Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the 60s superhero fad met the 60s monster fad! How well did they get along? Was it all sunshine and lollipops, or did it just lead to a lot of bad comic books? Maybe that last one.
Dracula returns from the grave, puts on his skin tight super hero outfit, and battles evil! You might remember our last Dracula adventure, where he fought a giant gasbag. This month there's a secret cave and a specialty. Dracula's Secret Cave Brownies, I hope
In a helpful caption we're informed that sometimes we're looking for important and necessary things but wind up finding unwanted and harmful things, leading us to conclude that Dracula's friend B.B. Beebe (surely related to J. Fred Muggs' girlfriend) is on the "unwanted" side of the ledger! What's the matter Dracula? Used to be you were all about the ladies!
Dracula, Dracula, Dracula. You'd rather work on your important research than take a bunch of annoying strange children to the beach? You ARE a monster.
Our evil genius villain has spent six and a half years dressed up in his Pied Piper outfit in a shack by the beach, waiting for just the right school bus full of kids to drive by. Let the world laugh! Let them!
Filled with evil, the Pied Piper puts years of sonic mind control research into action. The twee little Middle Ages outfit? That's a rental.
B.B. shows off her amazing child-minding skills by unloading the kids onto the beach, hollering "Stay safe now!" and immediately burying her nose in a book. We should probably thank the Pied Piper here for preventing at least five drownings.
Take that, you squeeky beast! Turns out B.B. here is a woman of action and probably should just have her own comic book, forget about this Dracula nonsense. Karate Debutante, coming soon from Dell Comics!
Unfortunately even karate is no match for the playground tactic of "throw dirt in somebody's face," especially when enacted by the meaty, awkward hands of artist Tony Tallarico.
Hypnotizing children with music, that's at best neutral, probably slightly evil depending on how parents or guardians feel about it. Tying somebody up in a van which you push over a cliff? That right there is attempted murder, that's definitely evil and way more deserving of scorn and infamy. I guess he needs to change his name to "The Pied Bondage Van Murderer" to better reflect his skill set. Heck this is some Zodiac Killer stuff happening here. Maybe Tallarico's on to something
Meanwhile Dracula decides to knock off for the day, change into a bat, fly to the beach, see a line of hypnotized children being led by a guy in wacky medieval garb blowing a flute, and... wait a minute
"I've got to get inside that van even if it means destroying it!" Hey Dracula, that Ford Econoline is sinking into the ocean. It's done. Go ahead and destroy it a little more.
So Pied Piper dude here went through all the years of research perfecting sonic mind control, and he's using it to... steal cars. Hey buddy, you know you can steal cars *without* an army of hypnotized children?
Even Dracula is powerless when the lives of children are at stake. He's also powerless against stakes. It's lose-lose for Dracula!
B.B. is ordering the children to leap off the cliff! She's been evil all along! Way to go B.B.!
Oh, she had a net set up to catch the kids. Okay, you're not evil I guess. But I got my eye on you.
So children will blindly obey the sonic hypnosis of the Pied Piper, or their babysitter. And now let us all invite the EMF song "You're Unbelievable" into our skulls for the next five or six days.
YOU'RE UNBELIEVABLE
Here's a pro tip for would-be super heroes- put a lock on the door to your underground hideout, unless you want your pushy girlfriends to bust their way in and start drinking your super bat serum. Maybe that's what you want. I don't know your life.
And now two super heroes will face the evil of the world, Dracula and his partner Fleeta, the only super heroine named after... well, either the opera by Johann Strauss, or the popular home enema. Take your pick.
They're ready for whatever lies ahead! Fleeta in particular is ready for a ride in a convertible, what with her kerchief-based headgear and all!
"Are we using our powers to the greatest benefit? Will they result in a man with a sheet over his head shooting plates while an old lady screams? Because that's our goal!"
Remember that failed Universal shared-monster movie franchise they tried to get going a few years back, and how it failed because they made bad movies nobody wanted to see? Well, once again Hollywood is behind the curve as we see Dell Comics did the same exact thing in the 1960s, trying to create a shared universe of monster characters starring in bad comics nobody wanted to read! Remember those who forget history are doomed to repeat it! Now call Dracula... immediately!
And Dracula was totally going to help, for real, but Frankenstein already saved the day. It's not often we see a super hero upstaged in his own comic book.
Al Lucard (get it?) decides that with Frankenstein handling the rough stuff, they can concentrate on the smaller, more intimate, less likely to end up in getting killed kind of crimes. You know, like dishonest spiritualists. Take 'em down Dracula!
Is this the most obvious entrapment newspaper ad ever? "Elderly Widow With Lots Of Cash Is Sitting Alone Waiting To Be Swindled, Call Anytime, This Isn't A Setup, Swear To God."
I don't want to engage in victim blaming here, but if you can be swindled by a guy who puts a sheet over his head and smashes a china closet, you probably deserve it.
Hey, turns out the little old lady was B.B. in disguise, and also it turns out the fraudulent spiritualist is surprisingly easy to scare.
Look out Dracula he's got a gun! Which begs the question, what is the point of being Dracula if you have to worry about guns? That's why people become Dracula, to laugh as Inspector Whoever pumps bullets uselessly into your snappy tuxedo, right before you grab the policeman and hurl him from the walls of your castle, laughing maniacally! You're Dracula dammit!
Chased out of the house by our two super heroes who are now low-rent Scooby Doo characters, we bid farewell to our fake spiritualist and also to Dracula and Fleeta and incidentally to whoever was in charge of competent design at Dell Comics, because they fired that guy and got some teenage intern to fill up the blank space here with an awkwardly scrawled house ad. Beware, all those who seek to misuse the supernatural for their own profit! Like, say, people who make super hero comics out of public domain monster characters! Beware!!
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