The Tomb of Dracula #44 featured a crossover story with Doctor Strange #14, another series which was being drawn by Colan at the time. A brief meeting between Dracula and Spider-Man occurred in the first issue of Giant-Size Spider-Man. I tended to ask questions, rather than to have him assume I got the idea." ĭracula encountered the Werewolf in a crossover story beginning in The Tomb of Dracula #18 (March 1974) and continuing the same month in Werewolf by Night #15 with both chapters written by Wolfman. Colan recalled, "He'd give me a written plot, but he'd also discuss it with me over the phone. Wolfman and Colan developed a bond while working on the series, on which they collaborated closely. I got a call that very day: "It's yours." Stan didn't know what I was up to, but I spent a day at home and worked up a sample, using Jack Palance as my inspiration and sent it to Stan. Well, right then and there I auditioned for it. He didn't give me too much trouble but, as it turned out, he took that promise away, saying he had promised it to Bill Everett. When I heard Marvel was putting out a Dracula book, I confronted Stan about it and asked him to let me do it.
Palance would play Dracula in a television production of Stoker's novel the year after The Tomb of Dracula debuted.Ĭolan, already one of Marvel's most well-established and prominent artists, said he had lobbied for the assignment. Colan based the visual appearance of Marvel's Dracula not on Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or any other actor who had played the vampire on film, but rather on actor Jack Palance. Gil Kane drew many of the covers for the first few years, as he did for many other Marvel titles. The title gained stability and hit its stride when Marv Wolfman became scripter with the seventh issue, though Wolfman himself has contended that he was floundering on the series until the story arc in issues #12-14, remarking, "This storyline is when I finally figured out what this book was about." The entire run of The Tomb of Dracula was penciled by Gene Colan, with Tom Palmer inking all but #1, 2, and 8-11.
Gene Colan based his Dracula's appearance on Palance Ĭount Dracula as portrayed by Jack Palance in Bram Stoker's Dracula. However, Thomas (who had by this time succeeded Lee as the editor of The Tomb of Dracula) felt that Fox's take did not work, and took him off the book after only two issues. New writer Gardner Fox took the series in yet another direction, and introduced a romance between Frank Drake and Rachel Van Helsing, which would remain a subplot for the rest of the series. Goodwin quit after only two issues, but also made major changes to the series's direction, including the introduction of cast members Rachel Van Helsing and Taj Nital. Conway then quit the book due to an overabundance of writing assignments, and was replaced by Archie Goodwin with issue #3. Conway was allowed to plot issue #2 by himself, and wrote a story heavily influenced by the British Hammer Films - a striking departure from the first issue, which was derivative of Universal's monster movies. Though Gerry Conway is credited as sole writer of issue #1, the plot was actually written by Roy Thomas and editor Stan Lee, and Conway had no input into the issue until it had already been fully drawn. The series suffered from lack of direction for its first year most significantly, each of the first three issues was plotted by a different writer. After some discussion, it was decided to use the Dracula character, in large part because it was the most famous vampire to the general public, and also because Bram Stoker's creation and secondary characters were by that time in the public domain. Marvel had already tested the waters with a "quasi-vampire" character, Morbius, the Living Vampire, but the company was now prepared to launch a regular vampire title as part of its new line of horror books.
In 1971, the Comics Code Authority relaxed some of its longstanding rules regarding horror comics, such as a virtual ban on vampires. In addition to his supernatural battles in this series, Marvel's Dracula often served as a supervillain to other characters in the Marvel Universe, battling the likes of Blade the Vampire Slayer, Spider-Man, the Werewolf, the X-Men, Howard the Duck, and the licensed Robert E. On rare occasions, Dracula would work with these vampire hunters against a common threat or battle other supernatural threats on his own, but more often than not, he was the antagonist rather than protagonist. The 70-issue series featured a group of vampire hunters who fought Count Dracula and other supernatural menaces. The Tomb of Dracula is an American horror comic book series published by Marvel Comics from April 1972 to August 1979. Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Gardner Fox, Marv Wolfman