Silver Surfer meets Dracula.
Let’s take a moment to admire the splash page. The style in the 1970s was wordy, but the words here actually do fill the space between the panels, like good writing should. And Gene Colan is at his best here, using blur and distortion to convey both shadow and movement at the same time.
This is why I love comics.
You’ll recall Dracula is newly married. He wed a woman, Domini, who was a member of a Satanic cult. Dracula pretended to be Satan, but the cult knew the truth and pretended to believe that he was Satan. But the truth was…
…The cult is cool with killing Dracula now that he’s gotten Domini pregnant. All they really wanted was a baby vampire to call their own. And how will they kill him?
Tomb of Dracula is not an action book, but get multiple pages of battle between the two, including a few panels where Dracula controls the weather. I don’t recall him using this ability before, but Marvel Fandom confirms it is part of his power set so I’m not tagging it as unusual.
And of course, rats.
Surfer declines to kill the rats.
The fight ends in a stalemate.
The fight makes sense, but on another level how can Dracula be on a par with Silver Surfer? On the other hand, in the 1980s Drac withstands battle with several X-Men at the same time, so, I guess so?
It appears from the narrative that Surfer is under a spell from the cult that might have impaired his abilities and that it wore off, so Surfer simply left the battle. But it’s not entirely clear.
Notwithstanding those criticisms, I still consider this one of the top 100 Marvel single-issue stories of all time. Full list here.
Meanwhile, Deacon Frost has figured out how to create vampire doubles of Blade that can actually “absorb” the real Blade. So fake/real Blade throws down with Hannibal.
And on the letters page…
…A name-the-baby contest!
