"The End" Week: Journey into Mystery #521!

My first thought was, if I was Marvel, I would've given JiM back to the monsters like Glob or Spragg or 'the Hulk'. But, technically I suppose it did get back to a monster...From 1998, Journey into Mystery #521, "The Long Cold Kill, chapter two" Written by Marv Wolfman, pencils by Karl Kerschl, inks by Al Milgrom. 

You may recall, Thor made his debut in Journey into Mystery #83. The numbering would continue but the book became "Thor" with #126 and would stay such until Thor disappeared during Onslaught in Thor #502. Then it became Journey into Mystery again, for 20 or so issues, first with the "Lost Gods," then Shang-Chi, Black Widow, and finally a Hannibal King two-parter. Wolfman was the co-creator of the reluctant vampire P.I. with Gene Colan, and it's a solid yarn. 

In the previous issue, a gorgeous femme fatale, Tatjana Stiles, had hired King to find her lost hubby, who had been abducted by vampires; but of course there were things she wasn't telling him. King tries to take two cartoon-watching vampires, considering them brain-dead subhumans; and gets tore up: one burns King with a lighter stunt, while the other turns to mist and attacks him from the inside out! King is captured, and the unseen bad guy tries to starve Tatjana's location out of King; who famously would not kill. He is offered a hobo to eat, and the vamp henchmen even 'open' it for him: "You're our baby bird, and we've pre-chewed your dinner." (The above page is from the previous issue, but is pretty cool: Wolfman remembers vampires have other powers, and uses them effectively.)

Having not eaten for six nights, King feeds off the dying hobo, which gives him the strength to punch a crack in his airtight cage and escape as mist. He catches up with Tatjana, to poke holes in her story and get the truth out of her: there's an Evan Dorkin panel where a character figures out a minor clue and cheerfully exclaims "I'm a detective! Yes, I is!" and I swear I could hear it here. She was really a CIA agent, as was her "husband," they had captured a foreign biological weapon, which was then stolen from them by vampires. But why? Eventually, they kill enough vamps to get word of the very spy movie lair of the baddie, Navarro. 

When Tatjana is captured, King caves, giving Navarro the codex-MacGuffin she was hiding in a necklace; which gives Navarro the chance to explain his evil scheme: the biologic weapon wasn't an instant kill, it would give people time to choose between certain death, or becoming a vampire. Navarro thought he would have five million soldiers in a single day, but that doesn't work: he doesn't have anywhere near enough vampires to convert that many people! Vampires aren't like zombies; once bitten, they wouldn't immediately convert. Each of his vampires would have to drink enough blood, per victim, to kill them; which would be a bit (so to speak!) over half a gallon each one. Even if the victims were in an orderly line, factor in how long it takes to suck that much out of somebody, and how much blood can a vampire hold...? Also, what would drinking infected blood do to the vampires? It's a crap plan all around. Also, King and Tatjana had planted bombs all over the place and only put 25 seconds on the clock: Navarro throws out a lot of threats, but gets blow'd up when he tries to save the biological weapon instead of bailing out. 

But, Navarro had bitten Tatjana: she was badly injured, dying, and his bite kept painkillers from affecting her. She begs King to stop the pain...and he does, turning her into a vampire, who goes right back to work for the CIA. Probably with a raise. Back in his noir-y office, King regrets his first convert, and his damnation.

I have to wonder how well this title sold, even though I did like this one; but the letters' page notes Thor would be back next month. With a new #1; it should've been #522! Or #503. Something. Still, this one probably relates back to my hatred of vampire movies where the vamps take a bite out of someone and just one drink, like popping open a Red Bull, taking one drink, and throwing it away and grabbing another. That's wasteful: you opened one, finish it before you have another...