked it. I wish I knew what I’d liked about it because it’s really not good. Even back then I know I thought the art—Joe Brozowski on pencils, Tony DeZuniga then Vince Giarrano on the inks—was bad. And the art’s bad. It appears DeZuniga had been handling the facial features and without him, the people start looking real bad, but then Giarrano adjusts or something. Very rocky, art-wise. Never good, sometimes less bad than other times.

But the art’s not the problem. The problem’s the script, which is from Steve Gerber, who’s not just good, but also not the guy you expect to do a comic all about how the “super predators” are real. At one point they even do a Central Park Five reference. In Foolkiller, it’s a string of Central Park attacks on cyclists where the gang beats the victims to death, enraged the victims can… afford bicycles. Even the killers’ parents are okay with their sons brutally murdering those better off bicycle owners.

Of course, one of the other bad guys is a right-wing TV host. The first few issues of Foolkiller have a different feel than the rest of the comic and not just because the noses go bad at some point. The comic’s about a new Foolkiller, inspired by the original, who’s actually the second one, and is currently in a mental institution in Indiana. The protagonist, Kurt, has just lost his father, his job, his house, his wife, and finds Foolkiller—on the right-wing TV host’s show—aspirational. Pretty soon Kurt’s going around killing bad guys, romancing his shift manager at the burger joint—the only job he could get because savings and loans—and working out in garbage. On one hand, Foolkiller feels like Gerber amping up the absurdity over this kind of character but Gerber’s also grounding it as he goes along. It’s like Gerber’s too dedicated to the actual narrative to subvert it with jabs at the protagonist’s philosophy. Taxi Driver: The Comic.

And outside a mention of The Avengers and Spider-Man swinging through an issue to sell at least one to the Spidey collectors, Foolkiller doesn’t feel very Marvel comic. Outside the art, which—even bad—looks like Marvel and the lettering, which is perfunctory and somehow inappropriate. Foolkiller’s journals are all supposedly written on the computer but they appear in handwriting. It’s also unclear how the journals are supposed to be read—contemporary to events, past tense. It’d be nice if it mattered. Something in Foolkiller should matter.

Yeah, Gerber created Foolkiller, didn’t he. At least the most famous one—and he was in Man-Thing. I just can’t figure out what happened to the joke in Foolkiller. The comic takes a shift when it starts dealing with the Iraq War in the last few issues; that news is pushing Foolkiller’s killing spree out of the headlines. The other headlines are about crack babies and something else kind of iffy, even for the early nineties. The first half of Foolkiller is Randian objectivism with some sprinkles of libertarianism, the second half of it is the lead dispassionately offing examples of those philosophies. Maybe if there were a connection there’d be some impact but Gerber introduces the relevant supporting characters—outside the TV host—when he needs them, not before. And the TV host doesn’t really provide much texture. Foolkiller confuses hyperbolic with effective.

Nothing in the comic stands out. None of the characters, none of the moments Gerber tries out with the supporting cast. He’s got a lack of empathy for everyone involved, which matches the protagonist I suppose but… it’s a little long—ten issues—to go just to prove you can do something. Though Foolkiller is from the old days, back when publishers never would’ve dreamed off cutting issues off a limited series. Or at least it seemed like they wouldn’t. What do I know? I used to be a big Foolkiller (1990) fan. And not when I had any excuse to be.

Maybe the most disappointing aspect—other than Gerber’s exaggerated, almost defensive classism—is the pointlessness of the narrative. It doesn’t add up to anything for anyone involved, not Foolkiller III, not Foolkiller II, not Foolkiller II’s too liberal psychiatrist, not the girl who falls for Foolkiller III, not the stupid villain who can’t seem to die… no one. One of the villains is even a New York City real estate developer who is way too competent to be confused for any real figure.

Either something went very wrong with Foolkiller or it was always a terrible idea.

I’m not sure I wrote about Foolkiller the last time I read it, but if I did, the posts are long gone. I don’t know if I want to know what I thought but I’m frankly embarrassed about it.

Foolkiller (1990) is most decidedly not good. From the start. I kept thinking maybe it turned around in the last few issues and Gerber finally acknowledged the nonsense.

But no.

It’s just bad all the way through.

Howard the Duck (1976) #29

Howard the Duck 29

Gerber writes the script from a Mark Evanier plot.

It starts with Howard in Cleveland again, though it doesn’t look like Howard. Will Meugniot and Ricardo Villamonte’s art is strange; Howard’s reality is gone. It’s a comic strip. Meugniot’s got fine enough composition, but zero detail.

The story doesn’t have much Cleveland–Howard almost immediately ends up in Las Vegas where he’s going on television because some idiot Vegas lounge act thinks Howard’s a kid with a strange disease. You know, a disease where he looks like a duck.

How did this one not get turned into the movie? Maybe it did. I don’t think I’ve ever finished the movie.

Anyway… it’s not exactly bad. The art’s not good. Gerber’s dialogue is funny but detached. And the satire is pretty tepid. There’s no great diatribes, no passion, just easy targets.

It feels like a pitch for a TV show.

Howard the Duck 29 (January 1979)

Howard the Duck #29 Gerber writes the script from a Mark Evanier plot.

How did this one not get turned into the movie? Maybe it did. I don’t think I’ve ever finished the movie.

Anyway… it’s not exactly bad. The art’s not good. Gerber’s dialogue is funny but detached. And the satire is pretty tepid. There’s no great diatribes, no passion, just easy targets.

It feels like a pitch for a TV show.

CREDITS

Help Stamp Out Ducks!; writers, Mark Evanier and Steve Gerber; penciller, Will Meugniot; inker, Ricardo Villamonte; colorist, Michele Wolfman; letterer, Joe Rosen; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Howard the Duck 27 (September 1978)

Howard the Duck #27 Howard is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. So what does he do? He stops the Circus of Crime. Why? See the first sentence. Is he mad at the Circus of Crime? Not so much. Is he worried about his friends being hospitalized? Not so much. Does Howard finally admit he’s got deep feelings for that hairless female ape Beverly? Sort of.

Did Marvel just not let Gerber get crazy with Howard’s affections for Beverly? There’s got to be an explanation. Because this issue isn’t just strange–it’s an action comic, one with good art and good dialogue, but an unambitious action comic. And Gerber is usually all about the ambition for what an issue can do.

So when this one doesn’t do much, the mind has time to wonder what else is going on with the comic. Hence my questions.

Though troubled, it’s solid.

CREDITS

Circus Maximus; writer and editor, Steve Gerber; penciller, Gene Colan; inker, Klaus Janson; colorist, Phil Rachelson; letterer, Gaspar Saladino; publisher, Marvel Comics.

Howard the Duck (1976) #26

Howard the Duck 26

Well… last things first. Winda gets assaulted and Gerber shucks it off page. After her startling–and entirely unnecessary–attack, Gerber just mentions her in Howard’s summing up of the issue’s misadventures.

Most of the comic involves him running around with the Circus of Crime and how he gets away from them. Gerber, Colan and Janson do a rather good human drama subplot too, which one of the Circus’s victims drunkenly reacting.

But then Gerber ties it all together and there’s not enough room to do it in scale so Colan is left to rush through it. And if anyone is going to do reaction shots instead of action shots, Colan should be the one to do them; he gets a lot of energy in them. It still feels like an unsteady issue. Gerber has enough story for two issues or at least one and a half.

It’s mostly good.