Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
. . . or: Why THE
TOMB OF DRACULA Was the Greatest Horror Comic
Ever. (Part
One)
This page is dedicated -- with love eternal -- to my wife, Lisa.
Who has this "thing" for rotting, cadaverous undead types in formal wear. 
... and the funny thing about it is: TOMB OF DRACULA writer Marv Wolfman
-- peculiarly "apt" surname (given the circumstances, here) aside -- doesn't
even like horror comics.
TOMB OF DRACULA was one of the umpty-gazillion or so "horror" titles with which Marvel Comics all but inundated the market back in the early 70's, in a (somewhat) vainglorious attempt to create a comics-buying "fad" out of whole cloth. Some of these were fair (SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS); a few of them were pretty darned good (WEREWOLF BY NIGHT; THE SON OF SATAN; MAN-THING); and the overwhelming majority of the remainders were just plain ol' gawdawful (MORBIUS, THE LIVING VAMPIRE; MAN-WOLF; IT! THE LIVING COLOSSUS... look, don't make me run through the whole list, all right?).
Said attempt at snookering the fan readership of the day was not, on the whole,
a terribly successful one. Out of the entire lot aforementioned, only
three of 'em -- MAN-THING; WEREWOLF; and TOMB -- lasted longer than two years,
tops. Plain and simple: the vast majority of them didn't deserve
anything more than a derisive sniff and a languid waving of the dismissal hand.
I mean: when's the last time you heard someone pining for the return
of BROTHER VOODOO, or THE LIVING MUMMY...?
That being said, however: out of that sorry, ill-conceived nest full of dodo eggs... one genuine swan, at least, was hatched.
Wolfman started out with one gargantuan "plus" in his storytelling ledger: the artistic team of Gene Colan (penciler) and Tom Palmer (inker). Fresh from a long, loooonnnnng stint on Marvel's DAREDEVIL title, the two gentlemen brought with them scrupulous storytelling skills; total mastery of facial nuance and body language; and a facility with light and shadow that constantly reminded one of the pencil sketchings of Vermeer.
Not to put too fine a point to it: these guys were flat-out born
to illustrate a gothic, mood-heavy, fog- enshrouded and characterization-centered
horror comic.
He (Wolfman) also made a fairly crafty decision, early on, re: precisely how the tales in TOMB might best be told. Rather than focusing primarily on the series' putative "heavy" (if you will) -- the somewhat self-limiting approach taken by practically every other Marvel scrivener to try their respective hands at this newfangled "horror" thing (a pretty silly mistake to make, too, once you've given it a moment or two of rumination; I mean... these are comic books, f'cryin' out loud! The very grammar of the form all but demands a genuinely sympathetic protagonist or two) -- Wolfman's storytelling searchlight shone, instead, upon as intriguing an assembled cast of "vampire hunters" as has ever been seen, in any medium.
The "core team" of this lost, throughout the series' run, numbered as follows:
Frank Drake -- last living blood descendent of Ol' Fang Facehis own bad self, and fanatical vampire-hater in general; weak, dissolute, and yearning to be even half the decisive "man of action" everyone thinks he should be.
Rachel Van Helsing: granddaughter of the original "Van Helsing"
(re: Bram Stoker's DRACULA); her otherwise-flawless blonde beauty hideously
marred by the scars of earlier encounters with The Dark Count; expert with a
crossbow, and twice the "man" her would-be paramour Frank Drake would
ever be.
Quincy Harker: the aged, wheelchair-bound technological (and strategic) savant of the team, whose wife was slaughtered by Dracula (the same incident, in fact, which cost the then-young Harker the use of his legs), and whose only daughter was turned into a vampire by You-Know-Who. More comfortable discussing One Hundred and One Ways To Kill a Vampire than his own feelings and emotions... much less those of anyone else around him.
Taj: the mute, immense giant from Nepal, whose unswerving devotion to Rachel and Quincy was rivaled only by his prodigious, all-but-inhuman strength. A pacifistic soul by inclination, who sincerely regretted ever having to hurt anyone in the course of his chosen mission: Destroy Dracula.
Blade: the emotionally- frozen young black vampire- hunter, who -- due to his mother having been attacked by a vampire, herself, just before birthing him -- was semi- vampiric, himself. Immune to the bite of his undead prey, he stalked any and every vampire possible, armed with a lethal array of wooden daggers. [See cover, accompanying]
Hannibal King: a wise-cracking, Sam Spade-ish private investigator, straight out of a 40's noir film. He, too, bore a secret, in turn: he actually was a vampire... only one who had forsworn the blood-thirsty ways of his undead "brethren." He "lived" to seek out and destroy others like himself... particularly the "stinkin', white-haired vamp" who had made him a creature of the night, years ago.
Now, admit it, kiddies: that is one holy heck of an intriguing
array of personalities and motivations...!
The sextet's ongoing war of attrition versus The Lord of the Undead would prove -- time and again -- a costly one, on the personallevel. The aforementioned transformation of the young and innocent Edith Harker into a vampire necessitated that her own father shove a stake through her breast, in order to grant her release from the nightmare curse of forever . The mute Taj bore the secret shame of a feral and eternally pre-adolescent son -- also a vampire, thanks to Dracula -- who had to be kept bound with garlic and chains while "fed" blood by transfusion, in hopes of keeping him (quasi-)alive until the day when a "cure" for said affliction might be found.
Edith Harker... Taj's son... Rachel's scars... Quincy's legs... Blade's inability to "relate" to others as anything other than potential "targets"... Hannibal's affliction... Frank's obsession and self-loathing. No one strolled away from a grudge match versus the self-styled "Vlad the Impaler" without being forced to ante up some serious "chips," in return...
... and: given that Dracula was the sole "player" at the table whose trump card (i.e., True Immortality) meant that he could never really be "out-bid," in turn... the increasingly savage and bitter confrontations between the two camps (and we'll be getting to some of the more memorable of those, in just a wee bit) were as bloody and remorseless as any high-stakes "poker game" as has ever been played out anywhere within the genre.
"Oh, well," you may be chuckling, at this point. "We are talking about a comic book series, here, after all. Just how 'nasty' could things really get, under the circumstances...?"
Go to the next page, kiddies.
... and: bring a night light. )
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