Gene Colan (1926–2011)

If you ever need proof that you can't go back again, this, right here, is your proof.

I'll leave it to everyone else to expound on how marvelous Wolfman and Colan were on their original Tomb of Dracula run (and they'd be right). Instead, I'll focus on a couple of things here.

At the beginning of this volume, Wolfman talks about how writing horror is different from most other writing, because you have to grab the reader by connecting with their fears and common dreads, about emotion. He states, show more "Horror demands that you create a nightmare from which the reader cannot awaken."

He's not wrong.

Unfortunately, he doesn't follow his own rule. Instead of connecting to our fears, he connects to our boredom with a facile political story that refuses to hook us because he takes absolutely no time to allow us to connect with either his heroes or Dracula himself. The characters are sketched in with the most rudimentary strokes and put through their low-stakes (pardon the pun) tasks.

There's no connection. And instead of creating a nightmare from which I couldn't awaken, he created a sleep aid that I couldn't fight off.

Colan's art was okay, but once again, nowhere near his best. Dracula deserves the deep blacks and rich reds that ink and a good colourist can bring. Greyish pencils and muted colours do a disservice to his art.

Go back and read this team's Marvel Dracula, but avoid this. show less

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

After Don McGregor's Black Panther run from Jungle Action was cancelled back in 1976, he actually got invited back two more times: he did a story called Panther's Quest published in Marvel Comics Presents in 1989 and a four-issue prestige miniseries called Panther's Prey in 1991. This "Epic Collection" collects both of them, along with five short Black Panther tales by other creators from the same era.

Panther's Quest sends show more the Black Panther into South Africa in order to find his mother, missing since childhood. Sure, we did apartheid in a thinly fictionalized version of South Africa in the immediate previous Black Panther storyline, but why not do it again in the real place? This story ran twenty-five biweekly installments of (usually) eight pages... and it is interminable. Like, eight pages will go by and all that's happened is Black Panther has punched a guy. One thing I liked about McGregor's Panther's Rage was how it really made you feel the difficulty of what the Black Panther did, but this goes too far with it, because everything is immensely difficult, everything is enormously slowed down, it never feels like we're getting anywhere, being crushed under the weight of McGregor's enormously wordy style. Being set in South Africa means we again lose the worldbuilding that made Panther's Rage so interesting, too. It has it moments, including some nice side characters in South Africa, but ultimately, a tedious slog with little to say.

Panther's Prey almost has the opposite problem: this is made up of four forty-page installments and is all over the place. Wakanda is modernizing, connecting with the outside world more—this is nicely demonstrated by the appearance of a food court selling pizza. But with the benefits of connecting to the outside world also come the downsides, and someone is smuggling crack into Wakanda and vibranium out... using an army of cyborg pterodactyls, of course! The story follows this main storyline, but also T'Challa's mother acclimating to life in Wakanda, what Monica Lynne's been up to in the U.S. since we last saw her in Jungle Action (McGregor ignores her later appearances), the guy organizing the drug smuggling operation, and updates to various members of Black Panther's Wakandan supporting cast. There's a lot of nice moments here but overall not much actually seems to happen despite the fact the story runs over one hundred and fifty pages. Black Panther doesn't even meet the villain until about ten pages from the end, and beats him by luck in about six seconds. And in the end, crack is still a problem in Wakanda! Way to cheer me up, McGregor.

The other stories here are nice to have for completism's sake, but not very memorable.

What's interesting to me reading Black Panther in terms of publication chronology is to see the development of the character I know from the movies. His mother, Raimonda, debuted in this volume, but she's not the imperious ruler of screen, but a South African woman romanced by T'Challa's father who returned to her homeland after her husband died. Many elements of the mythos have yet to appear at all. There's also still no sense of cohesion: McGregor doesn't really acknowledge that anyone used the character other than him since 1976. (Can't imagine why the "Black Musketeers" don't come up in discussions of T'Challa's family!) show less

Mr. Tony Stark, the Swingin’ ’60s Sultan of Science, is back again as none other than the Invincible Iron Man!

Brought before the United States Senate to divulge the secrets of Stark Enterprises, the stakes have never been higher for the Iron Avenger. But survival in the halls of government means risking the life of his closest confidante, when the Mandarin mistakes an armored Happy Hogan for the real deal!

There’s no time for recovery even after a face-off against the many rings of show more the Mandarin, because waiting right in the wings are the Mole Man, the Melter, and the Crusher, and lemme tell ya, executive privilege don’t mean nuts to these ne’er-do-wells!

With a return adventure to Viet Nam, the communist terror of the Titanium Man, and the evil ideologues of A.I.M. lined up in a row after that, you can bet your bottom dollar that it’ll be an action-packed ride straight through to the debut of Iron Man’s very own solo-series!

It all comes courtesy of Stan “The Man” and Gene “The Dean”, so you can invest now - these guys are a safe investment if there ever was one!

Collecting TALES OF SUSPENSE #84-99, IRON MAN & SUB-MARINER #1, and IRON MAN (Vol. 1) #1.

(from official Marvel solicit) show less

The artwork is at times a bit hard to follow -- I twice had to backtrack, realising I'd missed plot developments because of that -- and with only three issues, the story (perhaps understandably) leaves one big loose end untied at the end, but it otherwise does a good enough job. The vampires are not glorified here, but appalling (like perhaps they should be), and Dracula is cold, suave and frightening, as he should be. Keeping him the mysterious monster (as per the writer's foreword) seems a show more good approach, but it does make the story at times feel like more of the same-old vampire hunting you've seen in a dozen films, comics and novels before. It adds some charm with the political coup angle (which has a couple of fun twists to it, but really could have used a lot more depth), as well as with the decision to keep the original novel in continuity and simply continue the story in present-day America. So, in conclusion, good, but not particularly memorable when all's said and done. show less