Vampire Tales #10 - Plague Of Blood!

Vampire Tales #10 is dated April, 1975 and features a striking Richard Hexcox cover featuring Morbius the Living Vampire in all his vile glory. It's a great cover, maybe my favorite of all the Vampire Tales covers. It speaks directly to the main story in the issue, a multi-part Morbius epic.

"A Taste of Crimson Life" by Doug Moench and Sonny Trinidad occupies most of this issue, divided in three parts throughout the magazine. The first part titled "First Phase: Fast of Blood" begins with Morbius seeking a quiet isolated place to experiment on his tortured state and hopefully find a cure. He finds and rents a room in an lonely house in Painesville, Pennsylvania and meets his landlady Alicia Twain, a forlorn and lonely woman who against her better judgment invades his privacy and discovers his secret. Morbius in an effort to not slay the woman to slake his thirst flies from the house in a frenzy. To read this story in its entirety (save for a few splash pages) in the original art for check out this link.Trinidad's work fairly shines.

Next up is another story about a house titled "A House of Pleasure, The House of Death" written by Moench with some really outstanding artwork by Mike Vosburg and Howard Nostrand. In this one a man seeks a mansion in which it is rumored a man will find erotic delights but no one speaks of it directly since no one seems to every return. He goes there, finds it filled with beautiful vampire women who seek his blood, but he is prepared and uses stakes to fend them off. He battles the vampires and finds his father, the king of the region who has succumb to the vampires and dies in his son's arms. The prince, now the king burns the mansion down killing the vampires, but at the cost of his own sanity it seems.

The second part of the Morbius story is titled "Second Phase: Temptation" and finds Morbius entering the town of Painesville and finding a victim. He returns to the house to find Alicia willing to help him. Meanwhile the miners who live there go to the lonely house and confront Alicia who defies them. They have been trying to get her to move out since the house sits on a precious vein of copper but anger rules the day and they kill her with an axe. Morbius finds her and swears vengeance. 

"Blindspot" by Gerry Conway and Virgilio Redondo and Alfredo Alcala has a vampire dealing with the consequences of losing track of time and using a blind man's glasses which obscure the sun. It turns out poorly for the blood sucker.

The final installment of the Morbius tale is titled "Third Phase: Feast of Blood" and it shows Morbius at his most vicious as he wipes out the murderous miners of Painesville, taking some mark of vengeance for the death of his friend Alicia Twain.

The Morbius story this time was extra long and different than the McGregor stories of previous issues which had become weighted down with overwritten allusions to politics and switches in narrative points of view. Moench gives us a much more straight-forward yarn which showcases Morbius and makes him the most bizarre thing in the story, a remarkable difference.

One more issue to come before the series gets cancelled. More on that next time.

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Vampire Tales #9 - Blood Lunge!

Vampire Tales #9 is dated February, 1975 and sports a moody cover by Marti Ripoll of a ghastly vampire maid in a somber graveyard. It's connection to any story in the magazine is not apparent, but it's handsome.
This issue will not feature any Morbius stories, but rather Blade the Vampire Slayer is the headliner, though briefly. 

The issue starts off with a one-page bit by Tony Isabella and Ernie Chan titled "The Vampire of the Inn" which tells of a Chinese vampire from olden times who impales himself on a tree while attacking his victim.

The follows the text piece "The Marvel Bullpen Page Goes Black and White and Read All Over" which details some of the editorial shifts and highlights some of the other offerings from Marvel's magazine line. 
 

"Bloodmoon" by Chris Claremont and Blade creator Marv Wolfman pits the vampire slayer against the Vampire Legion led by Anton Vierken and as we later learn the beautiful but deadly Maragrite D'lesco. The vampires kill all the women in the brothel in which Blade grew up including his unofficial foster mother Lady Vanity. Blade declares he will gain vengeance when the vampires fail to bring him under their spell and later tells Van Helsing that he will attack this "Legion" on his own.

But that story will not be continued in Vampire Tales as this is the last Blade adventure to appear there despite several ads that suggest otherwise, but will wait for an issue Marvel Preview.

"Blood Lunge" by Doug Moench and Russ Heath is a clever little quickie vampire yarn about a vamp who terrorizes a small village, but one which is ready for him with crosses on nearly every door. Despite that though, he finds a victim he thinks but is surprised to find not a human being at all, but a deadly surprise. I'll let you discover that when you read it at this groovy link. For the record in the reprint I read a few of the pages are printed out of order as is the case at the link above, and that hurts given that the story is a short one. So be careful to read the fourth page after the first one than shift to the second -- it will help.

"The Bleeding Time" by Gerry and Carla Conway with art by Virgilio Redondo and inks by Tony DeZuniga and Alfredo Alcala is a striking story of a vampire who gets shifted against his will from 1902 to the future world of 2300 or so and which is using time travel to siphon off energy from earlier eras. This has the side effect of sometimes shifting unsuspecting folks into the future. In addition to victims the vampire finds a woman from his own time and seeks some solace with her before meeting another deadly enemy from the 19th century who is as merciless as he is.

"Blood Stalker" by Larry Lieber features some tasty art by Jesus Blasco and pits a rather unappealing pimp against a vampire as both battle for control of the women in the area. Neither the protagonist nor the antagonist in this story evokes much sympathy.

Finally there is a rather odd story titled "Shards of a Crystal Rainbow" by Doug Moench and Tony DeZuniga which does a rather masterful job of comparing the curse of the vampire to the much more commonplace but decidedly deadly practice of drug abuse. It's a cleverly done story with a surprising ending and some substantial impact.

All in all despite the absence of Morbius, this is a solid issue with some very compelling stories, some with real heft.

More to come as Morbius returns and really kicks some ass.

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