Description

The Wedding of Dracula: Blood Rites          One-shot Comic
Writer: Marv Wolfman
Artists: Gene Colan & Tom Palmer
Colorist: Tom Palmer
Letterers: John Constanza
Editor: Terry Kavanagh
Cover by: Gene Colan

Following a devastating battle with Doctor Strange, Dracula decides to raise a legion of new, human followers. In seeking out likely sources of those gullible enough to follow him, his attention turns to a Satanic cult. There a woman named Domini is being offered as a bride of Satan. Dracula interrupts the ceremony and is mistaken for Satan himself. In the end, Dracula decides to play out the role and takes the woman as his own. Perhaps because she is so willing to give herself to the vampire, she comes to have a strange power over him. Their marriage, and the birth of their son Janus lead to the most mystical storylines in Tomb of Dracula, as Heaven itself seemed to intervene to stop this dark lord from gaining an heir…

Story/Spoilers
In part #1, Following a lead on Deacon Frost, the vampire who killed his mother, Blade has come across vampire detective Hannibal King. Recognizing Hannibal as a vampire, Blade attacks him right away, initially ignoring King’s mention that they are both looking for Deacon Frost. However, Hannibal’s superior strength and skill allows him to easily defeat Blade and pin him down. Letting Blade up, Hannibal explains that they are looking for the same man, King seeking to destroy Deacon Frost because Frost is responsible for turning him into a vampire. Hannibal then suggests that the two work together to destroy Deacon Frost so that they both can get their desired revenge. Blade attempts to attack Hannibal again, but Hannibal stops him cold once more. Turning on the light, he shows Blade a fresh victim of Deacon Frost. While deciding to work together, King explains to Blade that although he is a vampire, he’s never fed upon a living victim or spread the curse of vampirism to someone else. With this imparted, Blade begrudgingly agrees to work with Hannibal.

While at the hideout of Doctor Sun, Dr. Strange has just finished his battle against Dracula and cured himself and Wong of vampirism. Believing Dracula to be dead, the two would leave, however Dracula would return to life, having tricked Strange with another bit of hypnosis. Returning his attention to a deconsecrated church that he saw earlier, Dracula flies there intending to use it as a staging ground to start a new religion to gain followers that will do his bidding. Dracula finds that the church has been stripped of all it’s religious artifacts except for an oil painting of Jesus. Furious that it is still there, Dracula attempts to take it down, but finds that some force prevents him from doing so.

Dracula next goes to visit Harold H. Harold, who is busy typing away a new vampire story. Dracula has come to ask Harold to provide him with the name of whomever is the leader of the local group of Satanists. Harold looks up the information in his files and tells Dracula that the Bostonian sect of Satanists is led by Anton Lupeski and provides Dracula with the man’s address.

Off once more to find Lupeski, Dracula stops and drops down to feed on an old woman. The woman recognizes Dracula as she encountered him in 1903 when she was a little girl. Unafraid of death, the woman turns her back on Dracula and walks away, leaving the vampire lord howling with indignation and fury, although he does not feed upon her. Witnessing Dracula flying in the night sky from their hotel room Quincy Harker, Frank Drake and Rachel van Helsing discuss their old foe. Quincy is feeling less than optimistic that they will kill Dracula once and for all, however Frank refuses to give up. The conversation is ended when Rachel has Frank take her out for supper. Along the way, Rachel expresses her concern that Frank’s sudden desire to be a hero might lead him to making stupid mistakes and the two have a romantic moment.

While in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a Satanic church, Anton Lupeski prepares a ceremony offering his loyal follower, a woman named Domini, to Satan to be his bride. Putting her on an inverted cross and setting it ablaze, Lupeski calls to Satan to appear for him. Dracula appears and poses as Satan, and orders Lupeski to free the woman as he intends to feed upon her. However, when Lupeski reveals that she is intended to be “Satan’s” bride, Dracula decides that instead he will accept her as such. With Domini’s acceptance of Dracula as her husband-to-be, Dracula boasts that in three days time they will be married and those gathered will worship Dracula as their new dark lord before vanishing in a swirl of mist.

While back at the apartment where Blade and Hannibal King had met, the two wait for Deacon Frost’s most recent victim to rise as a vampire. When he does, Blade and Hannibal subdue him and have this new vampire explain what happened to Deacon Frost. The man explains that he was a grave digger hired by Frost to help exhume a coffin from a nearby graveyard. Upon unearthing the coffin and bringing it back to the apartment, the young man would demand to be paid for his services. Deacon Frost gives him payment all right: turning him into a vampire.

With the story done, Blade demands to know what was in the coffin that was dug up. The vampire tells both men, to their astonishment, that the coffin had an exact copy of Blade inside and that Deacon Frost mentioned that that duplicate would allow him to take over the world.

Next in part #2, In the deconsecrated church taken over by Dracula, Satanist leader Anton Lupeski performs a Satanic wedding between Dracula (whom the Lupeski and his followers believe to be Satan himself) and Domini one of Lupeski’s most loyal followers who had been offered up to be the bride of Satan. As the ceremony carries on, all are oblivious to the sight of the oil painting of Jesus Christ (the only religious symbol left in the damned church) shedding a single tear as Dracula and Domini are wed by mixing of blood.

Elsewhere at the head office of American Chemron Industries, a chemical company that has been dumping chemical waste into Boston Harbor, Windom an employee confronts his boss Mr. Slammerkin about the environmental impact their company is making. When Windom demands that the company stop polluting the water in the city, Slammerkin instead shoots Windom in cold blood. Consulting to his fellow board members, Slammerkin tells him that the murder had to be done because any environmental assessment initiated from Windom’s demands would cut into their profits.

His fellow board members would then decide to dispose of Windom’s body and they all take part in carrying it to an acid filled disposal pipe, believing the acid would destroy the body. However, by some strange twist of fate Windom’s body is not destroyed. However all it’s face is wiped clean and the body reanimated, and Windom rises from the waters seeking to get revenge on those who were responsible for his death.

Meanwhile, Blade and Hannibal King continue their hunt for Deacon Frost, the man responsible for killing Blade’s mother and turning Hannibal King into a vampire. With information gained from a vampirized grave digger, the two head to the location the now-dead vampire provided them. Along the way they wonder how Frost intends to take over the world with a duplicate of Blade.

Back at Dracula’s church, the vampire lord announces to all gathered that he will make a son for them all to worship and tells them all that this child will be born on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month. Domini would agree to birthing this child and Dracula partially transforms into his bat form so that he may carry off his bride to consummate their marriage.

As they fly off into the night sky, Windam — the Faceless Man — tracks down his first victim, Jack, the Chemron employee who suggested that they dump Windam’s body in the acid disposal. The Faceless man bursts through the door while Jack’s wife is in the shower and kills him. In the process Windam takes Jack’s eye, literally absorbing it into his body making Jack’s eye appear on his face. Windam steals some of Jack’s close and leaves Jack’s body to be found by his wife.

As Windam continues stalking his other victims, Dracula brings his bride to the former home of Doctor Sun. However, before they consummate their marriage, Dracula needs to go out and feed once more. He goes out into the city and begins stalking women to find the idea victim. It turns out to be the woman named Jean, another implicated in the murder of Windham. While Dracula hunts, Windam finds his next victim Fred Anderson who has made his regular visit to a health spa. There Windam kills Anderson and takes his right eye to add to his mostly blank face. Windam’s next victim is Eli Harris, who is returning from a party with his wife Dolores. The Faceless Man takes Eli’s mouth.

Jean arrives at the home of Wallace Slammerkin and as they share a kiss, Dracula appears at the window and hypnotizes Jean and orders her to invite him in. When Dracula enters the room, Slammerkin attempts to kill the vampire lord with a gun, but to no effect. Before Dracula can kill Slammerkin they are interrupted by Windam who demands Dracula leave his victims alone, he then kills Jean, taking her nose.

Dracula refuses to be ordered around, however the Faceless Man manages to over power Dracula and tosses the vampire out the window. When Dracula comes back, he arrives just as the Faceless Man has succeeded in taking Slammerkin’s hair and heart. Before Dracula can get revenge against Windam for killing his evening meal, Windam begins to melt. The Faceless Man realizes just before his final death that vengeance never accomplishes anything.

With Windam now dead as well, Dracula himself is denied his own desire for revenge and is left even more furious than before.

Finally in part #3, Visiting the grave of the recently deceased Shiela Whitter, Dracula pays his respects. Talking to her grave, Dracula expresses his genuine regrets for her passing before flying off to his mansion in his bat form. Deciding to write in his journal, Dracula reflects on other times that he has allowed the perceived innocence of others get the better of him….

Recalling a time during the 1800’s in Germany, when Dracula was summoned by Lyza Strang who has summoned Dracula to kill her husband Archibald Strang, explaining that her husbands quest for power would destroy both Lyza and Dracula. Lyza expresses a desire to be with Dracula and share his power. She explains how Archibald intends to becomes the Minister President of Germany an in turn would invade Romania and take Dracula’s castle. However there is one more that stands in Archibald’s way King William — also known as Otto Von Bismarck. Dracula would accept the woman’s request and fly off into the night to seek out his target. Dracula would find Strang arguing with Bismark over who is the rightful ruler of Germany. Waiting until Strang has left, Dracula would stalk and kill the man. However, he would find that he had been betrayed as Lyza would arrive shortly after with soldiers who would stake him and throw him in the river. As it turns out, Lyza had secretly been having an affair with Bismark and had Archibald assassinated in the hopes it would help Otto win the position of Minister President. However, when Otto gained the position he would tell her he had no doubt that he would win it and exiled her from Germany less she stand trail for murder. While out in the woods she would become yet another victim of the vengeful Dracula. She would become a vampire, and would later be killed by Abraham van Helsing.

Dracula would reflect how Bismark’s rise to power would lead to World War I and the invasion of Romania, but digresses from the recollection to another moment when his belief in innocence was challenged a few months past…

He recalled how one night he had met a young blind girl named Melanie Knight, who’s parents Marcia and Paul have hit hard financial times when Paul has lost his job and cannot afford to put Melanie into the special school they intended to enroll her in. They would be having an argument about money and what to do with their daughter while she plays outside with her doll. Dracula would happen by and find himself in an odd situation where the blind girl asks Dracula to help talk her doll into taking a bath. The argument indoors would escalate to violence, and Paul in a moment of fury would shoot and kill his wife. Hearing the shot Dracula would enter the house to investigate and see that Paul had killed his wife. Throwing him out on the lawn, Dracula would then feed and kill Paul himself. When Melanie would inquire what Dracula had done, Dracula would explain that her father had killed her mother and that Dracula in turn killed her father as an act of vengeance on behalf of Melanie. Melanie, is horrified because she loves her father would burst into tears and announce her utter hatred toward Dracula, hitting him over and over.

Finishing his recollection, Dracula has a hard time trying to understand how the child could not understand the concept of revenge. He then recalls his first encounter with Blade the vampire hunter, during a time he lived in China in the year 1968…

Blade would come to Dracula telling him he represented a group of men who believed that in another sixty years vampires would rule the world, and that realizing humanity had no chance against their “superiors” Blade would offer his and his associates assistance to carry on Dracula’s bidding during the daytime. Blade would further entice Dracula with this idea telling him that they had facilitated a plan that would speed up global conquest by vampires to only ten years. Intrigued, Dracula would agree to go with Blade to meet his associates. Dracula would meet these associates: Ogun, Azu, Musenda and Orji. However, Dracula would soon find that this was all a trap, and that they were really a group of vampire killers. They would nearly succeed in destroying Dracula by driving a stake into his heart. It would be during this battle, Blade’s companion would try out wooden knives of his own design and find that they work just as well as stakes. However, their effort would be for naught, as when they would leave to prepare a grave for Dracula’s body, his servants would come and remove the stake from his heart.

Finishing his recollections, Dracula would muse over how when they returned the battle would end in Dracula’s favor, and although Blade survived the encounter two of his fellow vampire hunters were killed, and he would further go on to recall that the only living member of that ill fated group of vampires was only Blade, while Dracula continues to live on. Dracula once more revels in the fact of his own eternal life.

Comic reprints/collects: Tomb of Dracula (1976) Issues #44-46.  Marvel Comics

Comic is bagged & triple boarded and will be carefully / securely packaged then shipped via USPS Priority Mail to ensure that it arrives to you perfectly and quickly.

First Printing
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Publication Date: January 1993
Format: FC, 52 pages, Comic, 10.20″ x 6.65″
UPC: None Stated

Collectible Entertainment note: One-shot Comic is in Very Good to Fine – condition. (significant crease on back cover… bottom right corner >> see 2nd scan) Overall… Very Nice Reading Copy!  Please See Scans!!  A must have for any serious Dracula collector and/or enthusiast.  A fun & entertaining read.  Very Highly Recommended.

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