Wesley Snipes brings the comic book vampire hero Blade to life on the screen. Dracula (Marvel Comics Character)
(pop culture)Immediately after the Comics Code was revised in 1972 (lifting the ban on vampires that had been in effect since 1954), Marvel Comics moved to issue several horror titles that fell within the new guidelines. One of these was a series based on Count Dracula. The Tomb of Dracula, which devised a completely new set of adventures for the count, and became one of the most successful vampire-oriented comic books of the century. The central hero was Frank Drake, a descendant of the count, whose family had abandoned the family estate and anglicized their name. Drake had inherited the family fortune but quickly squandered it. Destitute, his only asset was Castle Dracula. As the story opened, Drake traveled to Transylvania to see the castle with the idea of either selling it or turning it into a tourist attraction. Accompanying him were his girlfriend Jeanie and another friend, Clifton Graves, who had originally suggested the possible value of the castle.
As they explored the castle, Graves discovered the crypt containing the remains of Dracula, complete with the stake in his heart. Graves pulled out the stake, thus awakening the count. Dracula confronted Drake and Jeanie but was driven off by her silver compact. While the pair considered the implication of the encounter, Dracula fled to the nearby town to find fresh blood. After the townspeople found the body of Dracula’s first victim, they marched on the castle and set fire to it.
Drake, Jeanie, and Graves went back to London, and the count followed. Drake sold the Transylvania property but his more immediate problem was that Jeanie had been bitten by Dracula and was now a vampire. During Drake’s next confrontation with the count, Jeanie was killed. Distraught, Drake attempted suicide. He was stopped by Rachel Van Helsing, granddaughter of Abraham Van Helsing, who also had dedicated her life as a vampire hunter. Taj, a mute Asian Indian, accompanied her. Rachel Van Helsing carried a crossbow whose wooden arrows amounted to wooden stakes. Together, the three set out to kill Dracula.
They were soon joined by two more vampire fighters, Quincy—not the same Quincy as in the novel—Harker (the son of Jonathan Harker and Mina Murray mentioned in the last paragraphs of the novel), and Blade, the Vampire Slayer, an African American whose mother had been killed by a vampire. A generation older than either Drake or Van Helsing, Harker used a wheelchair equipped with devices such as a weighted net and a cannon that fired poisoned wooden darts. Blade’s major weapon was a set of wooden knives. Later in the series, Hannibal King, a detective who had been turned into a vampire, allied himself with the team. He and Blade had their initial encounter not with Dracula, but with Deacon Frost, another vampire from Blade’s past.
The team fought Dracula for a decade, through seventy issues of The Tomb of Dracula. Dracula was portrayed very much as he was in popular lore. He was evil, but with some traits of human feeling, pining over love betrayed and the capture of his son by the forces of good. Drake, Van Helsing, Harker, and Blade fought him with wooden stakes (their most consistently effective tool), the crucifix, silver, fire, and daylight. While there were partial victories on both sides, each defeated character recovered to carry the series to its conclusion. For example, very early in the series Dracula was killed, but he was brought back to life. Later in the series he lost his vampiric powers for a time. As was common in Marvel Comics, Dracula made appearances in other Marvel titles (Dr. Strange, Frankenstein, Thor) and several of the Marvel characters (Silver Surfer, Werewolf by Night) appeared in The Tomb of Dracula to offer their services to defeat him.
The Marvel Dracula was strongly affected by the Hammer Dracula movies in one respect. Those bitten by Dracula died and immediately became vampires. In the novel, they were merely weakened by their first encounter. The Tomb of Dracula concluded in issue 70 with what appeared to be Dracula’s definitive death. He was killed in a confrontation with Quincy Harker, who impaled him with a silver spoke from his wheelchair. Harker also cut off Dracula’s head, stuffed his mouth with garlic, and buried both himself and Dracula under stones dislodged from Castle Dracula in an explosion.
However, the Count was quickly revived in the new series of The Tomb of Dracula issued by Marvel in a black-and-white magazine format (not covered by the revised Comics Code). When his body was discovered and the silver spoke removed, Dracula was freed for further adventures. He starred in the revived series of The Tomb of Dracula, which lasted for six issues. Over the next few years he also made guest appearances as the villain in several Marvel Comics. For example, in 1983 he had a confrontation with Dr. Strange, the super-hero with magical powers. Dr. Strange invoked what was termed the Montesi Formula, a magical incantation designed to destroy all the vampires in the world. Dracula disintegrated in the process. Hannibal King, who had never ingested human blood, was turned back into a normal man by the same process.
By the beginning of the 1990s, the Montesi Formula had weakened and vampires began to reappear in the Marvel Universe. While most of the vampires killed in 1983 remained dead, the old and powerful vampire Dracula was resurrected and made his first appearance in No. 10 of Dr. Strange Sorcerer Supreme in November 1989. Then in 1991, the The Tomb of Dracula was revived a third time by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan, for four issues published by Epic Comics, a Marvel subsidiary. The story picked up the lives of Drake and Blade ten years after the death of Dracula at the hands of Quincey Harker. Drake had continued to suffer psychological upset as he tried to deal with his own ancestry, his problems with females, and his immediate need to deal with the return of Dracula to life. They put Dracula away again, but the never-dead-for-long vampire would return in 1994 to bedevil Drake and Blade again in their further adventures as the Night-stalkers. Since then, Dracula has been a visiting villain in various Marvel comics.
Sources:
Doctor Strange. No. 62 New York: Marvel Comics, December 1983.Sienkiewicz, Bill. “Dracula.” The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe 2, 17 (August 1987): 10–13.The Tomb of Dracula. Nos. 1–70. New York: Marvel Comics, 1971–79.The Tomb of Dracula. Nos. 1–6, New York: Marvel Comics, 1979–80.The Tomb of Dracula. Nos. 1–4. New York: Epic Comics, 1991–92.The Dracula Museum see: Count Dracula Fan Club