Issue(s): Dracula Lives #1 (1st story only)
Cover Date: Jun 73
Title: "A poison of the blood"
Credits:
Gerry Conway - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Tom Palmer - Inker

Review/plot:
Dracula travels to New York to investigate the purported reincarnation of the wizard Cagliostro, who Dracula describes as an old enemy.

He has a setback when he picks a heroin addict as his meal for the night, and wakes up in a holding cell.

Of course he just feasts on a fellow prisoner before turning into a bat and flying out the window. He then finds a "Mysticologist", one of the followers of the man claiming to be Cagliostro.

He then falls to the ground again due to his heroin addiction. They therefore take a cab the rest of the way there. The cult leader turns out to not really be Cagliostro, and Dracula purifies his blood by replacing it with his.

Also in this issue was a story where Dracula sought the help of a doctor who claimed to have a cure for vampirism, and one where he was behind the scenes at the Salem witch trials, but they both take place prior to Marvel Comics #1 so i'm not covering them.

Marv Wolfman's Tomb of Dracula series involved complex plotting but it retained a focus on an ongoing story. With the popularity of the character plus the trend towards black & white horror comics in general, i guess it was inevitable that Dracula would wind up in a second series. Some of the Dracula Lives stories serve to provide some background on the character and that makes them worthwhile (although i'd rather that information was delivered in the Tomb series), but most of them are standalone filler that muddle up the character's appearances (both historical and present day). I'd definitely put this first issue in the latter category (although Dracula's hinted rivalry with Cagliostro will get some mileage). You can't go wrong with that goofy cover, though.

The glut of b&w horror magazines eventually results in an implosion that threatens even the color series, and Marvel will cut back. This book nonetheless manages to last 13 issues.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: I have this later than publication date, between Tomb of Dracula #15-16. This allows Dracula time to travel to New York for this issue, go to New Orleans for Dracula Lives #2, head to Paris for Dracula Lives #3 and then be in Europe for Tomb of Dracula #16.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Tomb of Dracula vol. 4

Marvel's flooding of the newsstands with horror b&w's also wiped out Skywald, a would-be Warren competitor co-founded by (temporarily)ex-Marvel Sol Brodsky.

I wonder, fnord, if your recent back-issue add - especially insofar as it is weighted towards Marvel's "genre" output - has made any of your "annual overviews" worthy of revision. Especially the really horror-heavy years.

That's a good idea, Cullen. I will give the category pages a read-through when i'm done with the backissue add and make updates as needed. Thanks.

Okay, I know I'm overthinking a stupid story, but why should drinking a heroin user's blood cause withdrawal symptoms in Dracula? He's ingesting an already metabolized drug, which is then metabolized again as he absorbs it from his own vampire intestines, so he should only get a very weak high.

Plus, he's a vampire and one of the undead.