Essential Tomb of Dracula volume 4

Essential Tomb of Dracula volume 4 is a change from the norm, containing material in narrative rather than publication order from Tomb of Dracula Magazine #2 to #6, Dracula Lives! #1 to #13 and Frankenstein Monster #7 to #9. Bonus material includes some pin-ups from the magazines and also from a calendar, unused pencilled artwork from the multi-part story planned for Tomb of Dracula #70 to #72 before it was condensed into a single giant-size issue, and finally a couple of one-page stories. The Dracula stories are written by a wide range of writers including Marv Wolfman, Roger McKenzie, Peter Gillis, Gerry Conway, Doug Moench, Gardner Fox, Roy Thomas, Tony Isabella, Mike Friedrich, Jim Shooter, Steve Gerber, Len Wein and Rick Margopolous. The art is by Gene Colan, John Buscema, Neal Adams, Vicente Alcazar, Frank Robbins, Steve Gan, Sonny Trinidad, Yong Montano, Dick Ayers, Alan Weiss, Frank Springer, George Evans, Tony Dezuniga, Paul Gulacy, Rich Buckler, Jim Starlin, Alfonso Font, Mike Ploog, Frank Robbins, Alfredo Alcala, George Tuska, Val Mayerik and Ernie Chua. The Frankenstein Monster issues are all written by Mike Friedrich and drawn by John Buscema. With such a large number of creators there are not one but two separate labels posts.

One of the less often commented features about reprints is that they aren't always exactly the same as the original publication. Cutting pages or even individual panels to fit a smaller page count or different size format and modifying footnotes to reference other reprints are the best known but there's also a long history of amending dialogue and visuals to suit different sensibilities. Just to add to the confusion the state of the archives isn't always the best so the material available or ordered up is sometimes identical to the original printing, sometimes a modified version from a later reprint and occasionally an earlier prepublication one that was modified before it first went to the printers but with the unaltered version hanging around in the files. The Essentials have had a mixed record on source material over the years, with the earlier volumes often relying on other reprints whilst the later ones developed better techniques for going straight back to the source material. But even then some things were still changed. Usually these changes aren't too well documented but this volume, released almost at the mid point of the Essentials, has had some changes made to the artwork to cover up nudity, especially on the first story with Lilith.

Were this not known about it wouldn't affect readability at all - the changes focus on hiding nudity, mainly by extending existing clothing. (There are some comparisons between the original and modified panels at The Groovy Age of Horror: Censored Essentials? - be warned the nudity is clear.) Marvel of course has every legal right to do this (the US doesn't have the concept of creators' moral rights to object to tampering with the work) and whether this was the company's own decision or a response to the modern standards of distributors and booksellers is unknown, but the alternative may have been no reprint at all. But it's a pity that it was deemed necessary to make the modifications as it does ultimately mean this isn't quite an exact reprint (and that means even more when most of the material was in black and white to start with). And the market for reprints of old Dracula stories shouldn't have a problem with it. Certainly there's other material with pretty adult themes such as pirates attacking a village, including rape (the word is actually used) and their female captain is shown using sex to beguile and control her crew, with one crewmember shown being rewarded and later others promised "Hellyn's reward will be given to all who score with a thrust!" when facing Dracula. Yet despite this the story finds itself unable to say "bastard" and has to use the euphemism "fatherless dog".

As for what's actually been printed here, this is very much a mishmash collection of material. It starts off with a couple of tales from Tomb of Dracula Magazine, continuing where the last volume left off, before running through a whole set of historical adventures from the various magazines and another character's comic, then finishes off with the present day tales from Dracula Lives! magazine that ran parallel to the early issues of the Tomb of Dracula comic. The result of all this is that the volume jumps around. Reading between the lines it becomes clear that Marvel didn't really know what to do with the ongoing adventures of Dracula now that the 1970s horror fad had passed and Marv Wolfman had left the character (and was in the process of leaving the company altogether). Consequently it's unsurprising that the magazine ended after just six issues and there's nothing in the early stories that suggests any real direction with the most significant development being an ending of sorts as Lilith is separated from the body of Angel O'Hara and then finds she is unable to kill her father. The other early tale is a more typical piece of what is to come, with Dracula preying on an innocent woman, here a ballerina, and transforming her. She eventually commits suicide and is not the only female victim to do so in these pages.

The historic adventures of Dracula show no development at all, being just a succession of tales in different historic periods. Reordering them chronologically helps to disguise the lack of direction but it also exposes some inconsistencies in the basic vampire mythology, most notably as to whether a transformed victim needs to wait three nights or not before rising again, whether Dracula needs to spend the day in a coffin full of Transylvanian earth or not, and whether he needs to be invited in before he can enter a public dwelling. Each of these rules is both adhered to and broken throughout the course of these tales, with Dracula's precise vulnerability to crosses also fluctuating somewhat. This just reinforces the mess these tales are.

By and large the historic adventures either fill in the core history of Dracula, although the adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel is conspicuously absent, or else place the vampire in a particular period setting as he wanders across Europe and occasionally beyond, but always ultimately returning home. There's a variety of stock characters and situations including hordes of Turkish warriors, witches, pirates, court nobles, American Civil War soldiers, cowboys, gangsters and wartime Germans. And there are attempts to do more with the formula than simply preying on women and evading their menfolk. But something just doesn't feel right about these stories. Dracula is ultimately a late Victorian Gothic creation, even if he was named after a historical figure from the fifteenth century and has since had that historical character fused into the fictional one. Seeing him placed in other historical settings just doesn't feel right and few of the tales are able to really rise above the limitations. As a result the only historic stories of any real significance are the early ones which tell how Vlad the Impaler became a vampire in the first place and also how the centuries long war between Dracula and the Van Helsings began. There's also a particularly dark tale as Dracula encounters and brings down the notorious real life serial killer Countess Elizabeth Bathory, here depicted with all the gruesomeness of bathing in the blood of virgins to restore and maintain her youth. It's a particularly dark tale that shows Dracula up against a woman who is immune to his bite, forcing him to resort to more devious methods to bring her down, making for a good homage to what is believed to have been one of the influences upon Stoker. Otherwise these tales are really just back-up filler that don't work when collected together in their own right. Early on a text piece entitled "Bloodline: A Probable Outline Of The Career Of Count Vlad Dracula" summarises all the adventures and material from various flashbacks and that contains probably everything that could be needed to cover his historic career.

The three Frankenstein Monster issues are set in 1898 and appear to be Dracula's first appearance after the Stoker novel, which is given a very brief one page summary here. The issues show Frankenstein's monster on a search for the last of his creator's family and encountering a travelling gypsy circus on the way but one of the gypsies has ulterior motives. It leads to a rather dull conflict between two of the greatest horror creations who each deserved so much more. As is so often the case with these tales we get Dracula preying on innocent women in an isolated settlement and clashing with the local men, with some suspicious townsfolk thrown in who bring a gruesome fate to the gypsies. We also get what is becoming an increasingly routine occurrence whereby Dracula ends the story seemingly slain but his killer lacks either the knowledge or time to perform the necessary actions to destroy the corpse before the vampire can be brought back to life. Though we sometimes see Dracula resurrected, such as here when an old gypsy woman tricks the monster into unsealing a tomb, the succession of deaths and unexplained resurrections work to undermine the overall impact of the stories by disrupting the narrative flow and removing the impact of danger and destruction to Dracula.

The final part of the volume is only slightly more coherent, being taken up with the present day adventures from Dracula Lives! and so at least publication and chronological orders coincide. But apart from a vague narrative as Dracula comes to the States in an unsuccessful search for his old foe Cagliostro before heading back to Europe, this is much the same as before. Dracula wanders through a succession of scenarios, ranging from becoming addicted to drugs after biting a junkie to a battle with an eighteenth century man who has been transformed into a stone gargoyle that only comes to life at night. A visit to New Orleans sees the Zombie passing by but there's no interaction between the two horror characters and instead the focus is on an encounter with Marie Le Vau, the "Voodoo Queen of New Orleans". Elsewhere in Hollywood Dracula challenges a has-been actor who has been portraying him and suffering delusions that make him believe he is the actual vampire. Dracula's nastiest streak comes to the fore at times as he sets traps, especially when he bites a terrorist and sets him up to be exposed to sunlight without realising what will happen. A particularly favourite trick is to set a foe up by biting an expected acquaintance in advance who in turn becomes a vampire in time to attack. A number of women are drawn to Dracula over the course of these stories and he will sometimes be drawn to them in return but ultimately will never settle with any of them, leaving them lonely and, in one case, suicidal. The biggest addition to the mythology is the Montesi Formula, a spell that can destroy vampires permanently which leads Dracula to risk invading the Vatican in order to dispose of both Cardinal Montesi and the formula before it can be used permanently. Otherwise these tales are just more of the same.

This volume primarily serves as a companion piece to the three earlier ones, collecting together material from the supporting series and guest appearances that never fully fitted alongside the ongoing narrative in the monthly comic. And this patchwork shows even without being reordered into a chronological framework. There's no development or recurring cast beyond Dracula, whilst a lot of the situations bear a strong similarity to one another. All in all this volume is pretty inessential.

Essential Captain America volume 7

Essential Captain America volume 7 is made up of issues #231 to #257. The writing is mainly by first Roger McKenzie and then Roger Stern with plotting or scripting contributions by Jim Shooter, Michael Fleisher, Chris Claremont and John Byrne, and other issues by Peter Gillis, Paul & Alan Kupperberg, Mike W. Barr, Steven Grant and Bill Mantlo. The art sees the end of Sal Buscema's run and the entirety of John Byrne's plus other issues by Fred Kida, Alan Kupperberg, Frank Springer, Don Perlin, Rich Buckler, Carmine Infantino, Jerry Bingham, Gene Colan and Lee Elias. Additionally issue #257 included a couple of filler reprints from Not Brand Echh #11 & #12, both by Marie Severin. Also reprinted are a handful of letterspages on which Roger Stern expounds his approach to the character and series. The labels see a separate post.

This is another volume that shows that when Cap gets a good committed creative team then things can start to gel with firm foundations and a strong string of exciting adventures, but that also when a team leaves suddenly the book quickly sinks back into the quagmire of fill-ins, aimless wandering, excessive flashbacks and sub par adventures. Still the good in this volume strongly outweighs the bad.

The volume starts off with a multi-part storyline in which Cap faces off against the National Force, a bunch of modern day American neo-Nazis who brainwash crowds into support for their racial war. In the process, it is revealed that the National Force's Grand Director is the Captain America of the 1950s under the influence of Doctor Faustus. Over the course of successive issues Cap is forced to face down foes who were once friends and a man with his own face, with little help save for Daredevil. At one point Cap himself is brainwashed and winds up fighting for the National Force with a swastika painted on his shield. It's a chilling image that underlines how easy it is to take patriotism and unity and turn them into divisive weapons of hate. Equally chilling is the way that individual members of the National Force choose to incinerate themselves rather than risk capture.

But as well as the National Force seeking to purge America of "undesirable" elements, the storyline also serves as a grand clearing out of a lot of elements of Captain America's mythology. The very first pages see the Falcon confirm that he is going solo for now. Over the course of these issues Cap also cuts on his formal ties to S.H.I.E.L.D., though he accepts one final mission under a fill-in writer that takes him to the Himalayas where he has to rescue a telepathic girl from the Mind-Master and a whole range of henchmen, some more real than others. As Steve Rogers, Cap briefly revives his role as a police officer only to abandon it, symbolically stripping off his uniform in the commissioner's office and leaving it there as he goes into costumed action. The 1950s Cap is underused in the story, providing little more than a shock cliffhanger and a chance to clear him out as well when he seemingly kills himself by incineration. But even more shocking are the fates of two of Captain America's partners. A flashback in issue #236 reveals how, as a test to demonstrate his brainwashing was totally complete, the 1950s Cap accepted an order to shoot and kill Bucky. He may not have been the original Bucky, but that's due to a latter-day retcon and nonetheless he was the partner of the Captain America of the day. Casually killing him off in a flashback in which he doesn't even get to speak feels like a quick sweeping away of the character as part of a grand clear out of just about all the elements in Cap's life. Then the following issue goes on step further.

Earlier in the story Sharon has succumbed to the brainwashing and become another of the National Force spreading hate and fear on the streets. She is part of a group that gets into a confrontation with Cap but then she disappears and is not clearly seen when the others incinerate themselves to a crisp, leaving her fate uncertain. After the defeat of Faustus and the Force, Cap gives a press conference to explain his actions whilst under the influence of the brainwashing, and is then taken aside and shown news footage of his earlier fight. There he sees Sharon incinerate herself. It's a dark moment, made all the worse for taking place in the back of a news van as Cap plays the tape over and over again, realising there's nothing he can do for her now. Their relationship often came under pressure because their work often kept them apart, yet here they were so close to each other and he didn't even see her fate. It's a time when a major character's death in flashback works well, but coming so soon after the casual disposal of the 1950s Bucky and the dropping of so many other aspects of Cap's life and the result is a full cleaning of the slate over just seven issues.

The slate doesn't remain blank for long though. After some time away off panel, Steve soon finds a new home, a new career and a new supporting cast. Settling in a flat in Brooklyn, he goes into business as a freelance artist, leading to many a good joke about how artists struggle for work and have to deal with all kinds of bizarre clients. His portfolio case makes for a good hiding place for his shield in a change from forever hiding it on his back. Meanwhile Steve's building contains a variety of other tenants, each with their own career and back story making for a good supporting cast. The motherly figure of the building is Anna Kapplebaum, a survivor of the Holocaust who was saved in the camps by Cap's intervention many years ago; although she doesn't make the connection she finds she somehow recognises Steve and takes an instant liking to him. She is forced to relive her memories when the camp doctor, Dr Mendelhaus, resurfaces and is sought both by neo-Nazis based in Latin America and by Nazi hunters. In the resulting confrontation she finds herself facing her former tormentor holding a pistol. Less developed at this stage is Mike Farrell, a fire-fighter. Then there's Josh Cooper, a teacher of children with special needs. And, although she doesn't arrive until the Stern-Byrne run, there's Bernie Rosenthal, a glass blower who was at university with Mike. She almost has "future girlfriend" written on her forehead, taking an instant liking to him but getting frustrated with his frequent disappearances, including when he gets a phone call summoning him to the United Kingdom just when they're on the sofa together. It's a good mix of likeable characters who give Steve a strong life away from the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. as well as offering strong story potential such as when one of the pupils at Joe's school suddenly dies and his father goes a grief-fuelled act of vengeance against members of the education board, the social security officer and his son's teacher, blaming them all for the death.

Roger McKenzie's run fizzles out in a sea of fill-ins with Cap facing a number of forgettable foes such as Bobo and Big Thunder, local mobsters trying to drive a man out of his home when he's the last tenant in a building and then trying to create a reputation by defeating Cap. Or there's the Manipulator, a being with two faces that subjects Cap to hallucinations after being hired by revenge seeking ex-police sergeant Muldoon. Or Adonis, a man whose attempt to replace his body goes disastrously wrong. The fill-ins at the end of the volume aren't much either, with Cap returning to a British castle where he dealt with a rocket during the war and now he has to deal with shrinking rays and the mysterious Druid. Or there's the Master of Matrix Eight, another neo-Nazi group headed by a former assistant of Baron Zemo. More notable is the first encounter between Cap and the Punisher, making for a strong contrast in their crime-fighting methods yet also showing some of the similarities between the two men.

But the big highlight of this volume is the run by Roger Stern and John Byrne. It comprises just nine issues (#247 to #255) and yet it delivers a high octane run that quickly grasps the core concept of Cap and proceeds to put him through a good mix of adventures with grand scale threats and closer, more personal moments. It also manages to deliver two memorable anniversary issues, both for issue #250 and for the character's fortieth anniversary in issue #255. Amongst the highlights is a sorting out of Cap's origin in the very first issue. In the space of just four pages much of the confusion added in the last volume is swept away as a set of artificially implanted memories, with Steve's roots as a New York child of poverty during the Great Depression restored, and to back it up Cap discovers his old army trunk and journal. Later issue #255 contains a retelling of Cap's origin and summation of his career, with much of it even produced directly from the pencils, producing a suitably retro Golden Age feel. Details are sorted out such as the name of the inventor of the Super Soldier Serum or the reasons behind the early changes in the costume and shield. The result is a comprehensive version of the origin that can stand as the definitive without too much querying. (Although it does seem to implicitly delete the adventure in Newfoundland right before Cap went on ice for decades, though that's an addition to the saga that's best forgotten.)

Issue #250 came out in a presidential election year and sees the New Populist Party attempt to draft Cap as their candidate for President after he saves their convention from terrorists. There are some subtle jabs at both the standard procession of serving politicians as candidates, at the usual assumption by third parties that only they can offer anything positive, and also at the desire for a leader that people trust and respect regardless of his experience and positions. It's one of the more gentle parodies of US politics that Marvel have done over the years but it allows Cap to make an assertion of his role in serving the American dream over and above the nation in reality.

The rest of the run puts Cap up against a number of different foes in some unusual combinations such as Machine Smith and Dragon Man plus robotic versions of both Baron Strucker and various Marvel heroes, or Mr Hyde and Batroc who find they have very different approaches to threatening New York City for money. But the highlight comes as Cap visits the UK where the vampire Baron Blood is once more stalking the land and threatening his brother, the original Union Jack. The story serves as a climax for both one of Cap's former fellow Invaders and his arch nemesis but also as a rebirth for a hero's spirit. Overall this is a well drawn and strongly scripted run with both creators firing at all strength and it well deserves its reputation.

This volume somewhat encapsulates the problems that the series has had over the years with the best creative teams rarely lasting long and a sea of weaker runs and fill-in issues leaving things in a mess with underdeveloped elements in the present and awkward additions to the character's past. But it also shows how it is possible to get beyond many of the problems by making a concerted effort to clear up messier points and clarify the past, allowing for the character to be taken back to his basic position as a champion for the American dream. Here we get both good clean-ups and one of the strongest, if shortest lasting, runs yet seen in the series, making for a volume where the good heavily outweighs the bad.

Essential Captain America volume 6 - creator labels

Yet again there is a volume with lots of creators so here's a separate post for some of them.

Essential Tomb of Dracula volume 3

Essential Tomb of Dracula volume 3 consists of issues #50 to #70 of the regular series and #1 to #4 of Tomb of Dracula Magazine. Almost everything is written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Gene Colan bar one issue of the Magazine which is written by Roger McKenzie and another which is drawn by Steve Ditko.

The volume opens with a fairly well known encounter with the Silver Surfer as he gets caught up in the internal machinations of the satanic cult that Dracula now heads. It's all rather underwhelming and certainly not the great classic of legend, an early warning sign that perhaps Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan are starting to run out of creative energy. This feeling persists through the next several issues as other elements are hurried through such as the quick dismissal of Blade's doppelganger but fortunately there's a distinct upturn as the series heads towards its climax.

There are a few other guest appearances on the way with mixed impacts. Topaz, from the Werewolf by Night series, pops up as a tool of a very particular foe who wants Dracula lured to a special location. Daimon Hellstrom the Son of Satan shows up for an issue in order to resurrect Blade and free him from his doppelganger. Hellstrom doesn't hang around for the final showdown with Deacon Frost after which both Blade and Hannibal King broadly depart from the series with their mission of vengeance complete, though Blade shows up later in an issue that feels like it's a standby fill-in as Blade and Musenda reunite to save a woman from an odd curse that links her to a vampire, alternating between day and night. Also reaching completion is Harold H. Harold as he finishes his novel about Dracula, which is also adapted as a play and, potentially, a film, and he finally gets to go on a date with Aurora. He later appears at a showing of the play having convinced an actress he can get her a part in the film but Dracula is also in the audience and it doesn't go well for Harold.

One of the key themes of the volume is religion, with Dracula's position as head a satanic cult leading to encounters with both those from below and those from above. Early on, a mysterious being confronts Dracula only to die in the event but his spirit rises and it becomes clear he is connected to Christ via a portrait with glowing eyes. It's a very bold move to all but explicitly say that Dracula has encountered an angel, but it's also one that makes perfect sense given the power Christian artefacts have in vampire mythology. Later on, Dracula's son Janus is resurrected and artificially accelerated in age to that of a young man through fusion with the angel's spirit. And this leads to a confrontation that fuses both of the biggest themes.

The other big theme of the run is that of families, although there isn't much exploration of the most prominent direct relationship between Dracula and his descendant Frank Drake. Instead the emphasis at one end is on Rachel van Helsing and her relationship with Quincy Harker, as her father figure suffers a succession of heart attacks and becomes ever more desperate to complete his mission before his health finally gives out. Meanwhile Dracula is almost domesticated, now married to the cultist Domini and seeing a son, named Janus, born on the night of December 24th. In a display of a story element I have never liked in comics published at Christmas, Janus's birth brings peace and goodwill to the vicinity, causing the immediate fighting to end and foes to let one another go. Janus also brings joy and peace to both his parents, who reflect upon their pasts of loneliness and awkward relationships with the rest of their families. But families come in many forms and not all relationships are in good form. Dracula has a further encounter with his daughter Lilith but she will do nothing to help him in his most desperate hour. The Church of the Damned cult is another form of family but one with internal hatreds as Anton Lupeski plots to overthrow and destroy Dracula, now that the birth of a son means the vampire is no longer needed. In the showdown tragedy strikes when Dracula evades the bullet and it instead kills Janus. Lupeski is soon disposed of but Domini calls an end to the immediate violence, channelling the painting of Christ. Subsequently she performs a ritual that resurrects Janus in fusion with the dead angel's spirit, and the result is a young man torn between filial duty and a destiny to kill Dracula.

This leads to confrontations between father and son but before long both are lured to a strange recreation of a Roman arena, along with both Frank Drake and Topaz, where a demon tries to get Dracula and Janus to fight to the death but fails and they instead turn on the demon. Dracula then finds himself transported to Hell where they encounter Satan himself. Satan toys with Dracula, turning him into a human once more and casting him back into the world where both he and the vampire hunters now face a very different set of circumstances and morality. He now wanders the Earth discovering he now has the all too mortal concerns of money, food and injury to cope with whilst they must question whether they can kill a human man who is no longer a threat. But there's one hunter known as the Cowboy for whom the answer is clear-cut. Dracula continues on a quest to be restored to vampiredom, but is spurned by the only vampire he deems worthy to transform him, Lilith. Dracula then turns to Janus and persuades his son to send him to the one place where he might find restoration, Transylvania. But here too he finds rejection as his subjects and vampires now serve a new master, Torgo, and reject Dracula for having turned his back on the old ways. In turn Dracula is forced to embrace his foes even more as he turns to God for help and crucifixes for protection, but it's all the manipulation of Satan who has done all this to break him. Dracula is restored to vampire form as the climax of the series looms.

The finale sees Dracula confront Torgo, who was transformed into a vampire by the same woman as Dracula, leading to a battle to reclaim lordship over the vampires. But it's a hollow victory as Dracula contemplates just what it is he rules over and then comes the real showdown. Quincy Harker is dying and confronts Dracula one final time in the castle in Transylvania in vengeance for his wife and daughter. It's a dramatic climax to the series and Quincy is the natural choice for the final battle; however there's a loophole left open when explosives in Quincy's wheelchair detonate before he can take the correct ritual steps to destroy the corpse. All that is left is for Quincy's final letter to help Rachel rediscover herself, whilst Janus is unmerged from the angel and restored to infant form. The series ends with a look back at the man that Dracula was.

This is one of the rare cases from the era when a title was given enough warning to enable it to wrap up the story within its own pages; imagine the awkwardness if such an intense and involved conclusion had to be rush packed into a single issue of Marvel Two-in-One. There's a real sense of closure as Dracula is restored to his former glory just in time for the final showdown, whilst hope for the future is left with the surviving cast members. If the story of Marvel's Dracula had ended here it would have gone out on a truly spectacular high. However it turns out this wasn't quite the ending of the title that it at first seems but rather a clearing of the deck for a change in format.

The switch to a black and white magazine format is a surprise; it seems there was another attempt by Marvel to drive into the horror magazine format. If the colour comic was cancelled for this reason then it was in vain. The four magazines reproduced here (minus some back-up stories not featuring Dracula) just show a rambling chaos as Dracula is once more revived in a confusing tale of magic and gets caught up in a mixture of tales that owe more to Lovecraftian monster horror or the film The Exorcist than to the traditional gothic tales. Nor does the classic creative team survive long. Issue #2 is drawn by Steve Ditko but his style is just all wrong for the mush mash of content, being far too traditional cartoony for a tale of Satanists, demonic possession, a monster impregnating an innocent woman and her brother becoming an incubus, draining the life forces of others and turning into a visual link to a psychedelic dimension. Another story tells of a woman surviving having her blood drained by Dracula and later giving birth, only for her daughter to somehow remotely drain Dracula's blood supply and act like she is possessed. A back up is told in the pictures and text caption format from the perspective of an art dealer as he relates how a promising young artist full of hope and optimism was drastically changed by an encounter with Dracula. Although there are some recurring themes of women being twisted and broken, there is no clear direction with the group of vampire hunters now separated and scattered and only a brief appearance by Inspector Chelm of Scotland Yard to even hint at any recurring adversaries for Dracula. And then after three issues Wolfman leaves the title. His immediate successor is Roger McKenzie who goes back to the gothic roots of the character but at the expense of chronology by telling a tale of Dracula preying on a family living in a lighthouse in the early twentieth century. Although the magazine continued beyond this volume, the material here just shows a great waste of an opportunity as the title stumbles around with no clear identity or direction. Wolfman had had an incredible run on the colour comic, writing no less than sixty-four consecutive issues without interruption and giving it a strong identity and direction, so it's a pity that his final stories are such a forgettable mess. Colan's achievement of drawing all seventy issues is even more impressive and so it's a shame that for whatever reason the magazine stories weren't all drawn by him or that the alternative art just wasn't suitable for the series's style.

Ideally this volume would have ended with the end of the colour comic and left the magazines for another day. Or else Wolfman and Colan would have left the character at this stage and gone out on a high. This would have left this third volume as a return to greatness, overcoming the turgidness both in the earliest issues here and in the second volume, and restoring the series to a high point in time for the climax. Unfortunately the magazine stories undo all this good work, see the character resurrected all too quickly, Wolfman leaving at a bad low and the volume itself ending midflow. Normally the Essentials are constrained by page lengths that give limited manoeuvre for choosing end points but the first three volumes came out in the space of barely eleven months and it should have been possible to pace them so that the third ended with the end of the comic and kept the magazines back for the fourth. Instead the end of this volumes just crashes down after all the good that came before it.

Essential Hulk volume 7 - creator labels

Yes this is a volume with a lot of creators. So here are their labels.

Essential Ghost Rider volume 2

Essential Ghost Rider volume 2 contains issues #21 to #50 of the series. Bonus material includes Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for Ghost Rider, Doctor Druid, Doctor Strange and the Night Rider. The writing sees a succession of runs of steadily increasing lengths from Gerry Conway, Jim Shooter, Roger McKenzie and Michael Fleisher, with Don Glut contributing one script. Most of the art is by Don Perlin, with an early run by Don Heck and issues by Gil Kane, Tom Sutton, Steve Leialoha and Carmine Infantino.

The same year that this volume was released also saw the launch of the first Ghost Rider movie, in my opinion the best one (not that there's a great deal of competition for that distinction). Although some of the details of both the origin and the Ghost Rider mythology were altered, it remained faithful to the basic concepts and gave some memorable moments, including a teaming of Johnny Blaze and Carter Slade, the original Ghost Rider. So too does this volume. Indeed there's much here that informs the basic backdrop of the film.

The early issues wrap up Johnny's career as a Hollywood stuntman and then he goes out on his own, riding across the West like some latter-day wandering cowboy, moving from situation to situation without ever setting down roots or growing a new supporting cast. Most of the existing characters are left in Hollywood to carry on as before. Also fading from his life with the end of their series are the Champions, though they've generally only made cameos here. Although he can still make all manner of stunt jumps when he needs to, the stunt performances are largely ignored to the point that people wonder what's happened to him. At about the same time that in the real world Evel Knievel was appearing in his final stunt show (although he didn't actually jump in it), Johnny is challenged by Flagg Fargo for his title of stunt champion of the United States and narrowly loses. It's a steady but strong shift in the character, reinforcing his tragic loneliness.

With just four Essential volumes and a total of eighty-eight issues (excluding crossovers, post series appearances and standby fill-ins only used later on but including the initial seven issues run in Marvel Spotlight), it's tempting to see Ghost Rider as a closed saga, with a definite beginning, middle and end. On the face of it this volume may be the longest section but also the least involved, with few of the big moments in his life. However at a more subtle level there's steady development throughout the volume as the relationship between the human Johnny and his demonic side evolves, first as Johnny discovers he can now transform at will and then as the demon increasingly takes over when in skeletal form. On more than one occasion the two are detached, whether because Johnny's spirit is briefly transferred to another human's body or because a magician separates the two or because Johnny has temporary amnesia and consequently is unaware of his demonic form, who in turn finds Johnny's mind is closed to it. More and more Johnny finds he cannot control his demonic side, who often resorts to ever more vicious methods, and wishes to escape it altogether but keeps finding he cannot.

Of course it's doubtful that any sense of a closed novel was considered at the time, with the continued turnover of writers and a drift into a formula as the wandering Johnny Blaze comes across trouble in one settlement after another. However the series is successful in taking the format and offering numerous twists and turns whilst also taking a big step away from conventional superheroics. This is a saga of a man searching for peace and trying to escape the torment he carries with him but all too often finding that he can't. Often he finds people and an environment where he might settle down and find real happiness, but time and again the curse of the Ghost Rider is there. Whether it's Johnny or his new found friends, especially the succession of women he meets, there is always a realisation that the demon is just too great a barrier to happiness and so he must continue his roaming.

Before that roaming begins, we have the last few issues of Johnny's days in Hollywood and a romantic triangle with Karen Page and Roxanne as he struggles to decide between them even though neither seems to actually want a serious committed relationship. Eventually Johnny realises that it's Roxanne who he wants but by then she has accepted the advances of special effects artist Roger Cross. Meanwhile Karen only wants to be friends. Karen's presence in the early issues may have inspired the use of the Gladiator, also from Daredevil, who is now after a device held by the old Human Torch foe the Eel. When the Eel is murdered, Ghost Rider is accused and Johnny has to clear his name, eventually resorting to using hellfire to arrange a simultaneous appearance to cover up his identity. The mastermind behind the Gladiator and new foe the Water Wizard is the Enforcer, whose identity is one of the weakest intentional mysteries of all time as, apart from a brief red herring suggesting he's movie producer Charles Delazny, it becomes all too easy to spot that he's actually Delazny's son. The remaining Hollywood issues are generally inconsequential with new foe Malice being just a guy in a funny suit with laser and vibration guns, and primarily seeking attention rather than offering a substantial origin. Then there's a fight with Doctor Druid over a misunderstanding about the Ghost Rider's nature. Add in anger and frustration about what he thinks is a serious relationship between Roxanne and Cross, and Johnny now hits the road. Roxanne does try to track him down but in the process she encounters the Orb who inflicts amnesia upon her. Johnny never finds out about this and she is last seen #28 as she accepts the claims of local cowboy Brahma Bill that they are sweethearts and goes off with him. Despite occurring in Roger McKenzie's first issue, Roxanne's situation is never touched upon again in this volume and now truly all the connections have been severed, leaving Johnny as just a man on the road with his demonic side, his clothes and, depending on the issue, a metal bike.

Out on the road Johnny encounters a handful of other heroes, starting with Hawkeye and the time-displaced Two-Gun Kid, followed by an encounter with Doctor Strange in which the magician's old foe Dormammu tries to use Ghost Rider to kill Strange. In the process Johnny finds his mind transferred to Strange's whilst Dormammu controls the Ghost Rider's body. Then at the end of the volume Johnny is thrown back in time and teams up with the Wild West hero the Night Rider against his traditional foe, the Tarantula (no relation to the Spider-Man foes by that name). Neither issue #50 nor the Handbook entry explicitly mention that the Night Rider is the first character to use the name "Ghost Rider", renamed in order to distinguish him from the more famous motorcyclist. (However this new name would prove to be a rather unfortunate choice for a man dressed all in white as it's also name used for members of the Ku Klux Klan.) But there are enough indications that Carter Slade and Johnny Blaze are sufficiently similar to justify the team-up in the double-sized issue.

The limited number of guest stars in this volume may have resulted in a very limited number of options for Handbook entries to fill up the page count, though there were still the alternative options of Hawkeye and the Two-Gun Kid (although the latter didn't have an entry in the original Handbook, from which the four entries are taken, and would have had to have been lifted from the Deluxe Edition where the pro forma is slightly different). But the result is that two of the entries contain major spoilers for later volumes. The Night Rider entry is focused not upon the Wild West hero seen here but on his great great nephew seen in a later issue. (It also doesn't seem to know what an "ancestor" is, using the term to describe the later one.) But the Ghost Rider entry is worse, introducing names such as "Zarathos" and "Mephisto" some time before they turn up in the series (the back cover of the volume also uses "Zarathos" earlier than it should), as well as detailing the backstory of the demonic side of Ghost Rider and giving away what will happen in the issues that reveal much of this information.

The series continues to add a variety of new foes, but few last. There's the Manticore, an agent of the Brand corporation, rivals to Roxxon for corporate plots. Or there's "the boy who lived forever", a long-lived boy called Nathan with advanced mental powers that has enabled him to develop technology but the body and outlook of a boy, flying around in a spaceship with his own robots. The foes closest to the Western tradition come at the end, first as a company is building a dam that will destroy land sacred to Native Americans whilst some of the workers plan to loot a town and flood it. In reaction a traditional Indian spirit called the Manitou is summoned and then Johnny is flung back in time to the 19th century where he proves his true nature.

And then there are the more horror based foes. There are a pair of vampires with many bats at their command. The Bounty Hunter is another agent of the Devil, the ghost of a vicious 19th century bounty hunter who has been tasked to bring in fifty souls in exchange for his freedom. Darker still is "Death", manifest in the form of another skeleton on a motorcycle albeit without the flames. This "Death Ryder" challenges Ghost Rider to a racing and stunt duel across the desert, ultimately for Johnny's life. At another level are the various thugs and bullies Johnny meets in his travels, whether biker gangs or construction worker bullies or mobsters. Or there's a cult of death worshippers, which turns out to be a money making scam. Then there's the "Nuclear Man", an armoured and embittered scientist who has turned against nuclear power after his son-in-law was killed by an accident and his grandson was born deformed.

But as the series moves ever further from superheroics and back into horror, it often seems the real threat is the Ghost Rider, slowly asserting its own control and becoming ever more fierce, torturing foes almost for pleasure. Issue #37 is a partial homage to the origin of Robin, featuring a family of circus performers who get killed by the local mobster after the owner reneges on a debt; the sole survivor is a son who wants vengeance. But rather than taking in the boy as a sidekick, Johnny instead scares him away from summoning the Devil and, as the Ghost Rider, pursues the mobster to his death. It's a harsh reminder that Johnny is no great hero but a man burdened with a real curse. The reaction of those around him, especially the various women he meets, is mixed, with some scared off by him. Others are prepared to stay with him but Johnny is not prepared to put them at risk. There's one time when it seems he has found peace when he loses his memory and winds up as a mechanic for a female racing driver, but incurs the wrath of her foreman. Neither the amnesiac Johnny nor the Ghost Rider is able to access the other and it seems as though Johnny is at peace. However the rival foreman attacks him, restoring his true memory and forgetting his alternative life altogether. Another chance at escape comes when the magician Azaziah splits Johnny and the Ghost Rider; however the two prove unable to survive without each other, finding their energy levels much drained, and so Johnny has to perform the spell to reunify them. Later, after losing his title in the competition with Flagg Fargo, he briefly turns to drink in the hope of "keeping the demon at bay" but it doesn't have the desired effect.

Overall this volume offers more than it seems at first. Most of it may lack a supporting cast or recurring foes, but it shows a good way to handle the wandering hero who brings help to those he meets on his travels whilst at the same time balancing his curse. And the whole relationship between Johnny and the demon is steadily built up over these adventures as he steadily loses control and finds the biggest monster around is within him. The backdrop works well, making for a good latter-day western. It's easy to see where the first movie found much of its inspiration. It's just a pity the Handbook entries and back cover give away spoilers.

Essential Marvel Team-Up volume 4 - creator labels

There are a huge amount of creators in this volume, so here's a separate post to carry some the labels for them.

A few Daredevil previews

As well as his five Essential volumes so far, there have also been a handful of Daredevil issues from further down the line reprinted in other Essentials, so it’s time to take a quick look at them all.

Daredevil #138 written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by John Byrne, reprinted in Essential Ghost Rider volume 1

This is the middle part of a crossover with Ghost Rider (issues #19 & 20), which sees the first appearance in the series of Karen Page for over fifty issues. In the meantime she’s popped up amongst Ghost Rider’s supporting cast, meeting Johnny Blaze when they both worked on a movie together and is making Roxanne Simpson jealous even though Johnny claims they’re just friends (which is less than Karen would want). Although Tony Isabella was writing Ghost Rider, there’s strong continuity between the two titles and indeed at times the Daredevil issue feels as though it’s picked up a story from the other series, though it reassure with subplots involving Foggy, Debbie Harris and Heather Glenn (who we’ve not yet met in the regular Essential Daredevils). Storywise we get a straightforward tale of Karen being kidnapped by the new Death’s Head and his henchmen, the Smasher and the (apparently mind-controlled) Stuntmaster. The issue is largely a water-treading middle parter in which Daredevil gets placed in a complicated trap from which he escapes whilst Ghost Rider goes searching for Karen but gets sidelined by some drug smugglers, and Karen discovers the new Death’s Head is after her father’s research. Then Daredevil arrives and realises he knows who Death’s Head really is, but finds his life being drained away and Ghost Rider doubts he can save him… As crossovers go this is well written and manages to smoothly blend the elements of both series together, and helps to “ratify” the transfer of Karen between series (even though she hasn’t been seen in Daredevil for years), but as an individual issue of Daredevil it’s nothing fancy.

Daredevil #178 written and drawn by Frank Miller, reprinted in Essential Power Man and Iron Fist volume 2

The bulk of the issue is taken up with the thread of Matt and Foggy defending the Daily Bugle in a libel suit from a politician who denies being financed by the Kingpin. When a boy brings potential evidence, the Kingpin sends thugs to stop him, causing Foggy to worry for Matt’s safety and so he hires Power Man and Iron Fist, the “Heroes for Hire” to protect Matt. This results in a degree of chaos as Matt needs no protection and at times has to employ bizarre methods to escape his minders, leaving them to believe he’s been kidnapped. Eventually everything is resolved in a climax, but the critical evidence that would support the Bugle’s case is lost. This issue is somewhat comedic in turn, although not as much as a follow-up issue of Power Man and Iron Fist in which Foggy and the Heroes for Hire try to help the boy’s sister’s ambitions to be a star ballerina and face the web of jealousy and intrigue surrounding her replacement, culminating in a somewhat slapstick chase during a live performance with Daredevil drawn in to boot. Compared to that, the Daredevil side of the appearances is more serious but only to a point. It’s clear even when read in isolation that the Elektra subplot is far more intriguing, as the lady goes to work for the Kingpin after demonstrating her lethal abilities against four assassins sent to test her. When run alongside the main scenes it’s clear that this issue is a cross between a gratuitous guest appearance for the sake of it (although I’m not sure which series was promoting the other) and a forgettable comedic interlude before looming dramatic events.

Daredevil #182 (part), #183-184 written by Frank Miller (all) & Roger McKenzie (#183), drawn by Miller, reprinted in Essential Punisher volume 1

I’ve written about Essential Punisher volume 1 before, and some of my observations are the same, namely that Daredevil is one of the best heroes to contrast the Punisher with due to their very different methods. The pages from issue #182 reprinted here are just the eight pages featuring the Punisher as he escapes from prison. There’s no sign of Daredevil on any of these pages and I’m surprised that a truncation only was run, which is contrary to the normal Essential approach of carrying the full issue. Issue #183’s story was delayed for over a year because of concerns by the Comics Code Authority, which presumably wasn’t as toothless in this era as it’s often claimed to be, and this is possibly why a doctor gives Daredevil an extended talk about drugs, just to ram home the point that they’re bad, in case the depiction of a school girl going high and throwing herself out of a window didn’t give any hints. The story that follows focuses upon her brother’s anger as he steals his father’s gun and goes hunting for vengeance on the drug pushers with both Daredevil and the Punisher bringing their respective methods. It’s a strong contrast between Matt Murdock’s system approach, even when he finds he’s just got a killer off a charge and hadn’t realised it because a pacemaker prevent a jump in the liar’s heartbeat, and the Punisher’s more direct, ruthless approach. The story covers a surprising amount, including the failings of the system and deprivation such that the parents are watching TV and arguing without knowing their daughter is dead or realising their son is going on a vengeance mission. Daredevil’s quest to prove to the boy that the system works and can take out the criminals just adds to the tension as events rush to their climax. And on top of all that, we have ongoing developments with Heather Glenn as she discovers problems within her company, and is proposed to by Matt who seems to have a rather traditional marriage in mind. For a two-part story there’s a heck of a lot in this but never once does it overload the reader. It’s a strong, intense piece that shows why the Miller era is so adored, much more so than issue #178.

Daredevil #257 written by Ann Nocenti and drawn by John Romita Jr, reprinted in Essential Punisher volume 2

This is an odd crossover between Punisher #10 (written by Mike Baron and drawn by Whilce Portacio). Both issues are set around a disgruntled ex-employee of a pharmaceutical company who is taking revenge by poisoning bottles of its products. But rather than a conventional two-parter we instead get the two series broadly following their own heroes’ investigations until they meet on a rooftop and fight over their radically different approaches to justice. The actual confrontation is shown in both issues but from different perspectives – Punisher shows us it straight, whilst Daredevil shows it from the perspective of the killer as he listens to the two fighting it out over him and he thinks they’re more alike than either realises. Otherwise the Daredevil issue carries part of the ongoing Typhoid Mary plotline as the Kingpin continues his scheme to destroy Matt using Mary’s multiple personas. In general I found the issue unsatisfying because it doesn’t become clear at first that it’s taking place parallel to events in Punisher and there are moments where small details vary between the two. However it’s interesting to see the conflict of values between the two through a third party’s eyes, and it was a masterstroke to do it through the eyes of the criminal they’re fighting over. Overall, we have a fairly dark tale and a sign of how Daredevil’s niche was permanently set down in the 1980s.

It’s inevitable that most of these issues feel rather unsatisfactory given that they’re all in the Essentials already only because of their guest stars. But the problems go in very different directions – the Ghost Rider tie-in is part of a storyline with a clear justification for crossing over, whereas the Power Man and Iron Fist appearances serve no real wider purpose. The Punisher appearances are the most easily justified because of the obvious contrast between his and Daredevil’s methods, and there are clearly multiple ways to present the conflict of values without it always having to be two figures shouting lengthy expositions of their philosophies at each other whilst a criminal lies on the ground. But the second appearance is let down by the awkward way in which the storyline is presented, a problem that also curses the Ghost Rider tie-in, leaving only the issues with the Punisher’s first appearance as a strong example of Daredevil issues yet to come. Even then the truncation of issue #182 (which may have originated with a stand-alone reprint of some of the Daredevil/Punisher clashes from a decade ago) is annoying as it denies us a glimpse of the wider issue. I can’t wait for the Essentials to reach the Miller era.

Essential Punisher volume 1 - creator labels

We have a volume with a lot of creators, so here's a separate post to carry the labels for some of them.