100 Days Of The King - Day 28

Apparently when Jack "King" Kirby migrated to DC in the early 70's, one project he was interested in doing was Dracula in light of some changes in the Comics Code which loosened prohibitions against some horror motifs. His love of classic horror movies is well documented and I'd have loved to have seen his take. I never thought much of Kirby's ability to handle the supernatural when I was a young reader, but I've grown more sensitive to his hyperbolic presentations in that genre as I've grown older.

While he didn't do a full-blown Dracula project at DC, Kirby did produce a couple of Jimmy Olsen issues about a gang of aliens influenced by the Universal Monster Rally movies. That's how we got Count Dragorin - the Man from Transilvane and his furry associate Lupek.

Evidently the reason Kirby abandoned his attempt at a full-blown Dracula book was that Marvel, his former home, was launching their own, the much respected Tomb of Dracula by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. It's probably for the best that Kirby steered clear, but it does make you wonder what might have been.

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