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Tomb of Dracula #4: Review

Sep 1972
Archie Goodwin, Gene Colan

Story Name:

Through a Mirror Darkly!

Review & Comments

Rating:
4.5 stars

Tomb of Dracula #4 Review by (July 7, 2020)

Review: And thus ends the short unhappy life of Ilsa Strangway, fledgling vampire. The curse of vanity claims another victim, one especially self-deluded. Nice little morality play inserted by Archie Goodwin as he wraps up his two-issue tenure on the title. And Drac, another guy like Doctor Doom who considers his will the only important thing, discovers that people can lie to him too. And the Black Mirror is a pretty good magic item with a time element that makes it better than Floo Powder but also includes a level of danger not found with the Harry Potter thingy either. And with only one other appearance, not overused as well.

Comments: Ilsa Strangway’s butler Whitby shares a name with the port city where Drac arrives in England in Bram Stoker’s novel. Cover says “The bride of Dracula;” well that was a short relationship. Hope they had a prenuptial agreement.





 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Tomb of Dracula #4 Synopsis by Peter Silvestro

Aging faded beauty Ilsa Strangway invites Count Dracula into her home. She keeps Dracula at bay with a cross as she explains that she bought his castle from Frank Drake in hopes of meeting the legendary Count. Ilsa is willing to do anything to regain her lost looks even if it means becoming a vampire, offering the Count the secret of the Black Mirror. Dracula agrees to the bargain and she drops the cross allowing him to bite her. Ilsa’s butler Whitby comes upon them and Dracula flattens him with a blow…

…and he relates this later to Rachel van Helsing and Frank Drake at the hospital, sending them, with Taj Nital, to the Strangway home. Taj discovers some tracks and follows them….

As the sun sets at a WW2 coastal bunker, Clifton Graves awakens his master and Ilsa Strangway who awakens as one of the living dead for the first time. Upholding her part of the bargain, Ilsa explains to Dracula that she purchased the Black Mirror and learned that by reciting a certain incantation, the mirror becomes a portal to another time and place, which Dracula could use to return to his own century. The Count accepts this and the two fly off as bats to feed. The vampire-hunters arrive and place crosses in the two coffins. Frank and Taj head for the Strangway mansion while Rachel waits for Ilsa to return. In town Ilsa preys on a young couple in an alley; Dracula discovers Frank trailing him and attacks but is driven off by a flashlight with a cross painted on the lens. Dracula makes it to the mansion but finds he is trapped inside as all the doors and windows are guarded by police holding similar flashlights. He hurries upstairs to find the Black Mirror….

Ilsa returns to the bunker to find Rachel waiting for her. Rachel tells the woman that she is not young and beautiful as she wished; Clifton reveals that Dracula had deceived her, a vampire will not become younger than they were when they became a vampire thus Ilsa will always look the age she is now—at best. But Ilsa reveals that she deceived Dracula: she did not mention that if there is not another Black Mirror where the traveler wishes to go, he ends up in another world of demon-creatures. With that she begs Rachel to give her peace; Rachel does….

At the Strangway home, Dracula speaks the incantation to open the Black Mirror just as Taj arrives and assaults his enemy. Frank and Rachel arrive to see Dracula and Taj disappearing through the mirror….



Gene Colan
Tom Palmer
?
Neal Adams (Cover Penciler)
Neal Adams (Cover Inker)
? (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: John Costanza.

> Tomb of Dracula: Book info and issue index

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