During these issues and several before and after, the Thor solo book got so bad that Marvel let relative unknown Walter Simonson take it over in a few months and literally shatter the logo and destroy the character, replacing him with Beta Ray Bill.
In this story, Thor fights Dracula.
Dracula stories are risky. If they’re not done well, they’re silly.
This one is not done well.
With Dr. Strange’s help. And he tells his secret ID to Stephen.
It’s not great. Sweet Bill Sienkiewicz cover though.
I enjoyed it. I will agree with you that Marvel Super-Hero versus Dracula/vampire stories can be incredibly dumb if not done just right. ( Prime example: The conclusion of ‘Tomb of Dracula’#50, which STILL has me blowing chunks whenever I TRY to reread it, usually around Halloween ) But this two-parter where Thor battles Dracula worked for me, although, as in the aforementioned ‘Tomb of Dracula’#50, the superhero ( in this case, Thor ) allows Dracula to escape when there’s really no reason for it. Thor and the Silver Surfer both have enough raw power to obliterate Count Dracula all day ( night? ) long, and Marvel Editorial’s reasonings for not allowing them to do so are highly specious, mostly concerning the vampire’s commercial viability. ( at least at the time- I don’t know of any ‘horror’ properties that are currently selling at this point in time ) When Count Dracula first appeared on the Marvel Scene in 1972, in ‘Tomb of Dracula’#1, he was a big hit with the Marvel readership of the time, ( including myself ) and, after a few issues in, a lot of Drac’s regular readership were beginning to wonder if this series was occurring in the mainstream Marvel Universe. ( what we know today as ‘Earth-616’ ) I can recall hoping at the time that it was not, as I was ( and still am ) a big Marvel Superhero Booster, and vampires, even at that point in time, scared the beegeezus out of me. Did not care for any vampires, werewolves, zombies, Frankenstein Monsters, etc., dirtying up my nice, clean, safe superhero world. Morbius and the Man-Wolf were fine, as they were not “actual” supernatural creatures. But with age comes wisdom, and I have certainly aged since 1972, and I now acknowledge and concede the wisdom that Roy Thomas put forth in his column in ‘Giant-Size Spider-Man’#1 in reference to this matter. To paraphrase Thomas, ‘In order for there to be a cohesive Marvel Universe, ALL of our characters-superhero, supernatural, war, western, romance, EVERYTHING-MUST be in the same continuum of reality, otherwise-it’s worthless!’ He was right. ( he’s not “Roy the Boy”, or “Houseroy”, as the late Jack Kirby used to like to call him, for nothing ) So, around 1973, I began giving some serious thought to this matter, and what I came up with was, if the ‘horror’ characters do, indeed, exist in the same reality as the superhero characters, then this will ONLY be the case for as long as two things remain in effect: 1) Their commercial viability. If this new ‘horror’ wave of Marvel Comics fails to stand up to the test of time, and the readership disintegrates, then the characters themselves will become gator-meat in the eyes of Marvel Management. 2) At that time, the way Marvel writers will “write out” the horror characters will be to simply have some smart cookies like Dr. Strange, the Silver Surfer, the Mighty Thor, or even Professor X and SHIELD trip to their existence, and the monsters will be summarily dealt with by the world’s superhuman powers. This is why the conclusions to ‘Silver Surfer’#50 and ‘The Mighty Thor’#333 were so unsatisfying to me. The Mighty Thor and the Silver Surfer were the Earth’s two greatest champions and protectors at the time of these stories, and both of these two greatest champions and protectors allowed the single-greatest mass-murderer in human history to escape scot-free, with absolutely no explanation as to why. In the conclusion of ‘Tomb of Dracula’#50, the Surfer has Dracula practically nailed to the wall, but when Drac’s baby-mama throws herself between them and begs for her hubby’s un-life, the Surfer rather oddly glances up at the oil-canvas painting of Christ, and simply decides to let THAT deity handle the matter! Well, that’s SWELL, Norrin, but how about all the UNCOUNTABLE ( npi ) MILLIONS OF PEOPLE that the vampire will DESTROY between now and the ( alleged ) Second Coming-????!!!! Like I said- blowing chunks. I will admit, however, that the excellent shot at the conclusion of “The Mighty Thor”#333 where Thor has the Count blasted right down to his SOCKS-literally!- is one of my all-time favorite scenes from a comic-book! It’s just TOO BAD that the scene could not presage the Count’s absolute, total destruction at the hands of the Mighty Thor!! ( YOU know- the Marvel Universe’s answer to Superman- not YOU, Sentry-but The Mighty THOR!!! ) In the very excellent three-part story in the same year’s ‘Dr. Strange’#’s 60-62, which was actually SUPPOSED to be the concluding chapter of Marvel Comic’s association with vampires, Dracula has the following thought to himself: “I would NOT wish to face the power of Thor again- at least-not YET.” Exactly. Dracula’s initial conflict with Dr. Strange in 1976’s very excellent two-parter “The Tomb of Dr. Strange”, chronicled across ‘Tomb of Dracula’#44, and ‘Dr.Strange’#14, was MUCH more like it, although, again, the vampire lord’s escape from ( the final ) death at the conclusion was almost just TOO precious, even though, I will concede, that it was handled within the established parameters of what we already had been shown what Dracula ( if not all vampires ) could actually do. But that is a review for another post. Until then, just don’t let your gym-bag full of hammers, wooden stakes, holy water, and garlic get too far from grabbing-range!
Correction to the above narrative: It was the conclusion to “The Tomb of Dracula”#50, with it’s big cop-out of the Silver Surfer not destroying Dracula, as he should have, not the conclusion of “The Silver Surfer”#50. Please excuse this small gaffe.