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AWESOME-tober-fest 2011: Batman vs Dracula

Posted in Batman, comic books, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, vampires with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Batman, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, DC Comics, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters on October 7, 2011 by Paxton

This the is final day of AWESOME-tober-fest 2011 comic book week in which I look at comic books featuring the character of Dracula. Today I’m going to look at the epic battle between the Lord of the Vampires and the Dark Knight Detective.

Today’s comic is Batman & Dracula: Red Rain from 1991. Yes, Batman vs Dracula in an Elseworlds tale. How badass is that? The book was written by Doug Moench and illustrated by Kelley Jones. This was a very popular graphic novel and spawned a cartoon movie that was loosely based on the story.

This graphic novel has Batman investigating a series of murders affecting Gotham’s homeless population. Batman discovers that the murders are by a family of vampires led by Dracula himself. Batman recruits a female vampire named Tanya who recently left Dracula’s family to help lure the vampire legions to the Batcave. Batman is accidentally bit by a vampire but still manages to destroy the majority of the vampire family except Dracula. Dracula kidnaps Gordon and Batman goes after him. Dracula and vampire Batman battle and Dracula is impaled on a broken tree trunk. Batman laments that Bruce Wayne is dead but states that now, vampire Batman can continue forever.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2011: Marvel’s Dracula Lives magazine (1973)

Posted in comic books, Dracula, monsters, movies, pop culture, vampires with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, Marvel, monsters on October 6, 2011 by Paxton

Welcome to Day 4 of AWESOME-tober-fest 2011. This week I am looking at comic books featuring the character of Dracula. Yesterday we looked at Marvel’s regular size Tomb of Dracula. Today we look at Marvel’s magazine sized Dracula Lives.

Marvel released Dracula Lives after their comic Tomb of Dracula became popular. It was a black and white magazine that featured Marvel talents such as Tomb of Dracula writer Marv Wolfman and artists Dick Giordano, Roy Thomas and Gene Colan. The magazines would feature articles about Dracula movies as well as the actors that played Dracula. The magazine would also become known for the comic stories featuring Dracula. Since the magazine was released concurrently with the Tomb of Dracula comic, the stories would, for the most part, keep continuity between the two. Events that happened in one would be reflected in the other.

Let’s look at some of the more notable comic stories in this magazine.

In Dracula Lives! #2, there is a Dracula origin story. It’s written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by the awesome Neal Adams. The artwork is truly fantastic. Adams is wonderful. I mentioned his work on Monday when I looked at the book and record set A Story of Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein. The story involves Turks invading Transylvania and taking Dracula (who is a mortal man) prisoner and planning to use him as a puppet king. Dracula is injured in battle and taken to a gypsy to keep him alive. The gypsy reveals herself to be a vampire and the Turks kill her and take Dracula back to their stronghold. Their the Turks threaten Dracula’s wife and child to make him to their bidding. The Turks kill his wife, then Dracula reveals that the gypsy turned him into a vampire and he slaughters everyone. Why he didn’t “vamp out” earlier to save his wife is a mystery. Dracula then vows vengeance on the entire world for the death of his wife.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2011: Marvel’s Tomb of Dracula (1972)

Posted in comic books, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, monsters, vampires with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Dracula, Halloween, holiday, Marvel, monsters on October 5, 2011 by Paxton

Continuing our look at comic books this week featuring the character of Dracula. Today we look at the classic Marvel comic, Tomb of Dracula. The first seven issues of the series had trouble keeping a writer. Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin and Gardner Fox all took turns. The book finally took off when Marv Wolfman became the permanent writer with issue 7. The entire run was drawn by Gene Colan. Colan didn’t model his Dracula on Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee. He would use Jack Palance as his model. Tomb of Dracula became a very popular part of Marvel’s horror comics in the 70s – 80s.

In Tomb of Dracula #10 (1973), the character of Blade the Vampire Hunter would be introduced. At the time, Blade was just a guy who happened to be immune to vampire bites. He was more Shaft than super-vampire. In 1998 Wesley Snipes would re-envision the character of Blade for the big screen.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2011: Dell Dracula comics (1966)

Posted in comic books, Dracula, Frankenstein, monsters, nostalgia, pop culture, vampires with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2011, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, Dell Monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein, Halloween, holiday, monsters on October 4, 2011 by Paxton

Continuing our Halloween AWESOME-tober-fest, this week we are looking at comics featuring Dracula. Today is one part of a group of comics by Dell that re-imagines the Universal Monsters as super heroes.

I have previously looked at the other Dell Monster comics for Halloween. Dell picked up the Universal Monster license in the early 60s and tried to reboot the monsters into super heroes. It was as gloriously insane as you think it was. I talked a little bit about the Dell Frankenstein comic during AWESOME-tober-fest 2009. I hope to someday revisit that comic for a more in depth review. Next I took a long look at the Dell Werewolf comic for AWESOME-tober-fest 2010. While strangely awesome and weird, the Werewolf comic had the best plot so far. They next turned their eyes toward Dracula. And the above comic laden with ridiculous weirdness was the result. Check out that goddam costume. Did he design it in the dark?

The Dracula series only lasted three issue. Here are issues #3 and #4.

The comics are pretty zany. Let’s take a closer look at some of the more entertaining bits.

Dracula origin 2
Here’s the new Dracula’s origin. This guy, Dr Dracula is trying to clear his family name since it’s been smeared by legend. He is trying to cure brain damage with bats…somehow. He creates a serum, pronounces it a success and then proceeds to let go all of his test bats because his work is done (without testing it?). Then one of the bats knocks over the serum and it pours into Dracula’s celebratory drink…without him knowing it (of course!). The serum inexplicably gives Dracula the ability to transform into a bat which, if you think about it as a super power, kinda sucks.

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Review of DC’s The New 52 – Justice League #1

Posted in Batman, comic books, reviews, Superman with tags Batman, Cavalcade Comics, comic books, DC Comics, pop culture, reviews, Superman on August 31, 2011 by Paxton

Well, for those that don’t know, I’m off to Vegas tomorrow. My wife and I are renewing our vows for our 10th anniversary and there’s no better way to do it than to do it in Vegas by Elvis. So that’s happening for me this weekend.

I wanted to jump in today with a quick comic review. The first of DC’s “New 52” came out and I got my hands on it. It was Justice League #1.

Written by Geoff Johns and drawn by the awesome Jim Lee, this comic begins DC’s journey into Rebootville. I wasn’t for sure what to expect going into this. I was a little excited, a little apprehensive. I just wanted a good start to this whole thing. Plus, I didn’t know where they would begin. Will we see the origin of the JLA, or will everything begin further back and we’ll eventually get the full-fledged JLA. Let’s see.

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