Jul 1972
Who Stalks the Vampire?
by Archie Goodwin, Gene Colan, Tom Palmer, John Costanza
Frank Drake almost commits suicide but he is saved from that fate by Rachel Van Helsing and Taj, her silent companion. She explains to Frank why they were looking for him. Frank is still reeling from what he did to Jeanie. Rachel insists that he did the right thing.
Dracula sends Cliff Graves to retrieve his coffin from the hotel. Cliff gets the night porter to help but when the hotel employee sees that there’s gold hidden in the coffin he gets greedy. Dracula shows up and deals with the night porter. Frank, Rachel, and Taj show up a bit too late to save the night porter but they use crosses and wooden stakes to scare away Dracula.
The police show up and accuse the trio of vampire hunters of killing the night porter. They are taken to Scotland Yard. Their story of hunting Dracula gets them no respect until they prove themselves invaluable by destroying a vampire that emerges from the morgue.
The issue ends with Dracula meeting Ilsa Strangway, who longs to be young again and is convinced that Dracula can help her achieve that goal.
Thoughts
The cover to this issue was created by Gil Kane, Tom Palmer, and Marie Severin. It is great but there is no such scene inside the issue.
This is the first of two issues that Archie Goodwin wrote. It is also the first issue that was inked by Tom Palmer. He inked the majority of Tomb of Dracula. The combination of Colon and Palmer is spectacular.
Ilsa is the first person in this series not to fear Dracula but to seek his embrace. She doesn’t get it in this issue but I’m pretty sure that she won’t have to wait long for it.
The plot thickens. It looks like Frank, Rachel, and Taj will be regulars in this series according to the article that I recently read in Back Issue 6 (Oct 2004). I’m really looking forward to reading more of this series. So far it has lived up to the good things I have heard about it.
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