Spider Man Doesn't Quite Fight Dracula

cover art by John Romita

Some aspects of Giant Size Spider Man #1 (1974) seem hastily or carelessly written, so I wonder if writer Len Wein and artist Ross Andru were told "Spider Man vs. Dracula, guys. Right now!" and given a tight deadline to come up with something.

On the other hand, Andru's art looks typically cool (I always like his work on Spider Man) and the story has its strong points as well.

It actually starts with a weak point, though, as several pages are wasted when Spidey has an inconclusive encounter with a jewel thief who apparently has ice powers. Since he'll soon be borrowing a rocket plane from Johnny Storm, this opening scene exists merely to set up a Human Torch/Iceman team-up in that month's issue of Marvel Team-Up, also written by Wein. I'm a fan of Wein's work, but that's a sneaky little cross-promotion that takes pages away from the story we are supposed to be reading.

The story finally gets started when Peter finds out Aunt May is deathly ill yet again. Only a vaccine being brought over on a cruise ship by a doctor named A.J. Maxfield can save her.  (We'll ignore the fact that vaccines are meant to prevent disease, not cure them. It's a slip that any writer might make.) Maxfield is terrified of flying, which explains the cruise ship travel.

So Peter heads to the Baxter Building to borrow a rocket plane and fetch Maxfield and the vaccine to NYC in time to save May, taking a panel to tell Johnny about the jewel thief before he leaves.

It turns out other people are looking for the good doctor as well. A Maggai crime boss wants to snatch Maxfield and ransom back the vaccine for a pardon for past crimes. He's brought along a small army of thugs disguised as members of the ship's band.

The other person looking for Maxfield is Dracula, Lord of the Vampires. Here we hit another couple of weak spots in the story. Dracula's motivation for killing Maxfield is some vague "That vaccine might interfere with my plans for world conquest" line of reasoning that is spoken and dismissed in one panel. I get the impression that Wein couldn't come up with a truly logical reason to get Dracula on the ship and just tossed in a line of dialogue to get that whole issue out of the way.

Peter resumes his civilian clothes when he gets on the boat. He and Drac then encounter each other for the first and only time in the story. For some reason, Peter's Spidey Sense is on the fritz, as he walks past one of the most dangerous beings in the world without a qualm.

I seem to keep dumping on this story, but--though I do think my criticisms are legitimate--I do enjoy it in the end. Of course, the story upends our expectations by never having Spidey and Dracula directly fight each other. A reader could see this as another weakness. On the other hand, both characters headline their own comics, so a fight between them would have to have been inconclusive. So perhaps the direction in which Wein took the story is the best one.

 Anyway, Dracula soon encounters and easily disposes of some of the Maggai thugs. He also drains a young lady of much of her blood, which causes the captain to summon Maxfield to the ship's clinic to help treat her. A nice twist here is that a man and a woman both arrive, with Peter (and later both Dracula and the Maggai) automatically assuming the man is Maxfield. We don't find out until the last few pages that the good doctor is a lady.

When the Maggai thugs kidnap the wrong guy, Spider Man starts luring them out onto the deck by blocking hatchways with webbing. Thus, they know who is after them and, in a truly funny moment, the thugs mistake a random guy in a Spidey costume as the real thing.

But the real Spidey is close by and begins taking out the thugs. I really do enjoy the sense of motion and action Ross Andru put into fight scenes.

Nearby, Dracula takes out a remaining thug by shattering his mind with hypnosis, which is kind of cool. He then disposes of the Maggai crime boss and tosses the man he assumes to be Maxfield overboard. Convinced he's completed his mission, he changes into a bat and flies off.

Spidey, by this time, had ended up crawling over the outer hull of the ship, looking for "Maxfield" and doubting that he'll just "drop from the clouds." In yet another sincerely funny moment, they guy drops down on top of Spidey.

With all the villains captured, dead or gone, Spidey soon finds out who the real doctor is. Maxfield is willing to overcome her fear of flying to save a life, so she accepts an offer of a rocket plane trip to New York. Aunt May is saved.

So there are a lot of little things wrong with this story--the wasted pages plugging a completely different book; the overuse of a sick Aunt May to drive a Spider Man plot; the vagueness of Dracula's motivation for killing the doctor; the absense of Spider Sense warning while walking past a vampire. But I actually like the subversion of not having the two main characters actually meet even while working at odds to one another; the humorous moments work; Andru's art is fun; and the way the action is structured (with Spidey forced to pretty much keep running around the ship searching for or rescuing fake "Maxfield") keeps the pacing swift.

Next week, we'll stay in the Marvel Universe but travel back in time to take part in the Trojan War.