Bill Sienkiewicz drew issue #159, where Dracula first got an (ahem) taste for Storm, and he returns for the rematch. The issue starts with Kitty’s parents getting a divorce.
Then, Dracula turns long-time Tomb of Dracula character Rachel Van Helsing into a vampire, and then comes after Storm. Apparently, his efforts to control her last time have not fully worn off…
She turns several X-Men.
And since she was such a pain in Drac’s butt last time, he sics his daughter, Lilith, on Kitty Pryde, and takes her prisoner.
With several team members turned, there’s hero vs hero fights.
After those big fights, Rachel Van Helsing shakes off his influence long enough to stake him. But he still needs his skull severed from his spine.
Unfortunately for the X-Men, they’re unable to complete the job because the castle they’re all in collapses, and Dracula’s skeleton is left intact–enabling him to return.
Rachel Van Helsing does not want to live as a vampire so she has Wolverine stake her, too–intimately.
This story worked for me, on every level. Claremont, not my favorite writer, nevertheless writes this story as if he were Bram Stoker, with all of the gothic “Dan Curtis”- type horror vibe. It just goes to show that not even the high-tech security of the Xavier school is not safe from the power of Count Dracula. ( however, I am positive that had Professor X not been a little too over-conveniently absent from this tale, the results would have been radically different- Professor X is just stupid- powerful, and just one mind-zap from Chuck, and Drac is toast. Claremont and various other X-writers are also aware of this, which is why they all write the Professor as being conveniently absent when his students have to face off against an evil as significant as Count Dracula! ) I always adored the poor, doomed Miss Rachel Van Helsing, crushed on her all throughout the 1970’s, but, even during those great days, I was firmly convinced that, one day, sooner or later, the hazards of her profession would eventually catch up with her, as it tends to do with herpetologists, police officers, fire-fighters, and Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter! People like this who make their living by running the odds roll snake-eyes, eventually, and thus was the case for poor, doomed Miss Rachel. As far as I am concerned, the penultimate scene where she dies in Wolverine’s arms after he “takes care of business”, and beautiful Storm weeps in the background, stands in my mind as one of the most powerful scenes to ever appear in a comic-book. Would that some top-level director could adapt this issue into one seriously great ‘X-Men’ movie. As the Silver Surfer himself announced on the cover of ‘Tomb of Dracula’#50, Count Dracula is the deadliest horror that this world has ever faced, and, along with his own former master Galactus, the Third Reich, the Z’nox, ( from ‘Uncanny X-Men’#65 ) the Badoon, ( ‘Silver Surfer’#2 ) and the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation- he’s right!! I have never really cared for the Wolverine ( which makes me a minority of one, I know! ) neither am I a fan of Claremont’s First Class hating ass, but “Feud” was an awesome utilization of both this character, and this writer! X-Fucking-Celsior!!!! Grade: B+, bigod!!!
Claremont is a bit dated, but he was a master plotter.