May 1973
The Hell-Crawlers
by Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, Ernie Chua, Charlotte Jetter, Glynis Wein, Roy Thomas
Dracula turns to Doctor Heinrich Mortte for help in recovering from the wound he received during the fight with the vampire hunters in the previous issue. Mortte, a vampire, tends to Dracula’s injuries and then reluctantly hands over the projector he has which can raise the dead and turn them into an army of undead soldiers.
Quincy Harker, Rachel Van Helsing, Taj, and Frank Drake escape from the knife wielding children in Dracula’s basement. They get back in Harker’s car only to discover that it won’t start. The knife wielding children catch up to them and try to break into the car. Harker radios Edith, his daughter, for help. She arrives by helicopter with a subsonic weapon that drives away the children.
Dracula uses the projector to raise the dead despite Doctor Mortte’s objections. Dracula has plans for his new legion of followers but Mortte grabs the projector, transforms into a bat, and flies off with it. The two vampires fight. Mortte is killed when he gets impaled on a wooden fence. The projector is broken just in time to prevent Mortte’s daughter, who is not a vampire, from getting mauled by an army of the undead.
Thoughts
I believe that Tom Palmer inked most of Tomb of Dracula but this is the first of a few consecutive issues that he did not ink.
Will the kids ever return? I’m not sure. I was really hoping for something a little more involved when it came to how the vampire hunters would deal with the homicidal children.
Not great but decent. I wasn't too surprised when the army of the undead faded away when after the projector was smashed to pieces but I really wanted something better than that.
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