The Tomb of Dracula is a
horrorHorror fiction is a genre of fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle and horrify the audience. Historically, the cause of the "horror" experience has often been the intrusion of a disturbing supernatural element into everyday human experience...
comic bookA comic book is a magazine made up of narrative artwork, often accompanied by dialog and often including brief descriptive prose...
series published by
Marvel ComicsMarvel Publishing, Inc., a company doing business as Marvel Comics, produces American comic books and related media. It forms a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc....
from April 1972 to August 1979. The 70-issue series featured a group of
vampireVampires are fictional characters found in the Marvel Universe.-History:They were created roughly 15,000 years ago when a small band of sorcerers from the legendary city of Atlantis discovered a book known as the Darkhold, an indestructible text filled with arcane lore and dark magic written...
hunters who fought
Count DraculaDracula is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He is based on the vampire Count Dracula from the novel of the same name by author Bram Stoker, and is also influenced by Universal Studios' version of the character....
and other
supernaturalThe term supernatural or supranatural pertains to an order of existence beyond the scientifically visible universe. Religious miracles are typically supernatural claims, as are spells and curses, divination, the belief that there is an afterlife for the dead, and innumerable others...
menaces. On rare occasions, Dracula would work with these
vampire hunterA vampire hunter or vampire slayer is someone who specializes in finding and destroying vampires. In dark fantasy fiction, they may sometimes also deal with other harmful supernatural creatures...
s against a common threat or battle other supernatural threats on his own, but more often than not, he was the
antagonistAn antagonist is a character, group of characters, or an institution, who represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
rather than
protagonistA protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, video game, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy...
. In addition to his supernatural battles in this series, Marvel's Dracula often served as a
supervillainA supervillain or supervillainess is a variant of the villain character type, commonly found in comic books, action movies and science fiction in various mediums.They are often used as foils to superheroes and other fictional heroes...
to other characters in the
Marvel UniverseThe Marvel Universe is the shared fictional universe where most comic book titles published by Marvel Comics take place, including those featuring Marvel's most familiar characters, such as Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and Captain America....
, battling the likes of
BladeBlade is a fictional character, a superhero vampire hunter in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 as a supporting character.The character went on to star or co-star in several comic...
,
Spider-ManSpider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer and editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
,
Werewolf by NightWerewolf by Night is a fictional character, an anti-heroic werewolf in the Marvel Comics universe. The Werewolf by Night first appeared in Marvel Spotlight vol...
, the
X-MenX-Men is a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1 . Under a cloud of increasing anti-mutant sentiment, Professor Xavier creates a haven at his Westchester mansion to train young mutants to use their powers for the...
, and even the licensed
Robert E. HowardRobert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. His most famous character — created in the pages of the Depression-era pulp magazine Weird Tales — is Conan the Barbarian.With Conan and his other heroes, Howard created the genre of...
character
Solomon KaneSolomon Kane is a fictional character created by the pulp-era writer Robert E. Howard. A 16th century Puritan, Solomon Kane is a somber-looking man who wanders the world with no apparent goal other than to vanquish evil in all its forms...
.
Publication history
In 1971, the
Comics Code AuthorityThe Comics Code Authority is part of the Comics Magazine Association of America , and was created to regulate the content of comic books in the United States. Member publishers submit comic books to the CCA, which screens them for conformance to its Comics Code, and authorizes the use of their...
relaxed some of its longstanding rules regarding horror comics, such as a virtual ban on vampires. Marvel had already tested the waters with a "quasi-vampire" character,
Morbius, the Living VampireMorbius, the Living Vampire is a fictional character appearing in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Roy Thomas and penciler Gil Kane, the character, a living human suffering from vampiric abilities resulting from scientific rather than supernatural means, first appeared as...
, but the company was now prepared to launch a regular vampire title as part of its new line of horror books. 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 StokerAbraham "Bram" Stoker was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.-Early life:He...
's creation and secondary characters were by that time in the public domain.
At first,
The Tomb of Dracula was plagued by an inability to keep a steady writer, with the first half-dozen issues written by
Gerry ConwayGerard F. "Gerry" Conway is an American writer of comic books and television shows. He is best known for co-creating the Marvel Comics vigilante The Punisher and scripting the death of the character Gwen Stacy during his long run on The Amazing Spider-Man...
,
Archie GoodwinArchie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is best known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work...
, and
Gardner FoxGardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer best known for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic-book historians estimate that he wrote over 4,000 comics stories....
. But the title gained stability and hit its stride when
Marv WolfmanMarvin A. "Marv" Wolfman is an award-winning American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on The Tomb of Dracula, creating Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics.-1960s:...
became permanent scripter with the seventh issue.
The entire run of
The Tomb of Dracula was penciled by
Gene ColanEugene "Gene" Colan is an American comic book artist.Best known as one of Marvel Comics' most significant artists, whose signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror...
, with
Tom Palmer-Biography:Although Palmer has done a small amount of pencilling work , the vast majority of his artistic output since the 1960s has been as a comic book inker...
inking virtually all (although
Gil KaneEli Katz who worked under the name Gil Kane and in a few instances Scott Edwards, was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and...
drew many of the covers for the first few years, as he did for many other Marvel titles). Colan based the visual appearance of Marvel's Dracula not on
Bela LugosiBéla Lugosi was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen, well known for playing Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version...
,
Christopher LeeSir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor. He initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
, or any other actor who had played the vampire on film, but rather on actor
Jack PalanceJack Palance was a Ukrainian American film actor. With his rugged facial features, Palance was best known to modern movie audiences as both the characters of Curly and Duke in the two City Slickers movies, the first for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but his career...
. Palance would play Dracula in
a television productionDracula is a 1973 television adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula written by Richard Matheson and directed by Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis.- Plot summary :"Bistritz, Hungary May 1897"....
of Stoker's novel the year after
The Tomb of Dracula debuted.
The Tomb of Dracula ran for seventy issues, until 1979. As cancellation loomed, plans were made to wrap up the storyline and lingering threads by issue #72. However, when management decided at the eleventh hour to terminate the title with #70 instead, the final three issues' worth of story and art had to be compressed into one double-sized book, culminating with Dracula's apparent death and dispersal.
The color title was succeeded by a black-and-white magazine (which stories also drawn by Gene Colan) that lasted six issues. An earlier magazine,
Dracula Lives!, published by the Marvel imprint
Curtis MagazinesCurtis Magazines was an imprint of Marvel Comics that existed from 1971 to 1980. The imprint published black-and-white magazines that did not carry the Comics Code Authority seal. Initially, page counts varied between 68, 76 and 84 pages....
, ran from 1973 to 1975. The color comic was also supplemented by a "Giant-Size" companion quarterly that ran for five issues in the mid-1970s.
Appearance in other titles
Several years later, Dracula resurfaced in an issue of
The Uncanny X-Men. However, in appearance, this lord of the undead did not much resemble the Dracula of the
Tomb series, and there remains some discussion among fans over whether or not this was the same Dracula. Although Wolfman and Colan's version had been established as inhabiting the regular
Marvel UniverseThe Marvel Universe is the shared fictional universe where most comic book titles published by Marvel Comics take place, including those featuring Marvel's most familiar characters, such as Spider-Man, the Hulk, the X-Men, and Captain America....
(and battling such super-heroes as
Spider-ManSpider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer and editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
,
Doctor StrangeDoctor Strange is a fictional character that appears in publications published by Marvel Comics. The character was co-created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko and first appeared in Strange Tales #110 ....
,
ThorThor has appeared as a character in various comics over the years, appearing in series from a range of publishers.-Marvel Comics:Thor is a Marvel Comics superhero, based on the thunder god of Norse mythology...
, and the
Silver SurferThe Silver Surfer is a Marvel Comics superhero created by Jack Kirby. The character first appears in Fantastic Four #48 , the first of a three-issue arc that fans and historians call "The Galactus Trilogy"....
), there are some who feel that the redesign of the character in the X-Men story was an attempt to establish that the
Tomb of Dracula version lived in his own
alternate universeParallel universe or alternative reality is a self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a multiverse, although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute physical reality...
, apart from the mainstream Marvel world and characters.
Although Dracula (and all other vampires in the Marvel Universe) were eventually destroyed by the mystical Montessi Formula in the pages of
Doctor StrangeDoctor Strange is a fictional character that appears in publications published by Marvel Comics. The character was co-created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko and first appeared in Strange Tales #110 ....
, the vampire lord was revived. Marvel published a four-issue
Tomb of Dracula mini-series, reuniting Wolfman and Colan, under its
Epic ComicsEpic Comics was a creator-owned imprint of Marvel Comics started in 1982, lasting through the mid-1990s, and being briefly revived on a small scale in the mid-2000s.- Origins :...
imprint in 1991, and revived Dracula and his foes in the short-lived
NightstalkersThe Nightstalkers is a fictional trio of preexisting characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics. A team of occult experts, they reluctantly banded together to fight supernatural threats....
and
BladeBlade is a fictional character, a superhero vampire hunter in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 as a supporting character.The character went on to star or co-star in several comic...
series in the 1990s. Some unresolved plot threads from
The Tomb of Dracula were addressed in the final three issues of
NightstalkersThe Nightstalkers is a fictional trio of preexisting characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics. A team of occult experts, they reluctantly banded together to fight supernatural threats....
. These included the fates of Dracula's bride Domini, their son
JanusJanus is a fictional comic-book character in the Marvel Comics universe.-Fictional character biography:The Golden Angel was a possessing spirit who claimed to be an angel, a messenger and warrior of God. This angel was revealed to have appeared to Dracula and thwarted his will in the past...
, and vampire-hunter Taj Nital. More recently, Dracula took the title role in the mini-series
Dracula: Lord of the Undead.
From 2003 to 2005, as part of its
Essential Marvel line of books, Marvel published a four-volume, black-and-white
Essential Tomb of Dracula collection, with the first three collecting the 70 issues of
The Tomb of Dracula plus selections from the black-and-white
Tomb of Dracula magazine, and the fourth reprinting the comics stories from
Dracula Lives and the remainder of the stories from the
Tomb of Dracula magazine. Following the success of these reprints, Dracula returned in three new four-issue mini-series.
Stoker's Dracula continued and concluded the adaptation of
Dracula by
Roy ThomasRoy Thomas is a comic book writer and editor, and Stan Lee's first successor as editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He is possibly best known for introducing the pulp magazine hero Conan the Barbarian to American comics, with a series that added to the storyline of Robert E...
and
Dick GiordanoDick Giordano is an American comic book artist and editor best known for introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes, and serving as executive editor of then industry-leader DC Comics...
that had begun in
Dracula Lives twenty years prior, and a new
Tomb of Dracula mini-series followed, in which Blade joined a new team of vampire hunters to prevent Dracula achieving godhood.
Apocalypse vs. Dracula featured Dracula battling the immortal foe of the X-Men in Victorian London.
In 2008 Marvel launched the first of three
Marvel OmnibusMarvel Omnibus is a collection from Marvel Comics. This collection provides color compilations of several comics, aiming at complete runs. It is also the only format which reprints the letter pages as originally found in the comics.-Collections:...
dedicated to reprint
Tomb of Dracula.
Major characters
- Dracula
Dracula is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He is based on the vampire Count Dracula from the novel of the same name by author Bram Stoker, and is also influenced by Universal Studios' version of the character....
- Dr. Quincy Harker
Quincy Harker is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe which is based on a character in Bram Stoker's Dracula.-Publication history:...
, son of Jonathan and Mina Harker, and crippled leader of the vampire hunters; he died in battle with Dracula.
- Dr. Rachel van Helsing
Rachel van Helsing is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe.Rachel van Helsing was the great-granddaughter of Abraham Van Helsing, the legendary vampire hunter whose exploits against the vampire lord Dracula were chronicled in Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula...
, granddaughter of Abraham Van HelsingProfessor Abraham Van Helsing is a fictional character and a protagonist from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula.Van Helsing is a Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "M.D., D.Ph., D.Litt., etc., etc." The...
, and leader of the vampire hunters upon Harker's death; she was turned into a vampire by Dracula and subsequently given a mercy killing by WolverineWolverine is a fictional Canadian superhero who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Incredible Hulk #180 and was created by writer Len Wein and Marvel art director John Romita Sr., who designed the character, and was first drawn for publication by...
of the X-MenX-Men is a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1 . Under a cloud of increasing anti-mutant sentiment, Professor Xavier creates a haven at his Westchester mansion to train young mutants to use their powers for the...
.
- Blade
Blade is a fictional character, a superhero vampire hunter in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 as a supporting character.The character went on to star or co-star in several comic...
, son of a woman bitten by a vampire during pregnancy and a valued, yet reluctant ally to Quincy Harker's band of vampire hunters. Blade possesses quasi-vampiric abilities, including a greatly prolonged lifespan and the ability to sense supernatural creatures, as well as an immunity to complete vampirism.
- Frank Drake
Frank Drake is a fictional character appearing in publications from Marvel Comics, most notably the Tomb of Dracula series created by Gerry Conway....
, descendant of Dracula and charter member of Quincy Harker's vampire hunters. Note: Drake's bloodline is based on one of Dracula's marriages prior to his vampirism.
- Hannibal King
Hannibal King is a fictional character, a supernatural detective appearing in publications from Marvel Comics. He first appeared as a supporting character in the 1970s comic book The Tomb of Dracula.-Fictional character biography:...
, a vampire hunter and private investigator who is himself a reluctant vampire, frequent partner of Blade & Drake. He subsisted solely on blood he acquired from blood banks or corpses he found. Thus, he has never taken blood directly from a human being. Thus he was able to survive the Montesi formula and be restored to normal human status.
- Taj Nital, a mute Hindu
A Hindu is an adherent of Hinduism, a set of religious, philosophical and cultural systems that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The vast body of Hindu scriptures, divided into Śruti and Smriti , lay the foundation of Hindu beliefs which primarily include dhárma, kárma, ahimsa and saṃsāra...
vampire hunter of considerable strength (sufficient to temporarily restrain Dracula) whose sonAdri Nital is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe.-Publication history:Adri Nital first appeared in Tomb of Dracula #28-29 , and was created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan....
was vampirized, and who was later transformed into a vampire, and destroyed in NightstalkersThe Nightstalkers is a fictional trio of preexisting characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics. A team of occult experts, they reluctantly banded together to fight supernatural threats....
#18.
- Lilith
Lilith is the name of two fictional American comic book characters owned by Marvel Comics. Both characters exist in the Marvel Universe.The first of these two to appear was Lilith, the daughter of Dracula. Like her father, she is also a vampire, although her powers and weaknesses differ from most...
, the Daughter of Dracula, an immortal vampire who was cursed to never die until her father was permanently destroyed; when slain, she was reborn into the body of a woman who was full of hate.
- Deacon Frost
Deacon Frost is a fictional character appearing in the Marvel Universe. He appears in The Tomb of Dracula and in the Blade limited series.- Publication history :...
, the vampire responsible for the death of Blade's mother and Hannibal King's vampirism. He was an upstart contender for the title of Lord of the Vampires, a title held by Dracula at the time.
- Harold H. Harold
Harold H. Harold is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe.-Publication history:Harold H. Harold first appeared in Tomb of Dracula #37 , and was created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan....
, a hack writerHack writer is a colloquial and usually pejorative term used to refer to a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books "to order", often with a short deadline. In a fiction-writing context, the term is used to describe writers who are paid to churn out sensational,...
who befriended the vampire hunters in an effort to get material for a book he was writing. He fell victim to Dracula and became a vampire (in Howard the DuckHoward the Duck is a comic book character in the Marvel Comics universe created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. The character first appeared in Adventure into Fear #19 and several subsequent series have chronicled the misadventures of the ill-tempered, anthropomorphic, "funny...
Magazine #5)—though this did not stop him from becoming a successful Hollywood film producerA film producer or movie producer is someone who creates the scenes and conditions for making movies. The producer initiates, co-ordinates, supervises and controls matters such as fund-raising, hiring key personnel and arranging for distributors...
. However, like all vampires, he perished as a result of the casting of the Montessi Formula.
- Anton Lupeski, a Satanist priest through whom Dracula manipulated a cult while impersonating Satan.
- Domini, a member of Anton Lupeski's cult whom Dracula chose as his bride.
- Janus
Janus is a fictional comic-book character in the Marvel Comics universe.-Fictional character biography:The Golden Angel was a possessing spirit who claimed to be an angel, a messenger and warrior of God. This angel was revealed to have appeared to Dracula and thwarted his will in the past...
, the son of Dracula and Domini, who was possessed by an angel. He was returned to his child form, and at age five was kidnapped by the vampire Varnae (in the backstory of NightstalkersThe Nightstalkers is a fictional trio of preexisting characters in comic books published by Marvel Comics. A team of occult experts, they reluctantly banded together to fight supernatural threats....
#16–18).
- Varnae
Varnae is a fictional villainous vampire in the Marvel Comics universe. He has been an adversary of several of Marvel's supernatural and fantasy-related heroes, and is a major character in Marvel's Dracula mythos...
, the first vampire (and, at one point, enemy of Conan the BarbarianConan the Barbarian is a fictional character in books, comics and movies. He is a hero, a well known and iconic figure in American fantasy, and the most famous barbarian in fiction.Conan is often associated with the fantasy subgenre of sword-and-sorcery and heroic fantasy...
). He was the Lord of the Vampires prior to Dracula, and although he died in the process of making Dracula his heir, he was later revived. He was inspired by the 19th century character Varney the VampireVarney the Vampire or The Feast of Blood was a mid-Victorian era gothic horror story by James Malcolm Rymer , which first appeared 1845–47 in a series of pamphlets generally referred to as penny dreadfuls because of their inexpensive price and typically gruesome contents. It was published in book...
.
- Nimrod
Nimrod is a fictional character in the Marvel Universe.-Publication history:Nimrod first appeared in Dracula Lives! #3 , and was created by Marv Wolfman and John Buscema....
, another Lord of the Vampires prior to Dracula, who killed him in Nimrod's first appearance (Dracula Lives! #3). When Dracula's origin was revised in Bizarre Adventures #33, Nimrod was no longer the true Lord of the Vampires; instead, he was a mentally imbalanced servant of Varnae, and had been empowered by his master as a test of Dracula's worthiness.
Collected editions
The comics have been collected as part of the
EssentialEssential Marvel is a line of American comic book reprints. It consists in a series of black-and-white paperbacks containing about 20-30 issues of mostly silver or bronze age Marvel comic book reprints each. They contain between 450 and 650 pages, and coarse, matte-quality paper is used...
series of
trade paperbacksIn comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
. The volumes are:
- Volume 1 (560 pages, 2003, Panini
Panini Comics is an Italian comic book publisher that publishes comic books in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Panini also publishes manga in several non-English-speaking countries through the Planet Manga publishing division...
, ISBN 1904159621, MarvelMarvel Publishing, Inc., a company doing business as Marvel Comics, produces American comic books and related media. It forms a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc....
, ISBN 078510920X)
- Collects Tomb of Dracula #1-25, Werewolf By Night #15, Giant-Size Chillers #1
- Volume 2 (592 pages, 2004, Panini
Panini Comics is an Italian comic book publisher that publishes comic books in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Panini also publishes manga in several non-English-speaking countries through the Planet Manga publishing division...
, ISBN 190523905X, MarvelMarvel Publishing, Inc., a company doing business as Marvel Comics, produces American comic books and related media. It forms a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc....
, ISBN 0785114610)
- Collects Tomb of Dracula #26-49, Dr. Strange #14, Giant-Size Dracula #2-5
- Volume 3 (584 pages, 2004, Panini
Panini Comics is an Italian comic book publisher that publishes comic books in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Panini also publishes manga in several non-English-speaking countries through the Planet Manga publishing division...
, ISBN 1905239068, MarvelMarvel Publishing, Inc., a company doing business as Marvel Comics, produces American comic books and related media. It forms a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc....
, ISBN 0785115587)
- Collects Tomb of Dracula #50-70, The Tomb of Dracula Magazine #1-4
- Volume 4 (576 pages, 2005, Panini
Panini Comics is an Italian comic book publisher that publishes comic books in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom. Panini also publishes manga in several non-English-speaking countries through the Planet Manga publishing division...
, ISBN 1905239203, MarvelMarvel Publishing, Inc., a company doing business as Marvel Comics, produces American comic books and related media. It forms a subsidiary of Marvel Entertainment, Inc....
, ISBN 0785117091)
- Collects Tomb of Dracula Magazine #2, 4-6, Dracula Lives! #1-13, Frankenstein Monster #7-9
Some of the nudity has been removed from the fourth volume and
Dan BuckleyDan Buckley is the publisher of Marvel Comics and the chief operating officer of Marvel Entertainment's publishing division. -External links:*, November 27, 2006...
, the publisher, had this to say on the issue "That wasn't because we were going to bookstores, or because we were exclusively going to hobby shops. It probably had more with where we were at from a ratings standpoint and the editors felt that was the appropriate thing to do, considering how we communicate what's going on in our books from a packaging standpoint. ...We generally avoid nudity, unless it's a
MaxMAX is an imprint of Marvel Comics for adult audiences, launched in 2001 after Marvel broke with the Comics Code Authority and established its own rating system...
title. We don't want to take an Essential volume and start calling it Max; then you get into branding issues."
Kurt BusiekKurt Busiek is a comic book writer notable for his work on the Marvels limited series, his own title Astro City, and his four-year run on Avengers.-Biography and early career:...
has said "They wanted to sell it to the same audience who bought the first three volumes," but retailers' opinions on the matter are split.
A full color hardcover
Marvel OmnibusMarvel Omnibus is a collection from Marvel Comics. This collection provides color compilations of several comics, aiming at complete runs. It is also the only format which reprints the letter pages as originally found in the comics.-Collections:...
collecting
The Tomb of Dracula #1-31,
Werewolf by Night #15,
Giant-Size Chillers #1, and
Giant-Size Dracula #2-4 was released in November 2008. The second volume, collecting
The Tomb of Dracula #32-70,
Giant-Size Dracula #5, and
Dr. Strange #14 will be released in October 2009.
Television
In 1980, an animated
television movieA television movie is a feature film that is produced for and originally distributed by a...
based on
The Tomb of Dracula was released. Much of the main plot was condensed and many characters and subplots were truncated or omitted. The film was animated in
Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
by
ToeiToei or Tōei may refer to:* Tōei, Aichi, Japan* Toei Company, Japanese film and television production company** Toei Animation, their animation subsidiary...
and sparsely released on cable TV in
North AmericaNorth America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and in the western hemisphere. It is bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the southeast by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific...
by
Harmony GoldHarmony Gold is a television production and distribution company established in 1983. It is best known as the "creator" and main distributor of the anime series Robotech. It also partially dubbed the Dragon Ball series in the late 1980s....
under the title
Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, and has been released on DVD as
The Tomb of Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned.
Film
BladeBlade is a fictional character, a superhero vampire hunter in the Marvel Comics universe. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 as a supporting character.The character went on to star or co-star in several comic...
, a character introduced in
The Tomb of Dracula, has been featured in a series of three films:
BladeBlade is a 1998 vampire action film starring Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff, loosely based on the published stories of the fictional Marvel Comics character Blade. It was directed by Stephen Norrington and written by David S. Goyer. Snipes plays the titular character, a vampire hunter who is...
(1998),
Blade IIBlade II is a American vampire action film based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Blade. It is the first sequel to the film Blade, making it the second in the Blade film-series. It continues the essence and story of the first film, but introduces a new event and numerous new characters...
(2002), and
Blade: TrinityBlade: Trinity is a American vampire, Marvel Comics action film, written and directed by David S. Goyer, who also wrote the screenplays to the first two Blade films. It is the third film in the Blade trilogy, following on from Blade and Blade II and it is based on the Marvel Comics character...
(2004), as well as a short-lived television series titled
Blade: The SeriesBlade: The Series is a 2006 action film/series American television program based on the Marvel Comics character and popular film series. It premiered on Spike on June 28, 2006...
(2006). Other
Tomb of Dracula characters,
Deacon FrostDeacon Frost is a fictional character appearing in the Marvel Universe. He appears in The Tomb of Dracula and in the Blade limited series.- Publication history :...
and
Hannibal KingHannibal King is a fictional character, a supernatural detective appearing in publications from Marvel Comics. He first appeared as a supporting character in the 1970s comic book The Tomb of Dracula.-Fictional character biography:...
, have been featured in these films (Frost in
BladeBlade is a 1998 vampire action film starring Wesley Snipes and Stephen Dorff, loosely based on the published stories of the fictional Marvel Comics character Blade. It was directed by Stephen Norrington and written by David S. Goyer. Snipes plays the titular character, a vampire hunter who is...
, King in
Blade: TrinityBlade: Trinity is a American vampire, Marvel Comics action film, written and directed by David S. Goyer, who also wrote the screenplays to the first two Blade films. It is the third film in the Blade trilogy, following on from Blade and Blade II and it is based on the Marvel Comics character...
), albeit in heavily revised forms. Reference to the
Tomb of Dracula series is made in
Blade: TrinityBlade: Trinity is a American vampire, Marvel Comics action film, written and directed by David S. Goyer, who also wrote the screenplays to the first two Blade films. It is the third film in the Blade trilogy, following on from Blade and Blade II and it is based on the Marvel Comics character...
when King shows an issue of the comic to Blade.
Dracula himself does not appear in the series until
Blade: TrinityBlade: Trinity is a American vampire, Marvel Comics action film, written and directed by David S. Goyer, who also wrote the screenplays to the first two Blade films. It is the third film in the Blade trilogy, following on from Blade and Blade II and it is based on the Marvel Comics character...
, in which he goes by the name of "Drake" and features an origin and powers that differ from the comics. He is played in the film by
Dominic PurcellDominic Haakon Myrtvedt Purcell is an English-born Australian actor, most active in the United States. He also holds an Irish passport by means of his ancestry...
. Given Drake's age and origin, he, more than any other vampire that followed, can harness a much greater and more dynamic range of abilities. He possesses superhuman strength, much greater than that of Blade, as well as incredible speed. Like those he sired, he is capable of leaping great distances and seems to be knowledgeable of sword fighting techniques, even rivaling Blade himself. Drake's true power, however, is derived from his origin as the first of his species. The manipulation of energies which lead to his first resurrection left Drake with two forms: human and a demonic alter ego. In this form, Drake is much stronger, resilient to all forms of damage and much taller than his human form. He also possesses very keen senses, allowing him, for example, to catch an arrow in mid-air.
The Curse of Dracula
Marv WolfmanMarvin A. "Marv" Wolfman is an award-winning American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on The Tomb of Dracula, creating Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics.-1960s:...
and
Gene ColanEugene "Gene" Colan is an American comic book artist.Best known as one of Marvel Comics' most significant artists, whose signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror...
returned to Dracula comics with
The Curse of Dracula, a three-issue
miniseriesA limited series is a series with a set number of installments. A limited series differs from an ongoing series in that the number of issues is determined before production and it differs from a one shot in that it is composed of multiple issues....
published in 1998. The miniseries was published by
Dark Horse ComicsDark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book publisher.Mike Richardson, the owner of several comic book shops in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, began to publish in 1986 with an anthology series called Dark Horse Presents, investing profits from his stores into Dark...
and was not officially associated with Marvel's Dracula series. A
trade paperbackIn comics, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles...
collection was published in 2005.
External links
- The Tomb of Dracula fan site by Adrian Wymann (Issue-by-issue guide and reviews)
- Review of Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 1 from Pulp and Dagger
- Review of Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 2 from UGO
- Review of Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 1 from Comics Bulletin
Comics Bulletin is a website with an emphasis on the American comic book industry, updated daily with news, reviews, interviews, and editorial content. Coverage ranges from mainstream to independent/small press comic book and graphic novel publishers....
- Review of Essential Tomb of Dracula Volume 2 from Comics Bulletin
Comics Bulletin is a website with an emphasis on the American comic book industry, updated daily with news, reviews, interviews, and editorial content. Coverage ranges from mainstream to independent/small press comic book and graphic novel publishers....
- Japanese anime adaptation of The Tomb of Dracula