Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
CONTESTANT #2: the 60's Dell Comics DRACULA
[UNCA CHEEKS' ASIDE: This site entry comes to us courtesy of our two extra-special guest reviewers. this week: the android Captain Marvel and his human sidekick Billy -- LAST week's contestants in The Great Four-Color Feeb-Off.]
[SCENE OPENS on a shot of two swivel chairs on a raised Washington Week In Review-style sound stage; a low, circular table equidistant between them both, with a pitcher of water and two glasses resting atop.
[Captain Marvel ENTERS from Stage Left, to audience APPLAUSE; he waves cheerily, in a hail-fellows-well-met sort of way. Billy ENTERS from Stage Right, to audience APPLAUSE; he flips the audience off, and slumps into his seat, sneering contemptuously.]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (boisterously): "Thank you... thank you...!" [gestures for the audience to settle down] "Well! Thank you, everyone, for such a warm and enthusiastic reception! My name is Captain Marvel, and I was an honest-to-goodness super-hero, back during the height of the swingin', Silver Age sixties --!"
BILLY (snide; sotto voce): "... right up until the nano-second when DC's high-caliber attorneys threatened to give you the ol' Ned Beatty-In-
DELIVERANCE treatment, unless you rolled over like a spaniel and swore never, ever again to refer to yourself as Captain You-Know-What within the pages of any mainstream American comic book ever again, that is."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (chuckling good-naturedly; fixing Billy with a cold, murderous glare all the while): "AH-ha-ha-ha-ha. Oh, Billy... BillyBillyBilly! You and your wacky, fun-loving and irrepressible kidding around, all the time! You scamp, you!"
BILLY (turning towards the audience, and gesturing towards the Captain with a thumb): "Dropped trousers quicker'n George Michael at a David Hasselhoff film festival. Sniveling and blubbering like Susan Hayward during the final reel of I WANT TO LIVE!, f'chrissakes. Talk about your big, screaming wussybears...!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (features reddening in abject mortification; fists clenching and unclenching at his side, convulsively): "I... I..." [swallows, audibly] ... they were all wearing expensive suits... kept waving all those legal documents in my face... and laughing!" LAUGHING! At ME! [facial features now contorting in rage] "I was a super-hero, dammit! I saved all of EARTH from the rapacious, planet-raping menace of THE BLUE MEN OF VENUS -- !"
BILLY (yawning, ostentatiously): "Oh, please. Bob Phantom's got a more impressive track record, case history-wise."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (lower lip quivering, as he stares at the insouciantly smirking Billy with something very much akin to sheerest, unadulterated loathing): "... and when I pause to remember how I pulled you out from the gutter! You ungrateful little car-to-car street tart -- !"
BILLY (arching one mocking, saturnine eyebrow): "Don't go there, girlfriend."
[The two washed-up comics wannabes stare at one another for a silent, elastic moment. Eventually, the Captain -- realizing that the studio audience is staring at the both of them, hushed and agog --turns to face them; a patently artificial rictus of jolly bonhomie plastered idiotically across his plasticene puss.]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (forced, hollow laughter): "Ha-ha-ha! So, then: are we all ready to enjoy a fond, nostalgic backwards glance at the classic Dell Comics DRACULA series, from 1966...?"
BILLY (making an obscene gesture with his closed fist, somewhere near the general area of his groin): " '... classic.' Shyeah. Right. The only thing 'classic' about that big, purple poof was the way he could sweet-talk lonely, acne-scarred junior high school boys into following him home, late at night, and -- "
CAPTAIN MARVEL (plopping himself into his assigned seat, as the studio lights dim and a gigantic film screen flickers into life behind them; hissing, enraged): "You. Evil. Slut."
[The first image -- a reproduction of the cover to DRACULA #1 -- appears.] [See top of page]
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " 'The Origin of DRACULA.' Dell Comics; November, 1966. No author listed; former Charlton Comics inker Tony Tallarico, artist."
BILLY: "Brilliant millionaire American scientist Al U. Card -- " [doubles over, braying with sudden, explosive laughter]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (exasperatedly): "Oh, stop."
BILLY (choking back the hysteria; incredulous): "...oh, come on! I mean..." [bites down hard on the inside of his cheek] " ... AL U. CARD...?!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (taking over, gamely): "... Al U. Card is working feverishly in the ancestral castle of his Transylvanian forebearers, seeking a chemical cure for the biological ravages of brain disease."
[Billy topples forward from his seat; rolls bout the floor, clutching his sides and howling]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (freezingly): "... well... just so long as you didn't have anything in particular you wanted to do two or three days from now, I suppose..."
BILLY (scarcely able to gasp out the words): "... heeheeheehee... looking for a cure for... for... for b-br-BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAAA -- !"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (scolding; sternly): "It's a very serious, fully accredited area of ongoing scientific research. Just think of what such a cure, if found, could mean, for pity's sake."
BILLY
(crawling back into his seat; still hiccoughing in barely-
restrained hysteria): "Yeah... hmmphhhahaha... a total paid circulation of eighteen
or twenty readers for his comic, and a war crimes tribunal
for the writer... HEEheehee...!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (disgustedly): "I can take you anywhere but out, can't I...?"
BILLY (winking lasciviously): "You love it. You know you love it."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (hurriedly): "Deriving a potion of his own brilliant invention from the brains of bats --"
[Billy shrieks with renewed hysteria; falls out of his chair, again.]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (witheringly): "You are evil, and wrong. You should be destroyed. Like Mothra. Or Rodan." [continuing] " ... the brains of bats, the noble and resolute Dr. Al U. Card opens the cages containing the dozens upon dozens of bats utilized in his visionary and far-reaching experiments, and releases them -- "
BILLY (still on the floor; snickering): "... whereupon, they all promptly swoop and smash their respective ways into the nearest wall. 'Cause he already scooped their brains out, see; and -- "
CAPTAIN MARVEL (kindly): "Shut your pie hole." [continuing] " ... whereupon, one of the little dears wobbles its unsteady way into an open beaker of the aforementioned elixir; causing its strange, alchemical contents to spill into a nearby pitcher of mineral water, directly below."
BILLY (making a "go" of clambering back into his seat once more): "JEEEEEEEEEzus! What is this, anyway: a super-hero origin story, or the Milton-Bradley board game MOUSETRAP -- ?!?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (witheringly): "Your real parents abandoned you in the woods while you were still an infant, you know. You were raised by truckers. It's time you knew."
BILLY (pursing his lips): "You'll never live to be as old as you look, Miss Stanwyck."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (acidly): "Sow." [moving right along] "... a pitcher of mineral water, directly below. Whereupon, the parched professor unwittingly imbibes said accidental admixture!"
BILLY (sarcastically): "Looks as if that community college degree is already paying off big, BIG dividends for Our Pal Al, huh...?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (off-handed): "You've had worse things in your mouth." [continuing] "The swallowed serum effects a startling and dramatic change upon the startled scientist; transforming him into... a BAT!"
BILLY (sweetly): "Gives the two of you something in common, then."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (reaches out and smacks Billy a good'un on the leg): "You are such a TROLL."
BILLY (rubbing leg, and scowling at the Captain resentfully): "Still loitering about the local grade school playground, yelling 'SPLIT!' and chasing shrieking, gibbering third graders around with your teensy, disembodied -- ?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (hurriedly): "... leading the good doctor -- once he's managed to regain his human form -- to dramatically declaim, thusly: 'This thing I have created... people will not understand! I must remain in hiding, always! Is there nothing that I can do for humanity? Are my goals to be shattered by this terrible discovery? What can I do?' "
BILLY (butting in): "... MEANWHILE: there's a big, filthy Commie rat gnawing his way through the ol' socio-political woodpile, thereabouts... eh, Cap?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (nodding): "Ha-ha-ha! Right you are, little chum! a big, filthy, steaming Commie rat by the name of... BORIS EVAL!"
BILLY (disdainfully): "Ohhhhhh... that can't possibly be his real hair."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (giggling): "Don't hate him just because he's beautiful."
BILLY (cattily): "OOOOOOOooooooo. And since when do your tastes swing to the far end of the grandfather clock?" [preens] "What's he got that I don't have, anyway?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (sweetly): "The ability to achieve and sustain an erec -- "
BILLY (hurriedly): "The beetle-browed and cruelly contemptuous Boris Eval comes trundling into Transylvania, leading a Communistic column of missle-laden jeeps; trucks; and BMWs."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " 'I declare this country to be mine!' the Russkie Ratfink bellows, shaking his butch, gnarled fist at nobody in particular. 'Let any man disagree, and he will live to regret it! SET UP THE ROCKETS!' "
BILLY: " 'That castle,' the evil Eval continues, leveling an accusatory finger in the general overall direction of Casa del Al; "... once the home of the Dracula family, will be my headquarters [...] the last living member of the Dracula family hides there! He will work for me ... or suffer the consequences!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "... AND -- quicker'n you can say 'this sucks worse than the Will Smith film version of THE WILD WILD WEST' -- Our Pal Al finds himself unceremoniously snagged; bagged; and locked up in the dungeon of his own castle!"
BILLY (musing): "Funny how they managed to lock him away in durance vile with his lab coat pockets all a-bulge with vials of bat serum, ain't it, though...?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (nodding): "They really should have patted him down, first. For contraband."
BILLY (waggling his eyebrows): "Is that what they're calling it, nowadays...?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (smacking him again): "Didn't I leave you on the curb last week, for pick-up?"
BILLY (rubbing his leg, ruefully): "The free clinic called for you, last week. Something about your father. And a labrador retriever."
[The two characters glare balefully at one another, for several tense, bristling moments.]
BILLY (finally breaking the silence; whining): "You never call any more..."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (quick "cool it" gesture; glancing nervously in the direction of the audience): "Schtum! SCHTUM!" [getting back on track, brightly] "In any event: upon vacating his appointed cell, Al quickly rustles up eighty or ninety thousand of his winged, fruit-and-fly gobbling brethren, and courageously leads them into a full-bore, take-no- prisoners assault upon Eval's awesome assemblage of heavy payload-
bearing missles!"
BILLY (puzzled): "... ummmmmmm..."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "... yeesssssssssssss...?"
BILLY (genuinely curious): "... ahhhhh... and just what sort of threat, precisely, would A Flock of Hairy Seagulls actually pose to a ninety-foot tall nuclear missle -- ?!?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "Wellllll... the writer has that point covered, actually. See...? Right here, where it shows Boris shrieking: 'The weight of the bats will topple them... they'll explode!' "
BILLY (nodding, sagely): "Oh. Right. Right. And, so, this blinding, agonized pulsing going on between my temples...?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (soothingly): "Not a tumor. Just a really lame and awful comic book, is all."
BILLY (in hope desperate and vain): "... but I still could opt for the tumor instead, right? If the pain grew too unbearable, I mean."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (tousling the lad's hair, affectionately): "Ohhhhhh... you! Always kidding around in that wholesome, whey-faced and fun-loving way of yours!"
[Billy whimpers; crawls under his chair and curls up into a fetal posture, thumb jammed into his mouth.]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (oblivious): "Reveling in that heady rush of triumph common to all comic book super-heroes upon the successful completion of their very first foray versus The Forces of Eval... "[shakes head] "... errrrrr... I mean, Evil: Al whips himself up a proper, form-fitting super-hero costume, and assigns himself a suitably dramatic and descriptive code name!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (in fond reverie): "... yes... it's a proud and profound moment, in the career of any fledgling crime-fighter..." [eyes misting over, slightly] "... proud, and -- in its way -- an indescribably lonely one, as well. I'm reminded of the day when I first found myself standing before a full-length mirror, admiring the sight of myself in spandex -- !"
BILLY (muffled; from his sanctuary, underneath the chair): "... just you... the mirror... and -- in the background -- the piteous mewlings and whimperings of seventeen nude, manacled cub scouts..."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (lashing out with a well-aimed kick; eliciting, in turn, a pained yelp from his sidekick): "You can be replaced, you know. By a venereal disease."
BILLY (crab-crawling his way painfully back into his seat): "What... AGAIN -- ?!?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (ignoring him): "Upon returning to his family's ancestral manse, however: the newly-christened Dracula is dismayed beyond all human utterance by the heart-wrenching sight of said chez burning its way to the very ground; an amassed throng of the local townfolk cheering on the conflaragation with lusty, full-throated approval!"
BILLY: " 'That castle has shadowed this country long enough!', a spokesman for the panicked peasantry explains, to a flabbergasted Drac. 'Now it's gone, we can live like regular folks!' "
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " 'But all of those stories,' Drac implores them, frantically; "... they're legends! There is no truth to them! Do you believe everything you hear?' "
BILLY: " 'Of course I believe what I hear,' another nearby villager responds; his simple, care-worn features registering honest confusion at the question. 'Don't you...?' "
CAPTAIN MARVEL (rolling his eyes): "Can't argue with logic like that, I s'pose."
BILLY (nodding): "Every time anyone would call up the nearest Century 21 office and ask for directions to this burg: all the realtors would just laugh and laugh..."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "This leads Drac, of course, to assume Noble and Resolute Hero Stance #47, upon the nearest outcropping of barren, wind-swept rock; and deliver his big, dramatic Mission Statement in ringing and imperious tones."
BILLY (bouncing up and down in his seat): "Oooooh! Oooooh! Do it in the funny voice! Do it in the funny VOICE -- !"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (not unkindly): "Trollop." [clearing his throat, and continuing] " 'What kind of men live on this earth? Men that will take what they want... men that will believe anything they hear about another, even though there is no truth to what they hear! Is this what this world has come to?' "
[Billy begins humming The Battle Hymn of the Republic, in the background.]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (going for the Oscar): " 'I pledge, by the strange powers which have become mine, to fight against the injustice, corruption, evil and greed which fills this earth, in the hopes that somehow my example will be an example to ALL men!' "
BILLY (with false enthusiasm): "Yes! YES! Until all free men of good will the world over are chugging down bat brain Jell-O shots, and poncing their way through the city streets in bright purple footie jammies -- !"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (sighing, wistfully): "Ohhhh... if only...!"
BILLY: "One of the lines in The Comics Code Authority's list of moral taboos mentions you, specifically. By name. You do know that, right...?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (glaring at him): "Where's the Zodiac Killer when you really need him, anyway? That's what I'd like to know. "
BILLY (holding aloft a copy of DRACULA #4): "A few issues later, The Man From Vlad fulfills yet another time-honored Silver Age super-hero tradition: The Acquisition and Annointing of the Mandatory Sidekick."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "... specifically, one B. B. Beebe: spunky gazillionaire heiress and social do-gooder, who tumbled onto the big, hairy secret of Al U. Card's double identity whilst sky-diving."
BILLY (brightly): "It was the Silver Age, folks! We didn't know what the hell we were doing, all right? Spent more time drunk than we did sober. Like an Iggy Pop live album, on continuous tape loop. Only with more spandex."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (nodding): "... and vegetable oil. And mice."
BILLY (sotto voce): "Honeyyyyyyy... hush. 'No statute of limitations'... remember... ?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (shifting gears, smoothly): "At one point during their tumultuous relationship, B. B. takes it upon herself to treat a gaggle of the local orphans to a day trip to the beach..."
BILLY (taking his cue): "... whereupon they -- girlfriend and gamins alike -- suffer the cruel misfortune of crossing paths with a gangly gangland geek by the name of... The Piper!"
BILLY: "This one's almost a freebie, isn't it...?"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (smirking): "Looks a little bit like Eric Idle. Auditioning for one of the supporting roles in VELVET GOLDMINE."
BILLY (giggling): " 'All the Young Dudes' !"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (cackling): " 'ALADDIN SANE' -- !"
CAPTAIN MARVEL and BILLY (together): " 'THEY ONLY COME OUT AT NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT' -- !"
[The two "high five" one another; bursting into whooping, braying peals of hysterical laughter.]
CAPTAIN MARVEL (wiping away the tears): "... heh-heh-heh... oh, god... and so, he starts tootling on this weird flute of his, see...? And then all the little kiddies' eyes get all glazed over, like cheap truckstop doughnuts... and the little darlings all stagger stiff-leggedly after him, like itsy-bitsy wind-up toy soldiers..."
BILLY: "... which, naturally, means that blonde bimbette B. B. has to go dashing after them, in a frantic, desperate attempt to rescue them from the nastybad man's horrid, horny clutches -- !"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (in nasal, "nerdy" voice): " 'That's better, my little helpless helpers! Tie her well! She will pay for her meddling!' "
BILLY (in same "voice"): " 'Eek, eek, eek! Wait for me, my ant-sized army!' "
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "Take a quick peek at the indica. Is there even an actual, for real, no foolin' editor listed on the bloody thing...?"
BILLY (glancing at the bottom of the first page): "Nnnnnnnnope. Just a "President"; an "Executive Vice-President"; and -- oh, check this out, will you? -- "Harold Clark: Vice-President Advertising Director"...!
CAPTAIN MARVEL (grimly): "Fine. Fine. Just so long as I have a target, is all." [holds his right hand directly in front of his face; speaks to it, authoritatively] "Go find this 'Harold Clark' person, sweetums. Find him, and make him... sorry."
[The hand separates itself from the Captain's wrist with a moist and audible plop. After fluttering in the air around his head for a moment or two, like unto a profoundly retarded hummingbird: the disgusting appendage finally orients itself, and zzzzOOMs off, unerringly, in one specific direction.]
BILLY (shaking head, sadly): "Shame, really. He's probably the only true innocent, in all of this."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (emphatically): " 'You lie down with dogs... you wake up with a homicidal, disembodied hand wrapped 'round an especially tender and sensitive portion of your anatomy.' Shakespeare said that."
BILLY (rolling his eyes at the Captain): " 'You're a danger to yourself and others.' Nine out of ten psychiatrists said that, during the pre-trial hearings. Also, your parole officer."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (snorting derisively): "That gutter trash? Please." [back to business] "Anyway: The Piper has his mesmerized Kiddie Korps truss B. B. up, good'n'tight; and then sends her plummeting over the edge of a conveniently placed cliff, in her very own rented bus!"
BILLY: "She survives it, though."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "Dracula rescues her."
BILLY (nodding, sagely): "Yes."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (bitterly): "Damn Harold Clark, 'Vice-President Advertising Director'!"
BILLY (nodding, sagely): "Your medication has worn off, again."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "Later on, the Piper sends his phalanx of unthinking urchins a-tumblin' over the side of the cliff, as well."
BILLY: "He's a thematic super-villain, you see."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "They survive it, as well."
BILLY: "It's not much of a cliff, apparently."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (gritting it between clenched teeth): "The women of your tribe shall mourn for you, Harold Clark -- !"
BILLY(soothingly): "You need to lie down, for a while. Maybe some hot cocoa."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "... and then: IT happened."
BILLY (a fat, single tear trickling down one cheek): "... yes..."
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " 'I'm going to take some of your serum,' the aren't-we-suddenly-full-of-ourselves Ms. Beebe insists, upon successful resolution of the Piper perplex. 'Together, we can be the most powerful force for good there is!' "
BILLY: "So saying: Al's Reg'lar Saturday Night Thing locks herself away in the big dummy loser's super-duper top secret underground laboratory -- "
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " -- cunningly hidden from public view, incidentally, by means of an incredibly obvious massive, shocking pink STEEL TRAP DOOR, set in the middle of an open patch of ground -- "
BILLY: " -- and quaffs herself a smoking, free-standing gallon jug or three of bat brain serum (patent pending)!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " 'Bat Brain Serum: Part Of This Complete Breakfast.' "
BILLY: " 'Bat Brain Serum: Kid Tested... Mom Approved.' "
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " 'Bat Brain Serum: Because It's Actually Legal. Unlike... Say... High-Grade Smack.' "
CAPTAIN MARVEL: " 'Fliedermaus... Flieder... FLEETA!' the headstrong hottie exclaims, her head still reeling from the narcotic effects of hastily-imbibed rodent cranial fluids. 'I shall call myself... FLEETA!' "
BILLY (cattily): "The hausfrau bandana atop her head is a nice touch. Not."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (snickering): "Do you suppose that's one of his old costumes she's tarted up in...?"
BILLY (slapping him, playfully): "You. Are. Such. A. WHORE."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (laughing): "Ho-ho-ho, CISCO -- !"
BILLY (laughing): "Ho-ho-ho, PANCHO!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL (turning towards the audience; brightly): "Well: we hope you all enjoyed our wry, bemused, good-natured joshin' of Dell Comics' DRACULA -- !"
BILLY (chipper): " ... and join us again next time out, please... when our extra-special guest hosts will be the simply faaaabulous DRACULA and FLEETA, dishing it to yet another nigh-legendary four-color feeb!"
CAPTAIN MARVEL: "Ha-ha-ha! Well: I know I'll be here -- !"
BILLY (sotto voce): "... assuming you make bail, anyway."
CAPTAIN MARVEL (waving): "Good night, everyone -- !"
BILLY (ditto): "... and God bless!"
[The two are still waving, merrily, as Captain Marvel's disembodied hand returns to its owner; re-attaching itself to its owner's wrist with a hideous sucking sound. The hand is drenched in blood and gore. Captain Marvel and Billy continue waving, cheerfully oblivious; annnnnnnd --
[ ... FADE OUT]
The First Annual UNCA CHEEKS
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The First Annual UNCA CHEEKS FOUR-COLOR FEEB-OFF (PAGE THREE)
The First Annual UNCA CHEEKS FOUR-COLOR FEEB-OFF (PAGE FOUR)
The First Annual UNCA CHEEKS FOUR-COLOR FEEB-OFF (PAGE FIVE)
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