Scream, Dracula, Scream!

Captain Britain and MI13 #10

Dracula has returned to the Marvel Universe, making his plans against MI13 while the team, unaware of the Vampire King’s machinations, spend some time developing their intra-team relationships. Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom are clubbing in Soho and picking up on tourists. Spitfire and Blade (with his ridiculous, ridiculous hair) are partying and romancing near Hyde Park. The Black Knight has gone to Wakanda to get the Ebony Blade, and he and Faiza discuss their knight-steward relationship. But all the good stuff in this issue belongs to Dracula. You’ve got Dracula’s meeting with Doctor Doom, you’ve got Dracula’s magic/scientific headquarters on the moon, you’ve got Dracula launching guided vampire-missiles on London. And you just want more and more, because Dracula is sooo cool.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Every scene with Dracula in it is a solid winner, and the scenes without Dracula are still pretty good. If I’ve got any complaint, it’s that Dracula isn’t quite the arrogant, loquacious  aristocrat that he was in the classic 1970s series “The Tomb of Dracula.” Still, he hasn’t even had a chance to have a good ranting monologue yet, so maybe that’s coming in the next few issues.

Crossed #3

The maniacally homicidal Crossed don’t figure as much into this issue — they show up at the beginning, but soon disappear. The focus this time is on how bad things have become with civilization in collapse. The small group of survivors are attacked by another group of humans — a schoolteacher and her former students, who have been surviving by attacking people and eating them. After the teacher’s death, the survivors are left with a band of six children to care for. They don’t have the resources to keep everyone fed, and they don’t trust that the kids won’t, at some point, decide to go back to eating people. Is there a good solution out of this?

Verdict: Thumbs up. A somewhat less violent issue, though the moral issues involved are still plenty traumatic. We also get a bit more detail about the survivors, which is something that’s been lacking previously.