MYTHCOMICS: {THE FALL OF DRACULA], TOMB OF DRACULA #45-70, 1976-79)

[SPOILERS, SPOILERS everywhere]

During the Silver Age the long story-arc (defined here), long a standard in the comic-strip medium, became both fiscally and artistically rewarding to comic-book practitioners. However, the very success of features that allowed for the development of long arcs-- FANTASTIC FOUR, THOR and SPIDER-MAN-- may have made it tough for other features to compete. The Early Bronze Age is littered with unfinished fantasy-epics, and even Jack Kirby himself, partly responsible for the Silver Age arcs, saw his "Fourth World" wrecked on the reefs of market preferences.

Marvel's TOMB OF DRACULA-- the company's most popular "monster comic"-- lasted almost the entire decade of the 1970s. But initially the feature conceived by artist Gene Colan and writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway took an episodic approach to storytelling typical of the early 70s. The vampire count, brought back to life during the 20th century, sought to find new ways to establish a new empire among the living. His main opponents were a group of vampire-hunters: one was Frank Drake, a distant descendant of the mortal Dracula line, while the other two were descendants of characters from the Bram Stoker novel: aged Quincy Harker and his protege Rachel Van Helsing. With issue #7 (1973), Marv Wolfman took the scripting reins, and he and Colan continued to their collaboration on the title until it ended in 1979 (though other Marvel-Dracula stories by other hands appeared elsewhere). Although Wolfman's long tenure included many episodic, "done-in-one" stories-- indeed, many such stories are interpolated in the long arc I've termed "Fall of Dracula"-- he gave the continuing characters more emotional continuity than they had possessed under previous writers, including the star himself. Dracula was not just a thirty bloodsucker, but a medieval aristocrat who believed absolutely in his right to command, as illustrated by the vampire's words in this 1974 storyline:

Man does not have his choice in things. He follows the will of his betters—and he is destroyed if he does not.

Though TOMB OF DRACULA was a steady paycheck for both Wolfman and Colan, they surely saw many other features dying around them, not least other "monster-titles." I've avoided looking at anything Wolfman or Colan may have said about the disposition of the TOMB title, except for responses in the letters-columns. The specific rationale for working in a possible conclusion to the undead count's saga does not matter. it only matters that in TOD #45 (1976), Wolfman took the first step toward chronicling the ruthless vampire's downfall.

In issue #45, Dracula has just survived a crossover-encounter with Marvel's resident sorcerer Doctor Strange. Possibly in response to his near-defeat, the vampire conceives of a new way to wield power in the human world: that of starting a religion. Earlier issues establish that in antiquity Dracula forswore the Christian beliefs of his upbringing and affiliated himself to God's enemy Satan, though there are no indications that the Count was a true believer in anything but himself. Drac hits upon the idea to create a Satanic cult that will somehow become dominant in world government, though the vampire seems pretty sketchy about the details of his program. He happens across an abandoned church and decides it's the perfect place for a Satanic hang-out. But although the church has been divested of most of its religious accoutrements, one memento remains: a large oil painting of Jesus of Nazareth, looking soulfully outward. Dracula finds that he cannot remove or even come near the painting. Instead of giving up the church as off limits, the villain defiantly swears to make the former place of worship the bastion of a religion in which Dracula himself will become a living god.

Dracula seeks out a nearby Satanist cult, a small coven run by a nasty customer named Anton Lupeski (note the "wolfish" name). Since Dracula sees the cultists attempting to summon Satan himself to marry a female cultist, the vampire hits on the idea of pretending to be Satan given human form. The cult buys Drac's imposture, though Lupeski knows better. However, since the coven was in the middle of conducting an unholy marriage-ceremony, Dracula finds himself expected to make an infernal union with the female cultist in question, name of Domini (explicitly translated as "belonging to God.") Since Domini is a good looking woman, the vampire has no objection to assuming the role of her husband.

Following this initial step in the Count's plans for conquest, Wolfman begins to emphasize the presence of angelic/ Christ-like figures in Dracula's world, figures which had been largely absent in earlier issues. Flashbacks in issue #48 establish that even back in medieval times Dracula had a few episodic contacts with ambivalent beings who seem to be heavenly emissaries.  Issue #50 features another crossover with the mainstream Marvel universe, but the choice is more metaphysically interesting than Doctor Strange. Lupeski, seeking a way to get rid of his new boss, mystically persuades the Silver Surfer, Marvel's secular Christ-figure, to attack Dracula. Dracula survives the alien hero's attack in part when the Surfer gets a look at the Jesus-painting. The hero apparently has some sort of communion with the powers behind the painting, and thus decides to leave the undead Count to the destiny of Heaven.

Domini (no last name) emerges as the mediator between Dracula and his heavenly opponents. Wolfman does not spend much time explicating her history: for reasons unknown Domini was sent to a nunnery by her unnamed father, but she eventually escaped to join the Satanists-- not out of any devotion to that religion, but seeking some anodyne for her own sense of weakness. She comes alive as a character, though, because she seems the opposite of the relentless count, and the two genuinely fall in love despite Dracula's original purpose. In fact, Domini's father shows up at the Satanist church, using a rifle against the cultists. Dracula, brooking no opposition, slays Domini's father, though Domini is inscrutably sure that her dead father will not be doomed to vampiric resurrection.

It's decided at some point that Dracula and Domini will conceive a child, the better to promote the new cult with a messiah-figure, and the mystic rituals of the Satanists serve, apparently, to make an undead person capable of conceiving. Dracula's motivations here become somewhat fuzzy: on one hand, he wants to be the center of the cult, yet, because of his frustrations with earlier offspring, he also wants an heir to his throne.

However, in issue #52 Dracula makes a new enemy: a nameless, golden-skinned man who attacks the vampire with assorted super-powers. Dracula wounds the attacker, who flees-- and apparently disappears into the Christ-painting, signalling that he's some sort of angel-figure like the ones that dogged Drac in medieval times.

Despite interference from Quincy Harker's gang of hunters, Dracula's child is born, though the vamp is duly vexed to see that the infant has golden skin like that of his adult adversary. Domini has no real explanation for this, and even Drac doesn't seem inclined to wonder if she's been unfaithful to him. In issue #55 Lupeski, seeking to drive a wedge between the vampire and his messianic spawn, rather high-handedly bestows on the child the name of the Roman god Janus, "the god of "beginnings and endings" (or maybe "Alpha and Omega," as per the New Testament?) However, though Dracula and Domini begin the life of Janus, Lupeski provides an ending: during a battle in which Lupeski suborns the vampire-hunters against Dracula, the cult-leader accidentally slays the infant. Dracula slays Lupeski but becomes distraught at the loss of his son and heir.

Though Domini joins Dracula in mourning their son, issue #61 reveals another bolt in her quiver. In a parody of vampiric revival-- itself a parody of Christian resurrection-- Domini brings her infant son back to life by causing the dead child to merge with the unnamed golden angel. The angel thus takes on some of the personality of the human child, and announces with supreme regret his intention to slay his father.

Despite Dracula's replacement of Domini's father as "the only man in her life," Janus's battles with the vampire-lord don't verge into the realm of the Oedipal, though Wolfman ratchets up the melodrama for all it's worth.

However, yet another player enters the game in issue #64. Satan himself summons Drac, Janus and a human witch named Topaz into his infernal domain, and waxes wroth with his alleged servant for having upset the balance between Heaven and Hell:

You brought into existence a child-- a son who destroys the carefully woven tapestry that permits our survival.

The gist of Satan's remarks imply that he's punishing Dracula in order to keep the celestial heat off himself. Satan releases all of his captives back to the mortal world-- including Topaz, who mainly served in the capacity of a glorified guest-shot-- but now Dracula has lost all of his vampire abilities. The Count is thus forced to scrabble for existence like an ordinary mortal, and though he's still a tough old bat without his powers, Satan hits Drac in his weakest point: his inordinate sense of pride in having the powers of the undead. The Devil only returns Drac's powers when the latter has foolishly forsworn Satan as well as God, which, according to the demon-lord, is going to put the vampire in big trouble in the final accounting.

If Wolfman had any intention of a final contest between Dracula and his son, this plan is abandoned. Instead Dracula's last challenge is from an older vampire, one Torgo, who turns all of the Count's legions of undead against him. Even though the doughty Drac again triumphs, for the first time he's unable to find any glory in the victory, and so is ripe for slaying by his oldest living foe, Quincy Harker.

To be sure, even in the feature's final issue, Wolfman mentions plans to re-launch the Count in another format, so it was a given that Marvel wasn't quite finished with Dracula. Nevertheless, this broad breakdown of the events of "Fall of Dracula" should indicate that Wolfman and Colan managed to send the bloodsucker to a doom which, while entirely deserved, nevertheless carries the aura of solid melodramatic tragedy.