I was thinking about Marvel Legends, and then glanced at this issue and remembered, hey, didn't I get the Blade figure? Along with about sixty-plus others last year, yeah. Some figures got buried in the crowd there, but we'll get back to him. Oh, and today's book: from 1975, Tomb of Dracula #30, "Memories on a Mourning's Night!" Written by Marv Wolfman, pencils by Gene Colan, inks by Tom Palmer. This one's been reprinted multiple times, but we've got a beat-up original today--got the Marvel Value Stamp and everything!
Dracula's in a gloomy mood tonight, after the death of Sheila Whittier: I don't have the previous issue handy, so I'm not sure why he's so broken up about that, but he is. So he opts to stay in and do a bit of "scribing" in his diary. This gives us the opportunity for three short tales, of Dracula failing or coming up short; as he works through those hard times: it would be admirable, if he wasn't a murdering monster, right?
First, a scheming wife tries to make Dracula her murder weapon for her husband, so she can move up to Otto von Bismarck. Next, Dracula takes revenge for a little blind girl, only to find maybe she didn't want it. Finally, the big one: Drac's first meeting with Blade, who wants to join Dracula!? What?
Presenting himself as wanting to get on the winning team before vampires wipe out humanity, he brings Dracula to meet his team--and jump him! They actually do pretty well, although Dracula's handmaidens show to help revive him later, and most of team Blade would be dead before long.
I was nattering on about Blade on Twitter the other week, since some wrong-minded soul tried to say Spawn was a better movie than Blade: come on, son. It's not even a better movie than Blade II. But Blade's never been able to carry his own comic for very long, so I wonder why Marvel hasn't trotted out Tomb of Dracula again lately? Well, it might be all right, since I hate, hate, hate the current Marvel design for him. And, if I've never mentioned it; no offense to Wesley Snipes, but I'd love to see a Blade reboot, set in the 70's! Wooden knives, funky green night-vision goggles, so much funk...
I can't really comment much about Blade, because I am too busy swooning over that Gene Colan art.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't buy the latest Blade figure yet?
ReplyDeleteI'm probably of the minority to NOT like his 70's look. If the green he was rocking was neon or some loud version of that color, he'd look like on of those X games guys circa the 1990's. While I don't particularly care for Snipe's hairdo in Blade, the overall look better suits a character like Blade I think.
I know he's been re-imagined a couple times over the last 10 years, last time by Howard Chaykin.
Plus he has a daughter now that's taken up the Blade mantle?
Oh, I totally got Blade, but I feel like I put Man-Thing together and then set him aside...and haven't come back to him yet. Not sure he even made the year-end pic!
ReplyDelete