TOMB OF DRACULA #31-43 (1975-1976): 1st Deacon Frost

For a while now, the Dracula-hunting team has believed their quarry dead, but in these issues they discover he’s alive.  Quincy Harker deduces it from a series of seemingly unrelated crime reports.

And Dracula is killing members of Parlaiment!  He’s doing it because he’s lost some of his powers, and believes the government is behind it.

Harker sets a trap, which naturally upsets Drac.

So Dracula attacks Harker in his house.  Harker’s house is a very cool “deathtrap” house.  I love stories like this. Dracula has to avoid chairs that have wooden stake spring-traps, garlic trap doors, a dog with crosses on his collar, and even a pool table that pops up into a cross…

…In a room full of magnifying mirrors.

Meanwhile, Rachel Van Helsing, already in England, gets attacked and held hostage by Dracula’s harem…

And throughout all this, there’s another vampire in town, and he’s hunting Dracula.

He’s Deacon Frost, the vampire who killed Blade’s mother.

Dracula figures out that if he didn’t die in the mountain explosion at Dr. Sun’s laboratory, then maybe Sun didn’t either–and Sun’s knowledge of vampires would make him the most likely suspect for having caused Dracula to lose his powers.  So now he’s looking for Sun.

His pursuit continues over a whole bunch of issues–it’s good action/adventure stuff–while the rest of the Tomb team resolves their various storylines.  This will enable everything to converge at the end.  Very intricate plotting, extremely well done.

Taj has been living in India, where he has been trying to protect his vampire son from fellow villagers who have figured out he’s a monster.   He ultimately is forced to execute the child himself, and Taj stays in India with his wife.  He will not return to Tomb of Dracula.

Frank Drake has been zombie hunting in Brazil.  Brother Voodoo joins him to fight that fight.

This subplot keeps Frank Drake from going to England to help against Dracula, until it’s resolved and Brother Voodoo teleports him to England.

Blade’s stalking of Deacon Frost takes him to England as well, and he arrives just as Dracula is attacking Sun.

The Sun fights ends with a Sunburn.

Get it?  Dr. Sun is a living brain, and it gets burned up.

This is a truly excellent long-form story.  I loved this.

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