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Tomb of Dracula #8

May 1973
Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan

Tomb of Dracula #8 cover

Story Name:

The Hell-Crawlers


Synopsis

Tomb of Dracula #8 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 4 stars

Dracula, having been hit by a poisoned dart fired by Quincy Harker, resists Clifton Graves’ offer of help, telling him to see to their “guests’” demise. Dracula then flies off to the Continent to crash through the window of Dr. Heinrich Mortte who sends his patients away….

Meanwhile, Frank Drake, Rachel van Helsing, Quincy Harker, and Taj Nital are trapped in the old fortress by Dracula’s pack of hypnotized boys, who have no qualms about massacring the vampire hunters. The lights are snuffed so that Taj can bend the bars of a window and help Rachel to escape. She heads around to the front door, clobbers Cliff Graves, and throws open the inner doors, suddenly blinding the boys with the light, giving Frank and the others the chance to dash out. They head away as quickly as possible, making it to their car, only to find the wires have been cut and the children have caught up with them. The boys swarm over the car and when they see they can’t get in, hurry off to find rocks to throw, breaking the windows. Just as it looks like all is lost, Edith Harker arrives in a helicopter, emitting a sub-sonic scream that knocks all the boys unconscious, presumably to be normal when they awaken….

Meanwhile, Dracula is forcing Dr Mortte to operate on him, using all the supply of the blood bank for a transfusion. Dracula had threatened to expose Mortte as a vampire so the doctor has reluctantly agreed. After the surgery, Dr. Mortte’s daughter Adrian is concerned but he sends her away. But Dracula also forces Mortte to hand over “the projector,” a device which will raise the dead in the cemetery as an army of vampires under Dracula’s control. And it does, too. Adrian comes out to see what her father is doing; he confesses to her that he and her mother were vampires, feeding off the supplies in the blood bank but when Dracula orders the newly undead to kill her, Mortte rebels. He snatches the projector away from Dracula and flies off as a bat; the villain follows and there ensues a battle in the skies. Mortte drops the projector and when it smashes on the ground, the dead all dissolve. Dracula knocks Mortte out of the sky and he lands impaled on a wooden picket fence….


 

Review / Commentaries


Tomb of Dracula #8 Review by (August 5, 2020)

Review: Hm. A halfway cool story, with Dracula being proactive in plotting to raise an army of the undead. The biggest problem with a title that centers on a villain is giving him something to do other than merely elude the heroes from issue to issue and so we will see what Marv Wolfman does in upcoming issues but here he is off to a good start. And the Dr Mortte plot alternates with the heroes fighting off the feral children (the plots were untangled to make the synopsis read better) full of thrills. There are a few questions though. The sub-sonic scream that knocks all the boys unconscious? Why doesn’t it affect the adults? Was Adrian born before or after her parents became vampires? The former seems unlikely, the latter, impossible. Why doesn’t Mortte return to life when he is removed from the wooden spike piercing his heart in the final panel? No matter, the story is especially cool with the batfight a standout.

Comments: Only appearances of Heinrich Mortte and his daughter Adrian. Includes an announcement for the B&W DRACULA LIVES #1.



> Tomb of Dracula comic book info and issue index

Elektra

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Gene Colan
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Gene Colan (Cover Penciler)
Tom Palmer (Cover Inker)
Unknown (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Charlotte Jetter.

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