Occult Files Of Dr. Spektor #8 Dracula's Vampire Legion / Beware...The Beasts!
Cover Date: June, 1974
Dracula's Vampire Legion (18 pages) In Transylvania, Count Dracula uses the arcane book The Ruthvenian to resurrect Sir Francis Varney, Countess Mircalla Karnstein, and Lord Ruthven, three of history's most infamous vampires. He tells the trio how he pla ...
Issue Description
Dracula's Vampire Legion (18 pages)
In Transylvania, Count Dracula uses the arcane book The Ruthvenian to resurrect Sir Francis Varney, Countess Mircalla Karnstein, and Lord Ruthven, three of history's most infamous vampires. He tells the trio how he plans to build a legion of vampires and take control of the country.
One month later, Dr. Adam Spektor and his secretary, Lakota Rainflower, arrive at the Borgo Pass in Transylvania in response to a telegram from their friend Baron Tibor. Tibor tells them that Valdemar Van Helsing, a mercenary descendant of the Professor Van Helsing who had originally destroyed Dracula, has arrived in Transylvania hunting him, thinking the Baron guilty of the recent spate of vampire attacks. Fleeing Van Helsing in Tibor's horse and cart, the trio are thrown off the road when the horse panics due to sensing an evil presence. Spektor and Lakota wait by the road to confront Van Helsing while Tibor takes refuge in a nearby abbey.
At the abbey, Tibor encounters Count Dracula, who recounts his scheme of uniting vampires to take over Transylvania. Tibor rejects Dracula's offer to join the vampire legion and uses a cross to ward off the Count, but the other three vampires arrive in the form of wolves and overpower the Baron. Dracula chains Tibor in a dungeon and destroys the vial containing the potion that keeps Tibor's vampiric thirst in check, knowing that the Baron's evil nature will soon resume control.
Meanwhile, Dr. Spektor confronts Valdemar Van Helsing and tells him of Baron Tibor's cure. Van Helsing will not listen, and knocks Spektor unconscious before proceeding to the ruined abbey to find the Baron. Lakota finds the injured Spektor, but is captured by Varney and Ruthven, who take her inside the abbey as an offering to Count Dracula.
Van Helsing finds the chained Tibor inside the abbey, but is attacked and overwhelmed by Dracula. Dr. Spektor revives meanwhile, and encounters Countess Mircalla, who puts him under her power and leads him into the abbey. Regaining his will, Spektor seizes Dracula's copy of The Ruthvenian and reads a counterspell which destroys Varney, Mircalla, and Ruthven.
Dracula and Spektor fight, and Dracula is on the verge of victory when Spektor pulls back a curtain causing the moonlight to shine through the window in the shape of the cross. Baron Tibor's bloodlust returns long enough to allow him to break his bonds, but he manages to maintain control long enough to free Lakota and help Spektor to battle Dracula. Spektor, Lakota, and Tibor use torches to ward off Dracula who escapes in bat form through a window.
Spektor gives another vial of his formula to Baron Tibor, and tells him that he need no longer fear Valdemar Van Helsing, who has been driven into a state of shock by his encounter with Count Dracula.
Beware the Beasts (7 pages)
An Elliott Kane solo story.
Psychic Elliott Kane and his girlfriend Cindy Bask visit sideshow fortune-teller Madame Bellonka, who tells Cindy to "beware the beasts" before falling dead. With permission from police inspector Frank Sinke, Kane conducts a seance in the presence of Madame Bellonka's corpse, but fails to contact her spirit. The next evening, Cindy says she feels ill as she poses for modeling assignment, and slips out on Kane. Cindy goes to the sideshow tent of Fabian the tiger-tamer and accuses him of embezzling money from the circus and using poison to murder Madame Bellonka, who knew of his misdeeds. Cindy then attacks Fabian with a spear, but he overpowers her and puts her into a cage with his tigers. The tigers, however, refuse to attack Cindy, and Elliott Kane arrives with the police just in time to stop Fabian from shooting the young woman. Fabian admits to having killed Madame Bellonka. The assembly see the ghost of Madame Bellonka leaving Cindy's body, and Kane realizes that this is why he had been unable to contact her at the seance. Kane then says he intends to tell his friend Dr. Spektor the story for his occult files.
Notes: The three vampires Count Dracula raises are all from literature: Sir Francis Varney is the protagonist of Varney the Vampire by Thomas Preskett Prest; Countess Mircalla Karnstein originally appeared in the novella Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu; and Lord Ruthven is from The Vampyre by Dr. John Polidori, friend and personal physician to Lord Byron.
Among the vampires Count Dracula says he intends to enlist for his legion are supposedly true vampire Arnold Paul and Morbius. Morbius, being a copyrighted character in Marvel comics, of course never appears.
At one point, as Dr. Spektor and Dracula fight, the Count says to Spektor "You would play your brains against mine? Against me who has commanded nations?" This line is a more-or less direct quote from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
First appearance: Valdemar Van Helsing
Please first Sign In before leaving a review.
