Back in March we took a look at Tomb of Dracula #45, which in addition to chronicling the first face-to-face meeting between Blade, the Vampire Slayer, and Hannibal King, the Vampire Detective (and their subsequent decision to team up against their common enemy Deacon Frost) also served as the kickoff for a major new story arc, as our titular star became acquainted with a congregation of Satan worshipers and got the brilliant idea not just to pose as their infernal Dark Lord, but to take one of their number, the lovely and mysterious Domini, in unholy matrimony.
One thing you’ve got to say about ol’ Vlad — once he gets the notion of tying the knot, he doesn’t waste any time. As heralded by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer’s cover for ToD #46, the very next issue provided us with “The Marriage of Dracula!” Talk about your brief engagements, amirite? But despite what that same cover implied — that Drac and Dom’s nuptials were destined to be disrupted by a blank-visaged intruder called “the Faceless Fiend” — said ceremony would in fact come off without so much as a single hitch, as depicted in the opening pages of the story crafted by Colan, Palmer, and writer Marv Wolfman:
As regular readers will recall, in issue #45 Dracula had tried to remove this painting of Jesus from the deconsecrated church in which he and his new flock of followers have set up shop — and had failed. That had given us readers a strong hint that this particular visual representation of Christianity’s central figure was much more than a mere work of art — an impression pretty well clinched here by the revelation that the painted face of Christ is evidently capable of shedding real tears (not that anyone seems to notice).
At this point the story departs from Dracula and company to set up the other major plotline of this issue, which involves a murdered employee of an industrial company who returns from the dead to take gruesome revenge on his employers. Said bosses kill this poor schmuck when he threatens to expose their illegal pollution practices, then toss his body into a pipeline full of acid wastes which strips him of his facial features — yep, he’s the Faceless Fiend promised by the book’s cover. It’s a good little “just deserts” horror yarn in the grand EC Comics tradition — Colan and Palmer’s depiction of the revenant’s gruesome progress as he “replaces” his stolen features one by one at the expense of his hapless victims (an eye here, an ear there, and so son) is quite effective — but it involves Dracula only incidentally, and its interpolation into a story chronicling what should be a major event in the overall Tomb of Dracula saga feels awkward, at least to this reader, throwing the whole issue weirdly off balance
After setting up the “Faceless Fiend” business, our storytellers check in with Blade and Hannibal King just long enough to let us know that the unfortunate vamp they used as an informant in the previous installment has been dispatched off-panel by means of Blade “splitting him ear-to-ear”, in King’s phrase. Yeesh. And then, it’s back to Drac:
Dracula flies away from the church, carrying his bride off to… some secluded place that’s left unspecified by text or art. (Since there’s a coffin already on site, my guess is that it’s the deserted manse previously occupied by Dr. Sun, which Drac used briefly as home base following the latter’s defeat in ToD #42.) They chat for a couple of panels, until the Count decides he needs solitude to contemplate the meaning of the love he’s unexpectedly found himself feeling for Domini. So he flies away again, leaving her alone on her wedding night. Some honeymoon, huh?
Drac is also feeling a bit peckish, which is how he finally gets involved with the Faceless Fiend; a woman he randomly selects to be his dinner is by sheer coincidence one of the Fiend’s murderers, and so the Lord of the Vampires gets caught in the middle of things when he finds he has competition for his prey. But Dracula’s participation in the action is ultimately inconsequential; the Fiend completes his vengeance despite the vampire’s interference, slaying all his slayers and reconstructing his face (sort of)… only to find it’s all meaningless:
Anybody want to bet that poor, hungry Dracula doesn’t manage to grab a quick bite before winging his way back to Domini? I didn’t think so.
Anyway, this brings us at last to the main topic of today’s post — i.e., Tomb of Dracula #47, which behind another moody cover by Colan and Palmer finds them and Wolfman continuing their ongoing tale:
“Perhaps,” Dracula replies. “But it is hard for me to think in those terms, Domini. I have existed so very long, been so many people in so many lands –” He proceeds to reflect aloud upon his beginnings, when he was the mortal monarch Vlad the Impaler, prior to his being made a vampire: “A soldier I was… and once I sought to dominate this world by force. Now I seek to dominate through thought.
“But in the end… I still seek domination. That is all a warrior ever desires.”
Blade, King, and Saffron head for the apartment Blade has rented for them in Cambridge; once they get there, however, Blade tells his grumpy ally to make himself scarce for an hour or so: “Go rob a blood bank or something, huh?” Say no more, nudge nudge, wink wink.
The scene then shifts to Beacon Hill, and to the series’ alleged comic relief characters, Harold H. Harold and Aurora Rabinowitz, who are about to have their first official date:
From there, it’s on to Boston Common, where we find a somewhat more serious couple, Rachel van Helsing and Frank Drake, having a decidedly more serious talk. Or, rather, Rachel is trying to talk to Frank about the super-macho way he’s been behaving lately. Frank, however, isn’t hearing it — in fact, he accuses Rachel of being “jealous of the man I’ve become.” Or maybe she’s “frightened“, seeing as how he’s “a heckuva lot stronger” than he used to be. “From where I sit, Rachel — you’re the one with problems — not me.”
And that’s all the time and space we have for subplots and supporting characters this issue, as we now head back to the Church of Dracula…
“To be one with you in the way of man and wife…” Um, is that even possible? Can Count Dracula, a vampire, engage in the act of sexual intercourse? Up until this point, Marvel’s various chroniclers of Dracula’s exploits over the centuries (as had been featured in the now-defunct Dracula Lives and Giant-Size Dracula titles as well as in ToD) had managed to keep the answer to that question ambiguous.
Okay, so… no physical hanky-panky. Got it. Even so, whatever mystical “union” is taking place here evidently requires both Dracula and Domini getting naked (well, Dracula isn’t completely nude, but he does appear to be unclothed where it, um, counts, if you know what I mean). That, and the fact that our storytellers make it perfectly clear that Jesus is watching while all this is going on make me a little surprised that this page got through the Comics Code Authority.
Dracula turns to mist before the murderous intruder fires his weapon in his direction, but swiftly returns to his corporeal human form to take care of business — first carelessly knocking the man’s gun aside, then seizing him when he tries to flee…
The final page of this story, quiet as it is, is one of my favorites in the entire run of Tomb of Dracula. Colan and Palmer do a masterful job of communicating emotional content through their characters’ body language and facial expressions, despite the minimal changes in both from one panel to the next. And Wolfman’s text, which explicitly tells us what Domini understands (and what Dracula is entirely oblivious to) regarding the events they’ve just experienced, provides a perfect counterpoint to the images.
Of course, back in May, 1976 that text resonated for me personally in a way it no longer can; as I’ve written about many times before, I was raised a devout Southern Baptist, and when I first read this story I was still a firm believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ and in the saving grace of his forgiveness. Fifty years later, that’s no longer the case; but while I obviously can no longer nod my head in approval at the writer’s doctrinal acumen while reading this scene (for the record, I don’t know if I was aware in 1976 that Marv Wolfman is in fact Jewish; probably not), I still find it to be a powerful and moving piece of storytelling.
To my mind, this sequence also serves — as indeed does the whole “Church/Bride/Son of Dracula” saga that’s now underway — as a sterling example of how to use unambiguously religious themes in a mainstream comic-book story in a subtle and respectful way that neither debases nor exalts the belief system of any one set of readers over or against that of another. The fact that this was all orchestrated by Marv Wolfman — who in addition to being the writer/editor of Tomb of Dracula was at this particular time the editor-in-chief of Marvel’s entire color line — makes it exceedingly puzzling how things went so wrong in another Christ-featuring storyline going on at the very same time over in another Marvel comic — one that spectacularly crashed and burned in the very same month that ToD #47 came out. But that’s a topic for another post… our very next one, as a matter of fact. So please, stay tuned for the strange, sad story of Ghost Rider #19, coming your way next Saturday.
Nicely drawn, but not my subject matter at all.
The only August 1976 cover-dated comic book I owned was Blitzkrieg no. 4, a DC war book with a Joe Kubert cover (which most of them had). I was reading Jim Starlin’s Darklon the Mystic, and Eerie magazine no. 82 had an Auguat 1976 cover date as well. But the bargain bins in flea markets and like venues were loaded with silver and bronze age comics, and I was really enjoying ’60s Marvel titles I had missed, and some late ’60s/early ’70s DC comics that had passed me by. These were sold for *less* than cover price, and by 1977 I had, at age 12, a *thousand* comics and comics magazines in my collection, a number of which were inherited from my older brothers who had moved on to other interests.
Didn’t read TOD when it was out but I have this in the Essentials collections (and B&W doesn’t hurt the art at all, of course). As you say, very effective.
Dracula’s proposal that his son be born on Dec. 25 may reflect that the Anti-Christ is supposed to mirror Jesus in a lot of ways, while being evil. Then again, it’s an obvious enough idea Wolfman may have conceived of that birthday without knowing any antiChristology.
Wasn’t yet collecting ToD regularly at this point 50 years ago, but it was fascinating the turn Wolfman was taking with the series, with an adoring cult, marriage and “baby” soon to come. Maybe Marv saw the writing on the wall of the horror mag boom winding down in popularity and opted for some significant changes in the mag, essentially starting a series of connected storylines that would culminate with the final issue about two years later. Rather like Ditko’s runs on Dr. Strange & Hulk and the high period of Kirby’s run on Thor, circa ’65 – ’68, ToD became like a soap opera with stories continually bleeding into the next rather than coming to full stops before the next one.
This also brought to my mind the use of cults in the Thomas/Colan run on Dr. Strange in the late ’60s, with the Sons of the Satannish and that of the Nameless One. Marv must have had a thing for faceless characters as he later created a similarly faceless character for Nova a little over a year later. Naturally, this one was rather more grotesque and certainly Marv was using his fate, dissolving into a puddle of goo after having achieved his vengeance and finding it a futile venture as a counter-point to Dracula’s outrage at being denied the vengeance he sought at the Faceless One having taken his prey out from under him. Dracula’s own existence was focused on his lusts for blood, power and vengeance, which could never be fully sated.
Regarding Drac’s capacity to mate with and have an offspring with a normal mortal woman, I didn’t give it much deep thought back in the day and even now I consider it no more bizarre than an Atlantean princess mating with a Homo sapiens captain to produce Namor, or an Earthling woman mating with a Vulcan man to produce Mr. Spock, etc. Just par for the course for fantasy fiction in which any number of bizarre things that don’t make any real world sense just matter-of-factly happen in the multi-dimensions of imagination. Including Drac transforming into a sort of humanoid-bat but with both wings to fly and arms to hold his bride while flying, which is, um, batshit crazy because as with birds, a bats wings are its “arms” and their wings are not capable of holding anything, never mind a fully grown woman! And for that matter, there are no existent flying animals that can carry anything that heavy. Maybe pterodactyls could have, but they would have to have had to hold her with their feet. But, hey, by story necessity, Drac needed to morph into a creature of pure fantasy with both human arms and bat wings and by the magic of fantasy art, presto, it was done!
Still not a fan of ToD overall, but I do like it when these stories intertwine with the religious faith I grew up with, so reading it now, fifty years after publication, I like it better now that I would have thought. However, as you hinted at, Alan, I also believe that in his rush to get ol’ Toothy to the altar, Wolfman skipped a LOT of character-developement material that could have only made the book a better read. Some background on Domini, something on her relationship with her father, even a bit more about who Lupeski is and what motivates him and his church; even a bit of history on that painting of Christ and where it came from, would have been helpful in understanding just what brought everyone to this desecrated church at this particular time to join in this unholy endevor. Maybe it only felt this way because you weren’t presenting every page of the book and we weren’t able to read it fully the way it was intended, but everyone seemed as though they were in such a hurry, first to get the wedding pact sealed and then to get Domini pregnant, that there was no time for any explanations or backstory. So much so, that the interludes where we looked in on Blade and King and then Howard and Aurora and Rachel and Frank, seemed like unnecessary distractions keeping us away from the main story and the room needed to tell it properly.
As for the art, I’m going to stop complaining about Colan’s work during this period and just admit that it’s very good for Colan and most of it I find quite pleasing. Do they make it to the birth of the child on December 25 or is that a story that gets lost in cancellation limbo somewhere? If not, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I look forward to seeing where this goes. Thanks, Alan!
“Do they make it to the birth of the child on December 25 or is that a story that gets lost in cancellation limbo somewhere?”
Unto us a child will be born, Don. But that’s the only spoiler you’re getting for now! 😉
I have no problem admitting that I was a dumb kid. Oh sure, I had good grades, did my homework and knew that small forks were for salads. But that I read both Werewolf By Night and Ghost Rider yet deliberately avoided this series – even though I knew it was good – is all the evidence needed to prove my shortcomings.
To go a bit deeper, I think my reasons were the blurry lines between “good” and “evil.” Trying to be a good Catholic, I was uncomfortable with so many aspects of this series – certainly including that painting of Christ. I worried that reading this series would have forced a harsh punishment from above – ranging from getting on the wrong side of some bully or a huge zit manifesting upon my forehead on the day I would find courage to ask Linda Sue to be my girlfriend.
Goofiness aside, I also agree with Don in that Wolfman should have taken a bit more time to delve more deeply to establish the backgrounds and motivations of the characters he introduced into this storyline. Given the talents of Colan-Palmer, those scenes would have been every bit engaging as every other panel in the book.
This review reminds me again that I need to delve into this series – hoping that my wife will understand if my forehead suddenly sports a humongous pimple.
Thanks, Alan, for getting this Saturday off to a proper start!
That werewolf By Night review you promise will be a hard pill to swallow. What appeared on page bothered me then and still bothers me and I was as devout in my born again Christianity as you back then.
I don’t know if it’s intentional or an unconscious part of Gene Colan’s imaginative layouts, but on the page with ‘no physical hanky-panky’, Colan uses what are apparently bolts of energy or mystical power as panel borders, and there is one going directly from Drac’s “where it, um, counts” straight to Domini’s ‘unmentionable down-belows’.
Have to agree that it seemed odd that the Comics Code Authority weren’t all over this with major concerns. Did they even read what was in front of them? We had this conversation a little while back, with Jim Starlin on Warlock sneaking some foreign-language (and mild) profanity past the Authority while they ignored the larger picture of the series-lead planning his own suicide. What exactly did the Code look at?
A public forum like this isn’t the place for religious debates. I’d only say that I’d probably describe myself as pretty much agnostic then and now (‘I don’t really know’), but even I was a bit surprised (then and now) that this subject matter (however well written) made it past the Code.
About twenty years ago I purchased a complete run of ToD and read the whole of it over the course of about three months, and it was one of the most enjoyable comics reading experiences I’ve ever had.
It was a remarkable book due to the consistency of the creative team and the fact that it became better and better throughout its run. The last couple of years are particularly superb with their ongoing interweaving plotlines that pushed the boundaries and showed what an ongoing character-driven horror comic book could be, several years before Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing.
For what it’s worth:
“The Wilderness Family” (or “The Adventures of the Wilderness Family”) and “Psychic Killer” are both 1975 movies.
I suppose production schedules couldn’t allow for something actually released in1976 to be referenced, but it’s something of an improvement over Bobby, Zelda, Hank and Vera talking in 1966 about seeing either “Goldfinger” (released in 1964) or “Thunderball” (released in 1965).*
Or Gwen Stacy wanting to mark Betty Friedan’s birthday in 1971 by taking Peter Parker to see “Love Story” (1970) or “I Am Curious (Yellow)” (released in the U.S. in 1969; two years after it was shown elsewhere).**
Blame this on seeing “I Fell in Love with a Z-Grade Director in Brooklyn” last night and having to go online to learn what “Roxy Was Always Evil” meant.
Thank you for putting me living into the Tomb of Dracula once more and then deftly extracting me!***
*
See *The X-Men* #22.
**
See *The Amazing Spider-Man* #101.
***
Decades after reading Harlan Ellison’s “All the Lies that Are My Life,” with its reference to Rufus Griswold’s treatment of Edgar Allan Poe in Daniel Hoffman’s *Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe,* I finally read the book.
Anyone up for a Mad Trist at the House of Usher?
Or an episode of “The Dukes of Hazzard” with Aunt May, which once would have been an episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies”?
In the blood cutting scene there’s no red – I wonder was this an artistic decision or the Code preventing graphic deceptions of blood and no vivid colour?