Okay, fine: but does he say "bleh bleh-bleh"?
The legendary vampire Vlad Dracula rules over the undead,
spreading violence and terror on his quest for power.
Dracula joined the Marvel Universe in the early 1970s, but his long lifespan meant he could be retconned into any number of flashback stories. For instance, did you know Dracula helped Nick Fury during World War II? Sure, it was only because he was annoyed that the Nazis were squatting in his castle and killing the Romani who served him, rather than any interest in the relative good or evil of any particular group of humans (reminder: the Nazis were the bad ones), but still. Another time, one of his resurrection schemes was thwarted by Johnny and Susan Storm, when they were still kids. That adventure also led to Danny Ketch becoming Ghost Rider. Comics are nuts, man!
When Dracula first appeared in the comics, he was very much the traditional Bela Lugosi style character: fancy clothes, slicked-back hair, all of that. Of course, he was distinguished by having a mustache, so that makes him completely different! And that's how he continued to appear for decades, showing up in every story wearing old-fashioned dress clothes, until the "Heroic Age" Death of Dracula one-shot, where he was completely redesigned with no explanation.
In the comic, Dracula showed up with white skin, long white hair, and wearing ridiculous red armor that makes him look less like
the lord of the night and more like the king of all lobsters. Yes, that's the same joke we used when we reviewed the Minimate; it was good then and it's still good now. It's been suggested this design was inspired by the armor Gary Oldman wore in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula, but that was 1992 and this was 2010, so you'd think if they were planning to ride that bandwagon they'd have done it sooner. Drac is sculpted with overlapping plates of armor on his chest that look rough, like hand-hammered metal or perhaps very thick leather, and matches that with spiky gauntlets and greaves - this is all in bright red, of course. The shirt he's wearing has puffy black sleeves, and the pants are black with a jagged red pattern running along the outside of the legs.
He wears a tattered black cape, but it feels like this toy has misunderstood the point of the large silver discs on his chest: they're meant to be the clasp for the cape, like so many other be-cape-ed characters have; the discs are attached to the chest plate on this toy, but the cape itself disappears behind the armor, not connecting to the clasps at all. It's as if Hasbro thought they were meant to be decorations, like the circles on Thor's tunic, rather than functional items. Whoops? It would have been okay if they'd just positioned them a little higher, so they were at least overlapping the cape even slightly.
The figure includes a rare luxury among Marvel Legends these days, an alternate head. No, it's not one that's more classic (no Paul Harding "Marvel in the '70s" here - though he has done one), it's the same modern head, but with the mouth closed instead of wide open to show off his fangs. Dracula, calm and centered. The ponytail on this head is similarly more restrained than on the other head.
Vladimir "Didi" Tepes gets a pair of fists,
or a set of open hands - the left curled a bit, the right ready to hold his sword. The sword comes from this look's original designer, Marko Djurdjevic, and features a scalloped section in the middle and a spiked crescent pommel. It's a very cool weapon, and I'm a bit surprised the comics haven't given it any special properties. Most of the joints are regular Marvel Legends stuff, though the shape of the armor means the chest is a balljoint instead of a swivel waist and a hinged chest, and he only gets a single elbow hinge because his sleeves are so poofy; there is an extra swivel right below it, though, so you can adjust the angle of the armor. Does his long hair block the head from moving? You bet it does! To an extent. There's a swivel for the ponytail on both heads.
This series' Build-A-Figure is Blackheart, and this release includes the left arm. And alternate hand.
I once predicted that this armored look for Dracula would be forgotten in a week, and boy was I wrong! I still think it should have been, but it wasn't. Also, the comics offering any explanation for the change, even frivolous one, would have been better than the nothing we got. Tell us Blade tried some new anti-vampire weapon on him and he had to adjust his physiology to survive it. Tell us the armor is ceremonial. Tell us anything other than just showing him walk into the room and have to tell everyone who he was because he looked so different. Whether you like the design or not, Hasbro did a nice job with it, and the fact the toy costs $25 (five dollars more than it should, and that's if we're being charitable) is at least offset by the fact that it's new molds and not just a repainted Agent Venom or something.
-- 03/03/25
Why, do you imagine, Dracula changed his look so drastically? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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