The Fight That I'm Reasonably Sure Someone Demanded!

Assume, for a moment, that you are a Satan-worshipping cultist charged with the task of increasing your Dark Master's terrifying power. Mostly, this involves running D&D campaigns for the neighborhood kids, but it seems that Dracula, Lord of the Vampires, has somehow gained enough power to rival the Devil Himself!

Problem is, this puts Dracula even more out your league than he was before, and it's your job to stop him. Obviously, you're going to need someone to do your dirty work for you, but who could possibly match his occult powers?



Oh, right. The Silver Surfer. Of course.

Just for the record, the fact that the immortal Lord of the Vampires can square off against a former Herald of the Devourer of Worlds who also pulls double duty as comics' favorite chrome-plated Christ figure is exactly why I love the Marvel Universe.

Apparently, it's the kind of idea that also appeals to Anton Lupeski, the cultist who decides to send the Surfer after Dracula and his pregnant wife (!), which all happens in Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, and Tom Palmer's Tomb of Dracula #50, reprinted for your convenience as 1994's The Silver Surfer vs. Dracula, a title which no right-thinking person can possibly resist.

Unfortunately for the Surfer, that means he's a guest-star in someone else's book, and therefore his role in life for the next twenty-two pages is to make Dracula look good while getting his ass handed to him. And brother, does he ever.



No, friend, your eyes do not deceive you: Not only is he backhanding someone who wields the very Power Cosmic itself, but he's talking shit while he does it. I don't care how much of the Satan-Power Dracula has, that's a little hard to swallow.

And that's just the beginning. After blasting his way into Dracula's Church of the Damned and shooting rays of pure cosmic energy out of his hands, the Silver Surfer gets a stern talking-to from Dracula and apologizes for endangering Dracula's wife. Then he goes outside and waits patiently for Dracula to come out and fight, resulting directly in a panel where The Silver Surfer is in immediate danger of being taken down by a dozen sewer rats.

To be fair, the Surfer's a little off his game, what with a minor case of Satanic mind-control, and appears to be suffering from what Scott at Polite Dissent refers to as Oh No, I Suddenly Got Stupid Syndrome about half the time.

Which means that panels like this...



...are always immediately followed by panels like this:



Because The Power to Shatter Worlds is apparently no match for getting coldcocked in the back of the head by a guy with a cheesy moustache and a high-collar.

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BONUS FEATURE: What's In The Box?!

In addition to the main story, the '94 reprint includes three other stories of vampire action, including the Hellcow story from Howard the Duck, a little yarn called "Brother Vampire" that bears little to no resemblance to Blacula like I thought it was going to, and this:



ATTENTION, VENUS: YOU ARE NOW FREAKING OUT.