Raven's Haven: Don McGregor

Tuesday, 27 December 2016

The Curse of Dracula (1998) # 1-3, Blade (1998) # 1-3, Journey Into Mystery (1952) # 520/521, Blade (1998), Blade: Sins of the Father (1998), Spider-Man Unlimited (1993) # 20, Marvel Team-Up (1997) # 7, Morbius in Dark Corners (1998) # 1

(I originally read these comics in mid November 2016)

'The Curse of Dracula' doesn't come close to recapturing the magic of Marv Wolfman's and Gene Colan's previous Dracula collaboration (and shame on you if you don't know what that is), but is worth reading. As before, Wolfman assembles a band of disparate individuals, all damaged in their own ways, to pursue the vampire count. This Dracula is younger and sexier than the Marvel incarnation and has his eyes on political power as he exerts violent influence over a senator's campaign for presidential office. The story is gorier, Wolfman is less wordy than he was and Colan is looser (and dare I say, sloppier), his art reproduced directly from his pencils. I'll admit to being less of a fan of 'Gene the Dean' than I used to be; his 'scatter the panels on the page and see how they land' approach to layout isn't always to the benefit of story clarity.

Jim Shooter was right.

ANYWAY.

At approximately the same time over at Marvel, vampires were having something of a renaissance. Besides Morbius returning in the pages of Peter Parker, Spider-Man (see here), Marv Wolfman, Christopher Golden and Don McGregor were creating a temporary nexus for the company's Undead. Gene Colan's back for the 1998 Blade one-shot, subtitled 'Crescent City Blues', which sees the vampire hunter decamp to New Orleans on the trail of Deacon Frost, who is muscling in on that city's organised crime. Writer Golden clearly knows his Marvel horror history and Blade's fellow 'Tomb of Dracula' survivor Hannibal King and Brother Voodoo also appear in a wordy adventure that was nevertheless Colan's last association with all three of his co-creations. This leads straight into Spider-Man Unlimited # 20, also by Golden, which follows vampire PI King as he teams up with the webslinger to track Simon Garth, the Zombie, who's in the thrall of Lilith, Dracula's errant daughter.

Marv Wolfman, meanwhile, contributes Marvel Team-Up # 7 and another excursion into the world of vampires for Spidey as he teams with Blade to foil a plot that allows them to walk in sunlight. Then picking up the reins from Golden, he continues the adventures of Hannibal King in two issues of 'Journey Into Mystery', at this brief time an anthology title. King takes on a case that turns out to be more than it seems as he teams with a glamorous CIA agent to thwart an attempt to swell the Undead's numbers via the triggering of chemical weapons. The story's average and Karl Kerschl's art unattractive, but it does provide character development for King as he's tested beyond his limits.

The second Blade one shot published in '98 is by Marc Andreyko and Bart Sears and is a prequel to that year's movie, though you wouldn't know it till the last page and it's easy enough to imagine it takes place within the main Marvel U. The story's fast-moving and action-packed as Blade is hired by the daughter of a vampire mob boss to take down his operation and neutralise a gang war. Bart Sears' art is stylish and Blade looks cooler than he ever has previously.

Don McGregor's Blade series under Marvel's short-lived 'Strange Tales' banner is a frustrating beast. Preluded in the 'Dark Corners' twelve-page Morbius strip, it sees Blade unwittingly become embroiled in an elaborate plot towards his own destruction that takes in Morbius' wife's family and inevitably brings the two into conflict. Disappointingly, and I'd forgotten this, the series was cancelled with the third issue and the plot never resolved. That's unfortunate, as though Brian Hagan's art is bland, McGregor had something going on. Blade and Morbius next crossed paths in Peter Parker Spider-Man (1999) # 8 and their encounter here was never alluded to.

As an extra, here's Bart Sears' back cover art for the 'Blade: Sins of the Father' one-shot.

The Curse of Dracula (1998) # 1-3 are collected in:

Hardcover:

The Curse of Dracula (US)

The Curse of Dracula (UK)

Softcover:

The Curse of Dracula (US)

The Curse of Dracula (UK)

Blade (1998) # 1 is collected in:

Softcover:

Blade the Vampire Slayer: Black & White (US)

Blade the Vampire Slayer: Black & White (UK)

Thursday, 3 November 2016

Jungle Action (1972) # 6-24, Black Panther (1976) # 14/15, Marvel Premiere (1972) # 51-53

(I originally read these comics in mid March 2015)

I'd been curious about Don McGregor's Black Panther for over twenty years, since first seeing a page reprinted in the 'Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades' book. It's hailed as a highpoint of the company's '70s output, up there with Tomb of Dracula, Warlock, Man-Thing, etc... so I had high expectations. So does it hold up? In a word, no.

Holy shit, these comics are overwritten. I've seen it referred to as "Marvel's first novel," but if McGregor wanted to write a novel, why was he writing comics? Both have different strengths and weaknesses and McGregor simply didn't know how to play to comics' strengths. There are words crammed into every spare centimetre of white space.

It doesn't even strike me as being well structured. The initial arc, 'Panther's Prey,' runs thirteen issues and the first half dozen issues or so just follow a 'villain of the month' format as the Panther goes up against lieutenants of chief baddie Erik Killmonger, with names like Venomm, Baron Macabre, King Cadaver... All of these characters were new, I believe, but none are very memorable. The plot consists of Erik Killmonger leading a violent rebellion in Wakanda. However, apart from razing one village to the ground early on, he doesn't do much and is a background presence till the end.

Aside from the 1970s purple prose, which can be poetic but is more often than not just laborious to plough through, the amount of pain dished out to T'Challa borders on parody. Everything's about tearing flesh and dripping blood, delineated in excruciating detail. Despite the complaints, however, it does remain compelling enough to stick with.

The second arc, 'The Panther vs. the Klan' (referred to as "the Clan" on the covers) is worse. The action's transplanted to Georgia for this one and I felt it would have worked better without the introduction of a second hooded cult whose motivations I never quite understood.

The storyline was cut short as Marvel, in their wisdom, decided to launch a new Black Panther mag by Jack Kirby, prompting howls of protest from readers who'd enjoyed McGregor's approach. After Kirby left in one of his typical strops, the Klan story was belatedly (and clumsily) concluded by Ed Hannigan in BP # 14 and 15, and then in Marvel Premiere # 51-53, after that title's cancellation. It's dull stuff, and not worth what by then would have been a four year wait.