Tomb Of Dracula

In 1971, the Comics Code Authority relaxed some of its longstanding rules regarding horror comics, such as a virtual ban on vampires. Marvel had already tested the waters with a "quasi-vampire" character, Morbius, the Living Vampire, but the company was now prepared to launch a regular vampire title as part of its new line of horror books. After some discussion, it was decided to use the Dracula character, in large part because it was the most famous vampire to the general public, and also because Bram Stoker's creation and secondary characters were by that time in the public domain.

At first, ToD was plagued by an inability to keep a steady writer, with the first half-dozen issues written by Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, and Gardner Fox. But the title gained stability and hit its stride when Marv Wolfman became permanent scripter with the seventh issue.

The entire run of The Tomb of Dracula was penciled by Gene Colan, with Tom Palmer inking virtually all (although Gil Kane drew many of the covers for the first few years, as he did for many other Marvel titles). Colan based the visual appearance of Marvel's Dracula not on Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or any other actor who had played the vampire on film, but rather on actor Jack Palance. Ironically, Palance would himself go on to play Dracula in a television production of Stoker's novel the year after ToD debuted.

The Tomb of Dracula ran for seventy issues, until 1979. As cancellation loomed, plans were made to wrap up the storyline and lingering threads by issue #72. However, when management decided at the 11th Hour to terminate the title with #70 instead, the final three issues' worth of story and art had to be compressed into one double-sized book, culminating with Dracula's apparent death and dispersal.

The color title was succeeded by a black-and-white magazine (which stories also drawn by Gene Colan) that lasted six issues. An earlier magazine, Dracula Lives!, published by the Marvel imprint Curtis Magazines, ran from 1973 to 1975. The color comic was also supplemented by a "Giant-Size" companion quarterly that ran for five issues in the mid-1970s.

Major characters

• Dracula himself
• Dr. Quincy Harker, son of Jonathan and Mina Harker, and crippled leader of the vampire hunters; he died in battle with Dracula.
• Dr. Rachel van Helsing, granddaughter of Abraham Van Helsing, and leader of the vampire hunters upon Harker's death; she was turned into a vampire by Dracula and subsequently given a mercy killing by Wolverine of the X-Men.
• Blade, son of a woman bitten by a vampire during pregnancy and a valued, yet reluctant ally to Quincy Harker's band of vampire hunters.
• Frank Drake, descendant of Dracula and charter member of Quincy Harker's vampire hunters. Note: Drake's bloodline is based on one of Dracula's marriages prior to his vampirism.
• Hannibal King, a vampire hunter and private investigator who is himself a reluctant vampire, frequent partner of Blade & Drake. He subsisted solely on blood he acquired from blood banks or corpses he found. Thus, he has never taken blood directly from a human being. Thus he was able to survive the Montesi formula and be restored to normal human status.
• Taj Nital, a mute Hindu vampire hunter of considerable strength (sufficient to temporarily restrain Dracula) whose son was vampirized, and who was later transformed into a vampire, and destroyed in Nightstalkers #18.
• Lilith, the Daughter of Dracula, an immortal vampire who was cursed to never die until her father was permanently destroyed; when slain, she was reborn into the body of a woman who was full of hate.
• Deacon Frost, the vampire responsible for the death of Blade's mother and Hannibal King's vampirism. He was an upstart contender for the title of Lord of the Vampires, a title held by Dracula at the time.
• Harold H. Harold, a hack writer who befriended the vampire hunters in an effort to get material for a book he was writing. He fell victim to Dracula and became a vampire (in Howard the Duck Magazine #5) — though this did not stop him from becoming a successful Hollywood film producer. However, like all vampires, he perished as a result of the casting of the Montesi Formula.
• Anton Lupeski, a Satanist priest through whom Dracula manipulated a cult while impersonating Satan.
• Domini, a member of Anton Lupeski's cult whom Dracula chose as his bride.