Artist: Gene Colan & Mike Ploog
This volume first published: 2010
Contains spoilers
The Blurb: Dracula’s Modern era reign of terror continues!
The Prince of Darkness is drawing attention from other Marvel characters—including Jack Russell, werewolf by night, in whose history the vampire lord played an unexpected role! Vlad the Impaler battles vampires and vampire hunters alike during his pursuit of power, along with fellow would-be world conqueror Doctor Sun!
Plus: Dracula’s past reversals and resurrections in his own words! Featuring the debut of Dracula’s Daughter Lilith, the dire secrets of Darkhold and the original telling of the origin of Blade: Vampire Hunter!
The review: Obviously this follows on from The Tomb of Dracula – vol 1 and collects volume 13-23 of the original comic as well as Werewolf by Night #15 and Giant-size Chillers#1, which featured cross-over stories contemporary to the core comic.
I said in the last review that Blade appeared to be little more than a skilled hunter. In this we get a little more development towards the standard Blade model and discover that his mother was killed whilst in labour with Blade. This has led to him having some vampire blood, not enough to change him but enough to make him immune from vampirism. Hence, when Dracula bites Blade he does not turn.
Another interesting inclusion was Lilith, Dracula’s daughter. His actual daughter, whilst he was mortal, though abandoned by her father she was subsequently cursed by a gypsy and thus turned into a living vampire. She is immortal and is not affected by the cross or sunlight. She can only truly die when he dies and is cursed to haunt her father. If she needs a new body she can possess the body of an innocent who wishes death to their own father – whilst this sounds restrictive, it apparently isn’t too restrictive in the Marvel universe as she does transfer into a new body in this volume.
Just like volume 1 this is a marvellous trip back to the 1970s comic book and, like volume 1, deserves 8 out of 10.
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