| Dracula | |
|---|---|
 Cover to Issue #2. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Dell Comics |
| Format | Ongoing series |
| Publication date | November 1966 – March 1967 |
| No. of issues | 3 |
| Creative team | |
| Written by | Don Segall |
| Artist | Tony Tallarico |
| Penciller | Bill Fracchio |
Dracula is asuperherocomic book series published byDell Comics, based on the literary and movie characterCount Dracula. The book was part of a line of three superhero comics based on theUniversal Monsters characters; the other two wereFrankenstein andWerewolf.[1]
Dracula lasted 3 issues from 1966 through 1967, numbered 2 through 4. (#1, published in 1962, was an adaptation of the1931 film).[2] In 1972–73, Dell reprinted the series, numbering them #6-8 (the reason for skipping issue #5 is unknown).[3]
Dracula is a modern-day direct descendant of the originalCount Dracula now working as a medical researcher in the old family castle inTransylvania where, due to his experiments to develop a cure forbrain damage using a serum developed frombatblood, he accidentally gains strange "vampire"-like powers, including the ability to turn into a bat and superhuman sight and hearing. He decides to embark on a superhero career in order to redeem his family name, developing his body through diet and exercise to the peak of physical perfection and designing himself his own distinctive crimson-cowled purple costume with a bat-shaped gold belt buckle, after which he vows to fight evil andsuperstition in all its forms.
Leaving for America after the local peasants burn down his castle, he adopts thesecret identity of "Al U. Card" (a hastily chosenpseudonym short for "Aloyisius Ulysses Card"). In issue #4, his girlfriend and confidante, blondsocialiteB.B. Beebe, gains the same powers and became his blue-clad sidekickFleeta (from "fledermaus", the German word for bat), bringing to the team not only ablack belt injudo but also an abandoned hidden underground governmentradar installation/bomb shelter on her family's mountain estate that Dracula uses as his secret laboratory lair.
"I pledge by the strange powers which have become mine to fight against the injustice, corruption, evil and greed which fills this Earth in the hopes that somehow my example will be an example to all men."
