With these issues, we begin the wind-down. Tomb goes bi-monthly, and will soon be cancelled and replaced by a magazine that, in turn, won’t last a year. Still, Tomb continues to be a really solid comic, albeit one that does not traditionally fit into the canon.
Dracula for about a year has been aligned with a satanist cult that enabled him to marry and have a boy child. His alliance, and living among these cult members, has essentially allowed him to hide in plain sight.
Now, as you can see from the splash page, the Dracula hunting team is ready to storm the church and kill Dracula. Which they do.
Accidentally killing baby Janus in the process.
The Tomb team had secretly been allied with the cult’s leader, who wanted Dracula dead so he could steal the baby, and indeed that same man, Anton Lupeski, fired the killshot. So Dracula crushes his head.
In the aftermath, Dracula destroys the cult’s church and we get more interaction between Dracula and the painting of Jesus Christ that keeps seeming to talk to him. At this point, it should be clear to readers that Dracula’s baby was Janus, the gold-skinned “angel” who also appeared at times to be Christ himself. Indeed, Domini raises her baby from the dead and we see the child merge with Janus.
Domini’s intent is that her child will be the Messiah. And when the merge is complete, he tells his mother that his intent is to kill his father.
Note that Janus also says he is not solely the reincarnated baby–that another entity is inside his body.
Over several issues, Janus and Dracula fight and foil each others’ schemes, and Dracula finally meets the Devil, who takes credit for creating him.
I am not a fan of Marvel’s use of Satan in comics because it’s never clear to me how there are so many versions of him–and it’s never clear whether when we see him (as opposed to, say, Mephisto) that this is the same dude who spawned Son of Satan and did all the other things he’s credited with across the span of Marvel history. Plus, he’s only 500 years old?
Dracula was summoned by Satan because the Devil is pissed off. Apparently, Janus poses as much of a threat to him as to Dracula. And as long as Janus pursues the vampire, Janus will stay on Earth, and ultimately will come for Satan. So Satan does the only thing that will prevent Janus from destroying the world’s biggest vampire and embodiment of evil…
Satan cures Dracula’s vampirism.
Creators; Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Note the splash page above, revealing that Marv Wolfman was actually the colorist for #59. Interesting.
Satan’s narration above reads: “You have existed for five hundred years- “we” ( I guess Satan is referring to himself in the sense of the royal “we”, here ) have survived since the dawn of creation……..” Which is true, so there is no mistake in the narrative, here. Or maybe Satan is referring to all the various Marvel personas of “The Devil”- Satan, Mephisto, Thog, Satannish, etc.- as one entity operating under several different names, which is the theory that works best for me. Remember-like the Army’s “kiss” rule: “Keep it SIMPLE, stupid!!!!” Why would the Multiverse require a plethora of Hell-lords, anyway-??? Isn’t ONE ENOUGH-??? It is for me!!! Keep it SIMPLE, stupid!!!! Excelsior!!