Issue(s): Tomb of Dracula #10, Vampire Tales #2 (Satana story only)
Cover Date: "His name is... Blade!" / "Satana the Devil's daughter!"
Title: Jul 73 / Oct 73
Credits:
Marv Wolfman / Roy Thomas - Writer
Gene Colan / John Romita Sr. - Penciler
Jack Abel / John Romita Sr. - Inker

Review/plot:
This issue has the first appearance of Blade. He's definitely modeled after blaxploitation characters, Shaft specifically, and while he's portrayed as an effective fighter, he's shown to rely entirely on wooden weapons, rejecting Harker's advanced weaponry and planning (he screws up the British team's ability to follow a group of vampire minions to Dracula by killing all of them). Still, he adds a new dimension to the series; he's certainly the first character that isn't incredibly stuffy.

Blade stops Dracula from causing too much mayhem on a cruise boat...

...and Clifton Graves is seemingly killed when the ship explodes.

Dracula and Harker were already aware of Blade prior to this appearance, allowing for the development of a backstory.

Check out Dracula the pick-up artist.

Also in this reprint is the first appearance of Satana, the Devil's Daughter. It's a "the hunted turns out to be the hunter" type of story, with Satana sucking the soul out of a would-be rapist.

Just a preview of the character, really.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 7 - first Blade, first Satana

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• There's a fairly gratuitous reference to Dracula Lives #2, saying that only one other man has mocked Dracula as much as Blade has.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Marvel Milestones: Blade, Man-Thing, Satana

Tomb of Dracula was originally supposed to be a b&w magazine drawn by Bill Everett in 1971, but the problems with Savage Tales #1 stopped that.

Satana only wore this costume for this story and a house ad or two. When it was first reprinted in the Marvel Premiere-Satana issue, some dialogue was inexplicably changed and it reproduced a lot darker.

The Dracula Lives footnote may mean the first Solomon Kane Vs. Dracula story, which Marvel can't reprint due to losing the Robert E. Howard license.

Having recently re-watched the 2011 Marvel Anime Blade series, particularly the episode where he encounters Wolverine in Madripoor, I've come to see some similarities between the two characters. Both are loners who have had to adjust to team situations. Both are "the best at what they do", and no, what they do ain't pretty! And each of them has a close misfit friend with whom they can banter, bicker, and B.S. (Wolvie with Nightcrawler, Blade with Hannibal King). Don't know if Marvel proper has ever done it, but I for one would like to see them join forces in a mini-series somehow. Hell, bring Kurt and Hannibal along for the ride in supporting roles.

While Wolfman and Colan did receive on-screen credit for Blade's creation, it's still a damn shame that Marvel and New Line Cinema didn't see fit to settle and cut them a slice of the back-end and the merch. After all, all of TOD's major players besides Dracula (Blade, Hannibal King, Lilith, Quincy Harker and his team, etc.) were created under their stewardship. Sorry Fnord, I won't turn this into a full-on creators' rights rant, simply just sayin' my piece.