Issue(s): Tomb of Dracula #57
Cover Date: Jun 77
Title: "The forever man!"
Credits:
Marv Wolfman - Writer
Gene Colan - Penciler
Tom Palmer - Inker

Review/plot:
The title of this story refers to a character that is largely tangential to the larger plot of this series. He's a man that has been through several reincarnations over the years, and in a previous incarnation was told that his soul would only truly die when he met Dracula.

The guy only vaguely remembers his previous lives so it's not really a big deal. But he does bump into Dracula during the story and it makes him soul-shocked.

More importantly for the ongoing story, we see the conversation between Domini and Anton Lupeski that was teased two issues ago. Domini really is loyal to Dracula, but Lupeski manipulates her into not telling Dracula that he's conspiring against her by playing on Dracula's suspicious nature.

Meanwhile, Dracula winds up in a hospital after pursuing a police officer that tried to stop him from draining the blood of a young woman and getting a faceful of crucifix.

Running out of the hospital, Dracula runs into the vampire hunters, who are there to see Quincy Harker get his heart checkup.

The event causes Quincy to have another heart attack.

Dracula is forced to flee from the hospital since it's full of nuns wearing crucifixes.

That guy Dracula is yelling at is the "Forever Man". He was in the hospital after getting hit by a random drunk driver. Dracula never actually touches the guy. The idea is just that seeing the guy that will end his immortal life is enough to terrify him.

I like this book, but i'm really interested in the ongoing plot. What often happens is that Wolfman integrates unrelated horror or supernatural stories into the book, kind of as if this was a horror anthology mag. And stories like that are fine but they get very same-y after a while; they really haven't changed since the Silver Age. Wolfman does a good job integrating them into the current setting but i still wind up going through them with a "yeah, yeah, get on with it" attitude and only perk up when Quincy's crew are on panel. The fact that the Satanist plotline for Dracula seems to have lingered a bit past plausible at this point doesn't help, either. By now no one trusts anyone else and it's well past time for someone to act on that. It's still a good book, and it's an interesting artifact of its roots in the horror fad that it continues to tell twisty one-off stories as much as it develops the larger plot, but i'd rather the main story continue to develop.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Since this issue continues the conversation between Anton Lupeski and Domini, i've placed it directly after the first part of that conversation in issue #55. That means that issue #56 is placed after this issue.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential Tomb of Dracula vol. #3

I agree. After building up real well to issue 40 or so, the next twenty issues seem interminable. The Church of Satan plot simply isn't that interesting. I think Wolfman had a cool idea, but didn't know how to resolve it satisfactorily so he kept padding it out to find time to think.

There are so many great moments in this magazine, but Dr Sun was just a ludicrous concept that did not fit well, and the Church of Saint is a good concept that goes nowhere. It doesn't help that the Domini and Janus elements don't work.

I think the idea behind Dr.Sun was to create a villain that was Dracula's opposite- Sun is the product of science where Dracula is the product of sorcery, Sun is a creature of the future (e.g. advanced technology) while Dracula is a creature of the past, Dracula is a corrupted aristocrat while Sun is the product of a corrupted egalitarianism. Unfortunately, he just doesn't come across as menacing enough to justify Drake, Van Helsing and Harker deciding to resurrect Dracula to stop him.
I have to wonder if Wolfman had a different ending in mind to the Janus plot than Dracula getting blown up by Quincy. All the clues seemed to point to some other resolution and Topaz just vanishes from the story after gaining immense power.

Lovely art.