Wednesday, October 10, 2012

31 Days of Dracula | The Tomb of Dracula (1972)



Leave it to Marvel, man. They're the company that took superheroes out of the silliness of DC's Silver Age and made them real and relatable, so it makes sense that at a time when the classic monsters were mostly seen as silly camp, Marvel would come along and make them cool and scary again.

The flagship of Marvel's horror line was Tomb of Dracula by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Wolfman kept Dracula menacing by making him the villain who menaced a group of vampire hunters. And though Colan kept the vampire's famous cape, he gave him a unique look by basing him on Jack Palance instead of Lugosi or any other actor who'd played him on screen. Although...

Palance didn't make the cut for my 31, but the year after Tomb of Dracula was published he actually played the character in a made-for-TV movie that also starred Sarah Douglas (Superman II, Conan the Destroyer) as one of Dracula's wives. Need to see that.

3 comments:

Austin Gorton said...

I've read embarassingly little Tomb of Dracula, despite having the essentials sitting on my shelf. Halloween might be the time to start...

Wings1295 said...

I didn't realize Dracula was the villain in this comic, I thought it was more of Dracula-as-superhero stuff! Might have to find some of these and check them out.

The movie sounds cool, too!

Michael May said...

Teebore, tell me what you think! I've been meaning to get that Essentials and haven't gotten around to it yet.

You too, Joe!

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