Issue(s): Tomb of Dracula #1, Tomb of Dracula #2, Tomb of Dracula #3, Tomb of Dracula #4, Tomb of Dracula #5, Tomb of Dracula #6
Cover Date: Apr 72 - Jan 73
Title: "Dracula" / "The fear within!" / "Who stalks the vampire?" / "Through a mirror darkly!" / "Death to a vampire-slayer!" / "The moorlands monster!"
Credits:
Gerry Conway / Archie Goodwin / Gardner Fox - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Gene Colan / Vincent Colletta / Tom Palmer - Inker

Review/plot:
The first six issues of Tomb of Dracula are not written by Marv Wolfman, but they set up the story that Wolfman develops. They introduce Dracula's descendant Frank Drake, who gets his girlfriend killed and his friend Clifton Graves possessed when he revives Dracula while trying to sell the family castle.

Later we meet Rachel Van Helsing and her partner Taj, who are vampire slayers.

Rachel says that Taj has been mute since witnessing his village get destroyed by vampires, but this will later get revised.

These stories are fairly typical horror stories, but with nice art by Gene Colan and decent if melodramatic character development.

And it's worth noting that this series is only possible due to recent changes in the Comics Code Authority.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 6 - first Dracula in Marvel Universe

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Tomb of Dracula vol. 1

Gardner Fox returned to comics here after being fired by DC in 1968, and doing some things for Warren in the interim. He was at Marvel for about a year before leaving comics again, and none of his stories there are particularly memorable.

Wolfman later stated that #1 was plotted by Roy Thomas from an idea by Stan Lee.

David Michelinie has a letter in #3.

I never cared for this or Conan as a kid, focusing much more on superhero comics. But I've grown to greatly appreciate them as I have come to love the original source material. These veers a lot more than Conan from the source, but it is still very enjoyable, and much more so once Wolfman comes on board.

@Mark Drummond: I dunno, that Red Wolf story where the villain is some kind of evil Buddhist biker art thief is pretty memorable, if not for the right reasons.