Tomb of Dracula #25
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeTomb of Dracula #25 marks the debut of Hannibal King, a private detective turned vampire who, in refusing to ever feed on a living human, became arguably Marvel's first vampire hero — a moral inversion of the monster archetype that gave the Wolfman/Colan run much of its storytelling range. The issue's central structural trick — presenting King as an ordinary noir P.I. for nearly the entire story and only revealing his vampiric nature in the final panel — is a genuinely clever piece of craft that rewarded attentive readers. King's introduction also quietly planted the seeds for the long-running Blade/King/Deacon Frost triangle that would drive the book through its final arc, and his eventual adaptation into the 2004 film Blade: Trinity (played by Ryan Reynolds) extended the reach of this single debut issue into mainstream cinema. Alongside King's first appearance, the issue also features early appearances of Lilith (Dracula's daughter, introduced just months earlier in Giant-Size Chillers #1) and a return of Deacon Frost, making it a dense node in Marvel's Bronze Age horror mythology.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 22 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
CGC 9.6 ▾ $255–$260 2 listings
CGC 9.4 ▾ $160–$235 3 listings
CBCS 5.5 ▾ $49.99–$79.95 2 listings
Raw — FINE ▾ $17.99–$45.12 3 listings
Raw — VG ▾ $10–$99.99 8 listings
Raw — GD ▾ $13–$59.46 2 listings
Raw / ungraded ▾ $8–$300 25 listings
More listings for this title
Read it digitally
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
By issue #25, the Wolfman/Colan/Palmer creative team was fully in command of the series after a rocky early run that cycled through multiple writers in its first six issues before Marv Wolfman took over as permanent scripter with issue #7. Wolfman has stated he did not feel he truly understood the book's direction until the story arc in issues #12–14, so by #25 the series was hitting a confident stride. The issue was edited by Len Wein and appeared on newsstands with an October 1974 cover date, coming just months after the companion Giant-Size Chillers #1 (June 1974) had introduced Lilith — and the issue includes a flashback to those events, suggesting deliberate continuity coordination between Marvel's expanding Dracula-related titles of that period.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Hannibal King (Earth-616), a Milwaukee-born private detective who had been bitten and turned into a vampire by Deacon Frost while on a case in London.
- King's vampire nature is withheld from the reader until the issue's final panel — a structural reveal that was both a narrative surprise and a defining character statement.
- Deacon Frost (first appeared in Tomb of Dracula #13, Oct. 1973) appears in this issue in flashback as the vampire responsible for turning King; this issue establishes the Frost/King connection that later links King to Blade, whose mother was also killed by Frost.
- Lilith, Dracula's daughter (first appeared in Giant-Size Chillers Featuring the Curse of Dracula #1, June 1974, created by Wolfman and Colan), appears in this issue via flashback connecting to events of Vampire Tales #6.
- Written by Marv Wolfman, penciled by Gene Colan, inked by Tom Palmer, and edited by Len Wein — the core creative team responsible for the entire 70-issue color run.
- The issue includes Marvel Value Stamp #49 (Odin), a feature common to many mid-1970s Marvel comics.
- Issue #25 was selected as one of only six complete issues included in IDW's Gene Colan's Tomb of Dracula Artist's Edition, a high-resolution reprint of Colan and Palmer's original art.
- Hannibal King was later portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in the 2004 film Blade: Trinity, with the Tomb of Dracula comic book itself appearing as a prop in that film in a direct mythology nod to the character's origins.
Cast · 4 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Dracula Lives Special Edition #[nn] (1975), Het graf van Dracula #3 (1975), Le Tombeau de Dracula #25 (1975), Dracula Lives #55 (1975), Dracula Lives #56 (1975), Dracula #17 (1978), Dracula #9 (1982), Dracula #9/1982 (1982), Tomb of Dracula #25 [JC Penney Marvel Vintage Pack] #[nn] (1994), Essential Tomb of Dracula #1 (2004), Gene Colan Tribute Book #1 (2008), The Tomb of Dracula Omnibus #1 (2008), The Tomb of Dracula #3 (2010), Tomb of Dracula: The Complete Collection #3 (2019), Marvel Masterworks: Tomb of Dracula #3 (2023), Die Gruft von Graf Dracula #25, Dracula #6/1975, Κόμης Δράκουλας [Komis Drakulas] #5
Key issues in Tomb of Dracula
Variants (1)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.