The dead undead should stay dead, or… Tomb of Dracula (magazine) #1.

(A comment/criticism of epic length! And I'm not even paid by the word!)

I’ve recently re-read all the Tomb of Dracula issues collected in the Marvel Essential books (vol. 1-3). Not only did I enjoy once again the brilliant Marv Wolfman scripts and the way he developed the series’ characters, but I was also once more floored by how good an art team Gene Colan and Tom Palmer were on the title. This comic-book series is a true classic.

All of which makes the first issue of the magazine-sized Tomb of Dracula, which followed the colour comic, all the more painful to read.

Back Issue #6 has an overview of the original series and of how it ended. It's quite interesting to learn that towards the end, Gene Colan was a bit burned out on ToD; he had loved the series, but by then he was also working on many other things (including the Howard the Duck newspaper strip) and for all that ToD was a critical success bringing in a lot of accolades from colleagues, it didn't pay much. In fact Colan quit for a time; but he was far ahead of schedule and also had a Blade solo story slated for another mag, and so had time to recharge his batteries and come back to the book without the need for a new artist. I certainly didn't notice. But despite this deft move, Colan wanted to stop.

Not wanting to continue the series without his comrades, Wolfman asked Colan if he would stay a while (and the mag went bi-monthly for its last ten issues or so). Colan agreed, and that gave Wolfman the opportunity to pen a final and satisfying story arc that would be the final act in the Dracula saga. Add to that the fact that the comic was not a very strong seller by that time; the monster fad has passed, despite the excellence of the book itself. ToD was a core of devoted fans, but sales were lower than Jim Shooter would have liked. (What is it with beloved series that are lauded and have dedicated fans but never sell enough copies? But anyway).

Now money is still money, and after the ending of the colour comic (truly a beautiful piece of work, satisfying to long-time fans and casual readers alike), Marvel decided that the sales numbers might justify a black and white magazine with a lower print run, as was the case for Howard the Duck. (Cynical me thinks that Jim Shooter's aversion to the position of Writer-Editor might have played some small role in the decision to replace the colour comic by a B&W one, as Wolfman was not editor of the latter.)

Whatever be the case, by October 1979, it had been a few months since the cancellation of the colour ToD and Gene Colan had rested a bit and was now ready for more. However, in a disastrous decision, Tom Palmer was replaced by Bob McLeod! Not that McLeod isn't a good inker, far from it, but you don't mess with a winning combination. I don't think anyone would argue that the Colan-McLeod art looks anything like the Colan-Palmer one, and Marv Wolfman was definitely not amused. He would quite soon thereafter and move to DC.

That being said, perhaps Wolfman didn't see why the Dracula saga itself should go further, after such a satisfying and hard to top conclusion. I mean, the final story arc involves God himself engineering Dracula's demise; how to you get back from that? The plot to this first B&W issue certainly suggests a lack of enthusiasm. It is, I am sorry to say, a rather bad story.

It begins a long time ago, as a man follows a comet across a desert (and this comet happens to be the one that brought the Magi to Bethleem, as per a caption, because why not). The wandering star then falls in the water of an oasis and our man reaches for it, pulling out a wet but flaming magical jewel.

Oh, dear. I really don't like the idea of people following comets as if they were slow-moving shooting stars leading to a precise spot. All of us who saw Hale-Bopp in the skies in the late ‘90s will remember that a comet does not move noticeably, except if you compare where it is today to where it was a few days ago; it's like a feathery planet just standing there in the heaven. How the heck are you supposed to follow oner anywhere, apart from in a very general direction? Plus, a comet does not fall to Earth (or rather when it does, it’s likely to cause an extinction event). This opening scene is doubtless meant to be portentous, but doesn't work for me at all. It's a case of less is more: a Bedouin finding a glowing stone somewhere in the desert after hearing a big bang would have been fine; no need to introduce Shepherd stars, comets or whatever.

Cut to a second opening that’s a little confusing, as it’s a double-page spread featuring two different scenes: one in which a woman finds a dead wizard in a living room and takes a ring from his finger, and another in which a woman is moping on her couch. It’s not made clear whether these are the same woman or not (upon first reading I assumed it was). Their hairdo is different, but the way the page is laid out I thought the second lady was the same as the first, only a few months later. Anyway. This second woman (named Sandra) was recently dumped by her boyfriend, leading her to develop a lousy self-image causing her to throw herself at every jerk on the dating circuit. She feels used and cheap and needs a change in her life to regain some confidence. She gets a job as the assistant of a tour guide who is about to lead a group on a grand supernatural tour in Europe. The tourists include the lady with the ring we met earlier, and her attire fairly screams “I am a mysterious woman”, but I guess that people interested in that particular tour might be expected to have such quirks. The small group travels by ocean liner, which surprises me a little… Were people still travelling by boat in 1979, when all they wanted was to cross the ocean?

Our little group makes its way to Transylvania, iron curtain be damned, and Sandra is courted by her boss, Dave. Naturally, the gang ends up at Castle Dracula, which was destroyed “a few weeks ago” by Quincy Harker. Apparently, Dracula’s body was never found, as the locals shun the place; this explains why our tourists find his skeleton pretty quickly. This is however problematic, continuity-wise: Rachel van Helsing would never have left Transylvania at the end of ToD #70 without recovering Quincy’s body (and we know he was later buried in England), so it’s extremely unlikely that Dracula’s skeleton wouldn’t have been found as well; the two men were together when the castle was destroyed. Besides, the skeleton is right there!

The spooky lady, Ebers by name, reveals herself as the bad guy we all knew she was and claims that she needs the vampire alive. She pulls out the silver spoke that still juts from the skeleton’s chest (that’s how Quincy killed Dracula; the spoke came from his wheelchair), reviving the vampire.

Now if this was a Monty Python sketch, and since it was established a few panels before that “the morning sun was awash with the glow of roses”, Dracula would instantly burst into flames and the series would end once more. Night must have come rather quickly, as it does in the sub-Carpathian tropics.

Dracula attacks the tourists, crushes one under a stone, and makes the moves on Sandra with his hypnotic “come hither” look. Ebers then interrupts Dracula’s snack, showing him her ring (adorned with a green flaming jewel, which we guess came from the meteor in the opening scene). Drac is interested, as that ring is something he had longed for in the past. Mrs. Ebers says she has revived him because she needs his help, and when he agrees to discuss matters, she uses the ring’s powers to whisk both of them away to a quieter place. Our tourists then repair to London for medical care, because of course there are no hospitals between Transylvania and London. And they say socialism works!

At the hospital (run by nuns, for crying out loud!), we meet an old friend: Inspector Chelm, from the colour comic. Yay! And he’s dumped the Chris Claremont-created psychic assistant he had in the Giant-Size issues. Double-yay!

Meanwhile, Dracula is also in London, where he tracks down Sandra, who’s tormented by renewed doubts about her self-worth. I get that we're not trying to tie this new magazine to the old one too much, but seeing as we got to see Inspector Chelm and mentioned Harker already... could we have Drac devote at least one thought bubble to his wife, a woman he truly loved and whom he longed to be with just a few weeks prior? A quick mention of Drac now living "a new life" might explain why he's not flying to her, but it's not very satisfying to long-time readers. But let's set that aside and return to Sandra's and Dave's hotel room.

The vampire sends an army of rats to incapacitate Dave, and moves in for the bite; but then Dave finds a Gideon Bible in a bedside table and brandishes it, sending the vampire running. I knew those things would come in handy one day! It’s the first time I see Dracula running away from a Bible. Also, earlier in the story, the guy he killed with a big stone was holding a crucifix and Dracula explained that he needed to be touched by it for the thing to do any damage. Why doesn’t the vampire now throw a pillow or a heavy chair at Dave to get the Bible away? It would remove the problem as well as before, methinks. Drac could also have grabbed Sandra and flown away, as he did so many times to different people in the past. He might not be thinking straight, not having had blood since his latest resurrection!

We now move on to Tower Bridge, which is somehow always deserted in these stories. Mrs. Ebers is there, brandishing her ring to summon Dracula, because she still has to explain why she needed him in the first place. (Wait, didn’t they vanish together, a few pages ago, precisely so that they could have a chat? Maybe they got distracted).

Mrs. Ebers explains the story of the ring. The jewel from the meteor grants great magical powers, and with it one can create massive temples or destroy them entirely, split deserts (splitting a dessert is a more common thing, but that's magic for you), and basically do miravculous stuff. At some point, someone chipped a piece of the jewel to set in on a ring, which Mrs. Ebers’ husband (a practicing wizard) eventually came to possess. Dracula killed Mr. Ebers to get the ring, but could not pry it from his dead finger for plot-induced and unexplained reasons. Why didn’t Dracula just sever said finger and have his rats eat the excess flesh holding the ring? I don’t know. But in any case, Mrs. Ebers now has a proposal: she located the rest of the jewel, and is willing to split the mighty gem in half if Dracula helps her. He agrees, secretly intending to dispose of her once the jewel is found.

The pair is next found at the doors of a desert temple, a temple built around the oasis where the jewel was originally found. And lo and behold, the rest of the jewel is in the same pond where it fell on page 1! Now, is that supposed to make any sense? The jewel was found thousands of years ago, used by multiple wizards, eventually chipped so a ring could be made out of it, and the rest of the gem was brought back to its original spot? I’m all for tradition, but this is plain nuts. It’s a bit like looking for the Three Wise Men's gift of myrrh in a manger in modern-day Beethleem.

Mrs. Ebers double-crosses Dracula, who sinks in the sand while she recovers the jewel and teleports back to her living room, where her dead husband still waits. (Get it? Living room? Dead husb… oh, never mind). Her goal is to bring him back to life by having his life-force inhabit Dracula’s body. Why him? Just because “it’s fitting”, as he’s the one who killed dear old Hubby! Talk about a convoluted, dangerous and useless plot twist! I could have bought an explanation along the lines of “only the body of your murderer would do for this spell, darling”, but no! It’s just a question of enjoying the irony! It's like Ripley bringing an alien queen to Earth to act as a guard dog, because it would be ironic to be protected by the darn thing for once.

Mrs. Ebers next teleports Dracula back from the desert, and it’s as if Gene Colan misread the script or something because next thing you know Drac is kissing Ebers, and she explains that she’s forcing him to do so in order to remember what she’s been missing while being a widow. UH??? This is all the more incomprehensible as if all goes well, her husband will be back in five minutes to shower her with affection anyway!

Dear Hubby (his name is actually Augustus, a name much more befitting a wizard than Biff if you ask me) starts getting re-animated by the gem's presence, but the plan falls apart as he decides he won’t share its power with his wife! Things start exploding and catching fire, Dracula and the undead wizard come to blows while Mrs. Ebers collapses, and Dracula means to drink her blood to gain extra life points. Mrs. Ebers wakes up and suddenly steals a page from Sandra’s book, claiming that she won’t let anyone use her ever again. She smashes the jewel with a piece of wood (as wood is harder than gems, naturally). The reconciled Ebers die together in the burning flat as she says “I did it all for love”. (This bit about not being used again really came out of the left field. Mrs. Ebers was the main manipulator from the very start of this story; trying to shoe-horn a parallel between her and Sandra doesn't work at all).

Meanwhile, Sandra is growing increasingly nihilistic and spurns Dave’s affection, explaining that “death is what calls to her now”. The lad tries to cheer her up, but to no effect. As he leaves her for a midnight stroll along the Thames, he is attacked by Dracula who flies him through a window into Sandra’s hotel room, in order to kill them both at once. Struggling like a canari in the jaws of a cat, Dave begs Sandra to fight for her life and to not just give up; she picks up the same Bible as before, and Drac decides that he’s wasted enough time with them and won’t bother them ever, ever again. Comforting Dave, Sandra seems to have emerged from her funk.

The end.

Harold H. Harold's The Vampire Conspiracy this wasn't, folks.

Even Dracula was more fun in the Howard the Duck magazine than in his own!

Interesting. I personally don't like to see Palmer's work in colour at all, apart from his painted covers! Maybe it's due to his mastery of contrasts, which are more apparent in B&W, but it could also be because I only saw his work uncoloured for years and years in the translated ToD.

I've begun a project to read all of the comics that were published during the month I was born, April 1960. I've toyed with the possibility of collecting physical copies of all 127 comics, but even though the only high dollar item on that list is Brave & Bold #30 (the third JLA appearance), that's a little too daunting to seriously consider right now...but it would be cool to have, wouldn't it?
Instead, I at least want to read them all digitally, so I'm starting with Charlton's output, all of which is public domain and legally available on comicbookplus.com. Of those 30, I've started with their war comics, which I've never seriously sampled before, and thus far have read Battlefield Action #30, Fightin' Air Force #21, Submarine Attack #22, and U.S. Air Force Comics #10. I'll soon finish off their war comics from that month with War At Sea #36. I'm not sure if I'll record any detailed commentary on these books here or anywhere else, but I am happy to report that I've found these issues much more enjoyable reading than I expected. Yes, most of the art, other than that by Sam Glanzman, is unmemorable to put it gently, but the stories have a lot more spirit and variety than I'd have anticipated.
To finish Charlton's offerings, I'll be reading 8 romance books, 7 westerns, 3 SF/fantasy comics, 4 cartoon humor books, 1 TV sitcom adaptation, 1 car racing comic, and a giant ape movie adaptation. I'm expecting the romance stuff to be painful, and Charlton's cartoon comics--all of which on my list are rip-offs of well known and successful features--are generally regarded as bottom of the barrel, but the others should be somewhat fun to read.

My Little Margie. I don't think I've ever seen an episode, but Charlton had a long run with it, outlasting the series by several years. In fact, when I get to the Dell April 1960 material, it will include an adaptation of My Little Margie star Gale Storm's then-current sitcom, Oh Susanna. Which I've also never seen.
I'm rectifying that with a side-track into watching an episode of MLM on Youtube, which, curiously, crops in a portion of the Charlton comics cover logo for its thumbnails.

I read The Death of Captain Marvel TPB which reprints Marvel Super-Heroes #12-13; Captain Marvel #1, 34; Marvel Spotlight #1-2, and the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel. That's the first Captain Marvel story arc that started in MSH and ended in the first issue of his solo title, the issue that would end up being the cause of his cancer, a couple of issues (but not the last two) from after his ongoing was canceled and his story moved to the 2nd volume of Marvel Spotlight, and of course the GN that ended it all.

Captain Marvel is one of those titles, like Tomb of Dracula, that I didn't get into as a kid because it was canceled when I was too young to read. Similarly, Defenders and Power Man & Iron Fist were canceled when I started reading comics, but very early before I even knew of the titles. It seems like an unusual premise, because the protagonist is from an alien race who are enemies of Earth. In that first arc, he still seems to be in the militaristic Kree line of thinking. He protects the humans in that story because the action of the Sentry (and Yon-Rogg reactivating it) technically are beyond the parameters of the reconaissance mission. But it seems unclear if he would even do that if Yon-Rogg weren't trying to kill him. Stan writes the first issue and it has a Silver Age feel. Then, there's a big leap in time and tone to the Nitro story in #34. This is right after the big Thanos arc ended. I think this is the only story from the TPB that I've read previously, and it's the only story in the TPB other than the graphic novel that's written by Jim Starlin. The threat of the nerve gas is presented as pretty serious and Mar-Vell collapses at the end of the issue. But the TPB doesn't reprint the next issue, so I can't tell if there was any real foreshadowing of the cancer that would show up years later.

I don't have enough knowledge of Captain Marvel to judge the choices for inclusion in this TPB. Marvel Spotlight #1-2 seem to be continuing a plotline that end Mar-Vell's solo title and it's not the end of Cap's run, which went to #4. My guess is that these are include because it's a decent primer on some of the supporting cast of the GN, with a sense of how Cap's life may have gone in the interim. It also gives a sense of Thanos's urge for vengeance, even though he's dead at that point.

Despite not being a big Captain Marvel reader, the graphic novel is a great story and does a great job at making the stakes feel high for someone who hasn't read that much of the characters adventures. Doing my Wikipedia and Marvel Chronology Project research, I was surprised to learn that Elysius had so few appearances before this point and Starlin apparently didn't right any of them. Starlin does a great job establishing Elysius as the love of Mar-Vell's life. I feel like some other creators would be possessive of the mythos of a character they're so connected with, and try to write out or minimize a supporting character introduce after their time. The GN also does a great job as a summary of Mar-Vell's history; it reminds me of the "Elegy" story in Uncanny X-Men immediately after the Dark Phoenix Saga. It's crushing seeing cancer intrude as something beyond the power of super-heroics to deal with.

It's very powerful to see how various characters deal with death. Elysius and Rick Jones both get good moments. Spider-Man has a lot of discomfort. Although it's not mentioned, I'd like to think Starlin was evoking how much Peter Parker has been scarred by previous deaths like Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacy. A lot of heroes show up to visit Mar-Vell in his last days. This includes the X-Men. I'm a pretty hardcore X-Men completist for the period of the 60s through the 80s, and for the life of me I can't think of a time when the X-Men and this Captain Marvel previously met. Maybe there was a comic with a big crowd scene of heroes that wouldn't really register, but I can't think of substantive encounters. My assumption is that because the X-Men were so big, either Starlin thought or editorial dictating that it would help sales to just throw the X-Men in there.

I like the style of coloring in the GN. Starlin's art is very good, although his renditions of a couple characters like Black Panther are unusual.