Take A Seat

 

As I was compiling subject matter for this post, the first thing that came to mind was this guy:

Who looks like he's traveling through space seated on some kind of contraption--at least that's what I'd assumed, having never read the story. Except that this character, Orion, isn't seated on anything, but simply hunched over, gripping what he calls his "power rods." Yet there is a seated character among those Orion mingles with in New Genesis--Metron, who appears to be persona non grata among the others and flits about time-space in his "Mobius Chair" advancing his own agenda.

And thus, the New Gods have unknowingly summoned us to hear another

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Marvel Trivia Question

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What Marvel characters look to chairs for their status, and/or their power?

(Or, in Ben Grimm's case, their life??)

The Tragic Life of Shiela Whittier

 

It was in the first (and only) issue of Giant-Size Chillers where we saw the introduction of Lilith, the daughter of Dracula, slain by Quincy Harker three decades past but whose essence rises from the grave to possess the form of any woman who had suffered abuse from their father. But when meeting with her estranged father and proposing that joining together in future endeavors is in both their best interests, Lilith suffers abuse of a different kind--rejection and disdain.

From that point, we follow Dracula to Castle Dunwick, where he meets with its resident owner, Shiela Whittier, a distraught young woman who is being tormented by forces unknown.

Once Dracula returns from slaking his thirst for blood, he's confronted by one of his slaves, Lord Henry from Parliament, who has miraculously broken free of Dracula's control and makes a failed attempt to kill him, after which he ends up taking his own life. At first, Dracula, believing it was Lord Henry who was behind Shiela's harassment, seeks to reassure her that her nightmare is over--but the laughter that surrounds the pair afterward tells them, and ourselves, that the torment that Shiela has been experiencing is far from over.

You would think that the fact that Shiela has only now suffered a vicious attack--within arm's reach of Dracula, who was virtually helpless to prevent it--would make it impossible for Shiela to even consider sleeping, despite Dracula's consoling words. Mostly, however, the scene opens the door to Dracula himself facing this bizarre threat from whatever is stalking the halls of this castle.

"The Curse Of Dracula!"

 

OR: "London Victims Are Falling Down"

Though there was a surprising lack of special annual issues for the Tomb Of Dracula series, even with over sixty issues to its credit, readers were able to turn to no less than five such efforts in the Giant-Size books which were hitting the stands in droves during the mid-1970s--beginning with Giant-Size Chillers, which, as was the case with the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man, would adjust its masthead to headline its principal character with succeeding issues.

Padded with reprinted material (which was often the case even with genuine annuals), the mid-1974 issue still featured a new 24-page story (officially numbering 32 when factoring in ad pages, a little sleight-of-hand which I never appreciated in the sales game) as well as an intriguing new character--Lilith, Dracula's estranged daughter, who has received generous exposure in the PPC (along with her hated father, it goes without saying). Produced by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, the same writer/artist team who headed the main book (currently at its 21st issue at this point in time), it would instead be inker Frank Chiaramonte's work we'll be seeing here rather than that of Tom Palmer, turning in splendid pages and meshing quite well with Colan's style.

There are essentially two separate stories in play throughout the issue--but the stunning splash page we're greeted with (seen here to include its original published copy) leaves little doubt that the character who will take center stage is Dracula, who while having had dealings in London since his revival now moves to insert himself in the lives of those in government who are positioned to better help him safeguard his continued existence.

To Die Anew!

 

At the end of its run in the fall of 1998, X-Factor lost its leader, Alex Summers (aka Havok, the brother of the X-Man Cyclops), presumed dead from an explosion of the airborne ship he had boarded in an attempt to stabilize its systems. Yet the following month, a new series began that took advantage of the ruptured craft having space-time properties to merge Alex's essence with the body of his counterpart in an alternate reality, a man who had just met his own death at the hands of the Sentinels--and subsequently, Alex fell in with the Havok-led group of mutants named The Six, whose history and whose world were dramatically different from his own.

The first issue of the new series has already received its due in the PPC--yet now we jump ahead over 2½ years to its final issue, the one story missing from my collection of Mutant X which I'm now going to take a look at for the first time. Writer Howard Mackie has helmed this series from beginning to end--and we arrive at a time of crisis for this world, for its heroes, and certainly for Alex Summers, who doesn't appear free from the capricious whims of whatever fate brought him to an Earth for which he alone holds the key to its survival.

As far as world-ending threats go, who or what could be responsible for such a doomsday scenario on a global scale? How about this universe's version of the Beyonder--who has broken free of his imprisonment at the Earth's core thanks to a battle with a mutated version of Captain America, and who takes a crash course in getting up to speed with current events before setting his sights on one person in particular. [Images taken from the third and final Mutant X Annual.]

More Than Human

 

At first glance, this doesn't appear to be an individual to trifle with:

After all, anyone who raises a fist and tells Satan off is generally someone to steer clear of--especially when that person embodies the power of Dracula, the lord of vampires. But what if you were to learn that the haughty person standing on the precipice of this skyscraper, seeking to get some of his own back--is, instead, human?

Well, you'd probably call 911 and report a guy who looks like he's off his rocker and may be a jumper--but in our case, we know that Dracula is in a pitiable, all-too-human state, having been subjected to no small amount of humiliation and frustration due to Satan's transformation of him, not to mention escaping near-death from an aggrieved father as well as his own daughter.

To understand how he incurred Satan's notice and his wrath, we look back to when the still-vampire lord found himself standing before a very angry prince of darkness, who looked upon Dracula as a means to an end in terms of his own survival.

But there is more at work concerning Dracula's son, Janus, than even Satan is aware of--and the dark prince has miscalculated in his assumption that the removal of Dracula's threat would in turn trigger Janus's departure from Earth.

Fifty Years of Marvel Comics

 

What were some of you doing five decades ago? It's funny when you reach certain points where you find yourself recalling the world as it was then, and the realization hits that you lived during that period of time and lived through many of the events and changes which took place. For those of you in high school right now, you'll experience your own reflections of today's world in the year two-thousand seventy-two (!) -- and if you're like the rest of us, you're understandably not looking that far down the road, nor can you have a true conception of how your world, its people, its advances, and your own way of life will change.

Regrettably, it's safe to assume that by 2072 the price of a comic book will probably be around the cost of a monthly house payment, so be sure to factor that into your budget.

Fifty years ago, my own calendar would have put me at the year 1972, fourteen years old and looking forward to starting high school the next year. Here's a little of what my world looked like at the time:

• NASA was one flight away from closing out its Apollo moon mission, where America established itself as a pioneer of a sort but eventually realized it was spending a lot of money just to collect moon rocks;
  

• The SX-70 Polaroid camera was introduced, giving us film prints which developed themselves "right before your eyes"--an alternative to dropping your film off at "photo marts," but still too slow for those who reasoned that shaking the print feverishly would speed up the process (a reminder to think twice before following a wacky trend);
  
• Born in April of that year: actresses Jennifer Garner, Jenni Garth and Carmen Electra;
  
• The United States was nine months away from withdrawing its forces from Vietnam;
  
• The world's first law to officially recognize change of gender passed in Sweden;
  
• Winners of the 44th Academy Awards included The French Connection, Jane Fonda, Cloris Leachman, and Gene Hackman;
  
• The price of gas was at $0.55/gallon; the cost of a new home was around $30,000; a new car, $3,800; average rent, $165/mo.
  
• The home videogame industry took its first baby step with inventor Ralph Baer's patent for "A Television Gaming Apparatus and Method" (i.e., the home video game console).

But if you were a Marvel Comics reader in April, 1972, your focus away from school was probably on the comics stand at your local drugstore, shopping mart or whatever distributor carried comic books in your town, thanks to the Bullpen Bulletins page which often included the Marvel Checklist. If your comics collecting was in full swing, here's a "snapshot" of what Marvel Comics readers were plunking down their 20¢ for.

(WARNING: Please don't try shaking this image in the air for faster loading.)

The Face Of Vengeance

 

While Tomb Of Dracula often spent quality time on Dracula's obsessions of revenge or power--whether it was his conflicts with Quincy Harker and his group, or furthering his goal of world rule by vampires, or warring with Doctor Sun, or accumulating power through his Dark Church cult, or even his periodic and invariably disastrous meetings with his daughter, Lilith--writer Marv Wolfman would also pause at times and provide a change of pace with compelling diversions into mystery and the macabre for the lord of vampires, a number of which the PPC has had the pleasure of exploring. Some that come to mind may ring familiar:

Fact vs. Fiction - Angie Turner has drawn close to her a number of fictional characters to whom she has somehow given life, but oversteps herself when she seeks to draw Dracula into that circle.

Hell Hath No Fury... - A web of deceit and murder spun by fashion executive Daphne von Wilkinson, who strikes a bargain with Dracula to take revenge against the men who screwed her over (so to speak) to facilitate their own ambitions.

Journal Of Darkness - A compendium of instances where Dracula has paused to reflect on those times in his life which filled him with pride, or rage, or even regret.

In Death Do We Join! - In the Russian village of Kamenka, an abusive husband returns from the grave as a vampire to menace his wife, in spite of the commands of Dracula to fall in line.

Return From The Grave! - A corpse rises from the grave to reclaim his own--a mystery which draws the attention of Scotland Yard, and defies even Dracula.

More such tales are in the offing here, never (heh heh) fear--but one tale which surely falls into this category comes from mid-1976, when Dracula was establishing his power base in his satanic cult and makes preparations to take part in a ceremony where he will be joined with a wife. Yet the nuptials of the "Dark-Lord" will be overshadowed by a gruesome threat from a dead man--one who seeks revenge against those responsible for bringing his life to an untimely, acidic end!

 

Cry Dentist!

 

A few weeks ago, alert PPC reader M.P. made an interesting observation of how artists will at times exaggerate a villain's facial features, specifically their mouths and teeth (as seen in a related post).

Well, you didn't expect me to leave a carrot like that dangling in front of me, did you?

Or, as Captain Axis might put it:

My Daughter... My Victim!

"Where's the fun in having power... if you can't go out and abuse it now and again?"
- Lilith, daughter of Dracula

With their contentious relationship a never-ending one, it's usually a pleasant surprise to come across another tale featuring the dysfunctional father-daughter duo of Dracula and his despised and despising offspring, Lilith--which, due to their nature as immortal vampires, can take place practically anywhere and at anytime. In 2007, we discover that they maintain their antipathy for each other even in the 21st century, courtesy of a story featuring Morbius (the "living vampire") that takes the spotlight but makes room for a fourteen-page backup feature which once again has Lilith and her father crossing paths.

Though what kind of a father would Dracula be if he didn't impart a lesson in humility when seeing his daughter once more--and in the process, shall we say, drawing first blood?

Howl Of The Werewolf! Rage Of The Vampire!

During 1944-45, Universal Pictures sated demand for the Wolfman, Dracula, and the Frankenstein monster by giving us The House of Frankenstein and, just a week short of one year later, House of Dracula, the only two films up to that point where all three horror figures appear together--though, astonishingly, never on screen in the same scene at the same time. That honor was reserved for the 1948 film Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein--and while it was only a momentary glimpse, one of my favorite still shots at least gives us an idea of how things might look had our three horror figures actually joined forces (if only against two hapless comedians).

Interestingly enough, if you take Bud Abbott and Lou Costello out of the mix, that film would have made for compelling viewing--well directed by Charles Barton, and excellent acting by Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. (who both played it wonderfully straight despite the antics of Abbott and Costello).

In the comics world, these monsters of old would also meet on occasion, often with no love lost between them. We've seen such an example with a clash in 1973 between Dracula and the Frankenstein monster--and in the following year, a crossover story with double the fangs (and hopefully double the fun) would be presented featuring the very pairing of monsters which in the A&C film engaged in a battle that led to their mutual end. Neither of these fearsome characters is likely to perish here, with each having their own title--nevertheless, there will be enough bloodshed to go around.

Once again, artist Gene Colan delivers on a symbolic splash page, eh?

Loose Ends and Revelations!

Having recently raised an eyebrow at a Defenders tale which featured the return of Dracula to the land of the (un)living--the sight of which registered hardly any shock at all with Dr. Strange, even though the sorcerer had believed he had seen to Dracula's final death in a prior encounter--writer Roger Stern's later "fix" for that slight oversight brought to mind a number of other instances where writers were obliged to be creative in convoluted plots that were rather difficult to accept at face value, or, as was the case with Strange, a character needed to be extracted from a "tight spot" that was inadvertently left hanging and never resolved.

Following are a few such instances that sprang to mind for me, and I feel certain that many of you have some of your own to share, so please feel free to put on your thinking caps along with yours truly.  :D

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In terms of convoluted plots, it's hard to top this little gem, which opened the door to a virtual tsunami of clone convolution that went on for decades.

Send in the clones--and send them Marvel did, starting with Gwen, who turns out to be the creation of the Jackal, a.k.a. Prof. Miles Warren, who took the original Gwen's death quite hard and decided in his deranged mind that it need not be the case.

How a clone of Gwen emerged with all of the original's memories is anyone's guess; it certainly qualifies for an entry in the PPC's Weird Science category, to be sure. The success of the Gwen-clone (and, hard on her heels, the Peter-clone) storyline spawned clone stories ad nauseam. Gwen's clone even caused a little convolution of her own down the line, giving birth to twins who were manipulated into seeking revenge against Spider-Man for their mother's death. And the identity of their father? Norman Osborn. That's right, you heard me.

"Deliver Us From Evil!"

Earlier, we witnessed a desperate struggle between the forces of Dracula and a group led by Dr. Strange to take possession of the Darkhold, a bound book of writings that originated with the demon Chthon millennia ago--including the so-called Montesi formula, which details spells that would allow one to eradicate the specter of vampirism from the entire world. In a crucial moment, Strange was able to relocate the Darkhold to Castle Mordo in Transylvania, where he and his group of friends have finally reached it; but Dracula has followed, and is prepared to take any steps he must to retrieve it!

The stakes are high for each side of this conflict. If Strange succeeds, Dracula and his ilk across the entire planet will be destroyed--but should Dracula prevail, the lives of Strange and the others will be forfeit, and Dracula will reign supreme.

Come the dawn--who will hold the Darkhold?

Rise Of The Vampire!

It would be five years to the month (by our calendars) before Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, would meet again with Dracula, Lord of Vampires, after having narrowly avoided a living death at the hands (er, fangs) of Dracula in their first encounter. But just as Strange then had need of Dracula in order to save his servant, Wong, from the curse of the undead, their next meeting has their roles reversed, as this time it is Dracula who will need the skills of the Sorcerer Supreme as well as the might of his associates, the Defenders, in order to defeat the plans of the Six-Fingered Hand--a collective demonic entity whose goal is ultimately to merge Earth and Hell.

To that end, in order to remove the Defenders from possible interference, one of those demons, Puishannt, has empowered Gordski, one of Dracula's minor vampires, to be the new Lord of Vampires--even as no less than a dozen demons take possession of Dracula and drive him to physically attack Strange and the Defenders in the sorcerer's sanctum with the intent of slaying them. With the assistance of the Son of Satan in deciphering the truth, the attack fails--and Dracula is forced to depend on Strange to clear up the mystery of who had taken control of him, and why.

Having "eavesdropped" on the conversation between Gordski and Puishannt which reveals their complicity, Dracula and Strange realize that foiling this scheme is in all of their best interests, and reluctantly form a temporary alliance--though clearly, none of the Defenders are any happier with the decision than Dracula, an alliance made for the sake of expediency and, as Strange notes, common cause.

Clearly, Strange has brushed aside any surprise he might have felt at seeing Dracula among the living again (so to speak)--as well as, in light of the present danger from the Hand, any sense of responsibility he might have otherwise felt for finishing the task of dealing with Dracula's threat. It could be argued that the Defenders have no need to strike up an agreement with Dracula in order to battle one of the Hand (a point which, indeed, would be validated in the story's conclusion); but Dracula means to act no matter which way the pendulum swings here, and Strange and Hellstrom perhaps feel that choosing to meet one threat would allow the other to act unchecked.

In the end, the conflict demands that Hellstrom uphold his end of their agreement by conveying to Dracula valuable information that saves him from perishing with the rest of their foes. Yet, a little over two years later, Dracula and Strange would cross paths again, when Dracula's plans for ultimate power lead him on a quest to locate the Darkhold, a bound collection of parchments left on Earth by the demon Chthon--a demon the Avengers would encounter through the demon's possession of the Scarlet Witch, a woman who Strange now seeks out to help him reach the book first and thereby keep it out of Dracula's hands.

But how did Dracula learn of the Darkhold--and what's his interest in it?

For the answer, we'll have to flip the pages to yet another

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Marvel Trivia Question

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What's the official explanation for how vampires came to inhabit the Marvel universe?

The Tomb of Dr. Strange

Welcome to Part 2 of a gripping story where Dr. Strange, the Master of the Mystic Arts, sought out none other than Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, for retribution in bringing the curse of the undead to Strange's faithful manservant, Wong.

Clearly, the battle didn't go as the Sorcerer Supreme had hoped.

With Strange now dead--yet more than dead, his corpse waiting to return to "life" as a vampire--it would seem to be game, set and match for the character, unless Marvel plans to continue with him as a vampire/sorcerer (with obvious vulnerabilities that his foes can exploit). But the situation is even worse for him, since Dracula plans to enslave Strange when he rises in three days' time.

But there is a part of the human Dr. Strange which still survives--though that fact will do the survivor precious little good, under the circumstances.

This isn't exactly the time to pile on and add to Strange's problems... but with his body dead and drained of blood, and his heart and other organs no longer functioning, what was he planning to accomplish in merging his astral form with it? (Then again, Strange started out as "the master of Black Magic," so I wouldn't put it past him to be able to reanimate a corpse. Though that's bound to throw a damper on his love life.)

With this new setback, Strange's options are practically exhausted--but he presses on, nonetheless.

Can Strange pull a rabbit out of his amulet? Or will the time come when he must resign himself to his fate?

The Hunt And The Horror!

In May of 1976, there was no shortage of decent Marvel comics in the spinner rack to choose from:

• Luke Cage, controlled by the Puppet Master, was battling it out with Ben Grimm, who had just started "suiting up" as the Thing;
• Jane Foster fought to free Thor from a Gypsy spell that had also enthralled Firelord;
• Spider-Man faced the strange threat of Mirage;
• The Hulk was fighting off both Doc Samson and SHIELD;
• Over in The Defenders, Chondu of the Headmen, horrified to see the new body which his associates had transferred his mind into, took his anger out on the Valkyrie;
• The new X-Men were having their first meeting with the Sentinels and closing in on their 100th issue;
• Iron Man was taking on Blizzard;
• Captain America was fighting his way through the Elite's "kill-derby";
• And the Avengers were trapped on a parallel Earth and fighting the Squadron Supreme over the Serpent Crown.

But hopefully some of you also set aside four bits for a compelling crossover story taking place in two separate titles distributed for sale in the same month, featuring the first meeting between Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, and Dracula, Lord of Vampires--both tales drawn and embellished by artists Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, a welcome touch not only because both were highly acclaimed veterans of these characters but also because in a way you were reading a single 34-page comic (er, split into two, but you catch my drift). The fateful story begins in the Tomb Of Dracula title, where readers not yet realizing this was a crossover story couldn't have been happy to turn the final page to find a nail-biting ending that would be resolved in a book they'd failed to notice earlier.

For Dracula, this marks his first encounter with a mainstream Marvel character*, with the circumstances of their meeting proving to be shocking enough on their own--specifically, the death of Strange's manservant, Wong, attacked and drained of blood by Dracula. With Dracula located in Boston at this point in time, it's anyone's guess why Wong was such a distance from New York, roughly 200 miles away from Strange's sanctum. Yet it's admittedly a trivial matter with any number of available explanations, and certainly of no consequence in comparison to Wong meeting his death at the hands of a vampire; and while it seems certain that the only way we're going to be seeing Wong again is in an undead state, his master yet holds out hope for an alternative as he delves into the mystery of his disappearance.

*Unless you're counting his encounter with Werewolf By Night Jack Russell--or his non-meeting with Spider-Man, where the two only crossed paths but never dealt with each other directly.

And so the foundation is laid for Strange's hunt for his friend's murderer--but is it retribution he seeks, or something much more?

My Son... My Murderer!

When we last left Dracula, the Lord of the Undead... well, most people would finish that sentence with "...we were running for our lives!" But since we're merely readers reflecting on fiction, we can harmlessly cast our thoughts back to when we found Dracula in a grieving rage following the death of his infant son, Janus. That night, Dracula purged himself of a great deal of anguish and regret--and now, he heads back to the satanic church which was to become his power base in America, in order to rejoin his wife, Domini, and consider their future.

But Domini has her own plans for this evening--and she has returned to a cemetery in Cambridge, where she prepares a ritual that will wipe away her grief and sense of loss if it succeeds. Though there is one who will do his utmost to prevent it.

The Purging And The Plan!

While it's true that Dracula, the Lord of Vampires, can fly into a rage for any number of reasons, we tend to learn more about this sadistic and evil yet complicated man when that rage is the result of either personal betrayal or personal loss. One example of the latter can be found in his distant past, when his second wife, Maria, a woman he truly loved, was killed by an enemy Turk named Turac when they were both held captive, just shortly after Dracula became a vampire; and while perceived betrayal is nothing new to him, one instance that resonated deeply with him was when Shiela Whittier, a young woman he took pity on and unexpectedly found himself growing closer to, left him for another when she could no longer stomach his true nature.

Yet such instances pale beside the moment when Dracula's infant son, Janus, was slain before his eyes by Anton Lupeski, a priest in his satanic church whose intent was to kill Dracula but whose rifle shot instead hit the baby. You can correctly assume that Lupeski didn't survive the night; yet rather than to the side of his wife, Domini, the night is where Dracula retreats to vent his rage, his despair... and his deadly wrath.