Story title: "The Vampire Master, Part 1" (I don't think it's the official title though, just something the DCRO guys came up with).
Cover Date: October 1935
By: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster
To get us started with the DCRO we have an entry from a pretty obscure character, which I guess gives a good idea of what's to come.
First of all, this is a story by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (Leger and Reuths are pseudonyms), and if those names don't ring any bells, then you're clearly not a Superman fan! Anyway, I think it's cool that it's them who get the order started, even if it's not with Superman.
So, you might have noticed that this entry is part of a bigger magazine named New Fun Comics, and you might be wondering why this is the first entry in the order and not the first story from the first volume. Well, New Fun Comics was an anthology magazine, and most of the stories in it are not really part of the DC universe. Now, does it bother me a little that I have to skip most of the content in the magazine? Yes. However, if I also start reading every story in every magazine that appears in the order, the Golden Age portion of it might just become twice as big, so just this once I'm going to have a little self-restraint. Besides, most of those stories are only related to DC to the fact that they were originally published by the same company that later became part of the current DC (It's complicated, and I'm not too well informed).
As a cool bit of trivia, New Fun Comics was the first comic Magazine to publish original material (hence the "New" in the title) instead of just newspaper reprints.
Now, onto the story itself, we get introduced to the eponymous Doctor, a man who has "sworn to combat supernatural evil". Interesting concept, you can get a ton of stories out of it and it makes me want to know more about his past (Has he suffered from some kind of Supernatural Evil? Does he just dislike ghosts?). The Doc is having a casual vespertine stroll through an alley (as one does) when he sees a man being assaulted by your average alley-variety vampire, whom he scares off with... Whatever this thing is.
Sander, the victim, asks about the vampire, but the doctor sends him off without further explanation. Later, when Sander gets home, a woman who I assume is his wife asks him about the incident, and he seems weirdly uninterested in mentioning that he saw an actual vampire.
Anyway, the vampire seems to not be done with these people yet.
From the way he was drawn earlier, I thought he had giant wings, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I guess maybe he was pulling his cape over himself? Vampires do tend to do that. I know because I've met a few.
The next morning the Doc gets a call from Sander, and when he arrives he finds that the man's wife has been bitten, and by a vampire, no less. "It's as I feared!" he states. The nerve on this one...
It's here that I began suspecting that the Doctor is actually kind of incompetent (or maybe just an asshole), I mean, first, he refuses to explain to Sanders how to deal with vampires (it was as easy as telling him to keep his crosses close or giving him a garlic head), and now it turns out he suspected the creature would attack again and he did nothing. Even worse, the next thing that happens is that the Doc sends the woman to a "sanitarium" (which I know is a synonym for "sanatorium", but sounds like "bathroom" in Spanish) because I'm sure your average hospital is perfectly equipped for dealing with vampire bites.
Anyway, he gets inside a closet, using his assistant, Rose Psychic (that's an actual name, and so is "Occult") as bait. Later, when the vampire arrives, Occult comes out of the closet (lol) ready to fight the creature.
The Doctor takes his "Magic Symbol", but this time, the vampire knows he doesn't need to be scared of a poker chip, so it doesn't work!
Why is the vampire so fixated on the Sanders? How will the Doctor fight off the vampire without his trusty poker chip? Why doesn't the Magic Symbol work anymore? Is this a different vampire? Did the Doctor forget to charge it? Is the creature wearing a Magic Defense +6 cape? Will we get answers to all of these questions in the next issue? Probably not, but we will have to wait until the next issue to find out, because this is only the first part of this story...
Anyway, now, the ratings.
Quality/Enjoyment: 3/5 I say this qualifies as mid. It wasn't too good, but it also wasn't too bad. Maybe it was a little generic, but I do see some potential with this character, and if nothing else it was at least entertaining, so I guess a 3/5 is fine. In any case, it's kind of hard to rate 1 page of a story that isn't even finished by itself, so I guess I'll have a better assessment of the overall quality of "The Vampire Master" once I finish it.
Historical/Cultural/Narrative Significance: 4/5 This one's a little trickier because there is more than one aspect to consider. First, the character: Doctor Occult is not a huge name, but is also not THAT obscure. He didn't last a lot in the Golden Age, but he did get revived more than 40 years later and had some more appearances in the modern DC universe. However, he was last seen more than 10 years ago, in 2011. That in itself would probably grant this (being his first appearance) a 2/5. As I said though, there is more to consider. New Fun Comics is the first comic magazine to feature original stories, and I think that's worth a few more points, but those extra points would only go to the first volumes, and this is the sixth one. At the end of the day, this is the first canon DC story ever published which makes Doctor Occult the oldest DC character to still exist in modern media. Even with that in mind, I can't really say that this is "The birth of the DC universe" (I have another issue in mind for that, and if you know anything about comic books I think you can guess what it is) so I'll leave it at 3/5.
April 9, 2023 Update: It has come to my knowledge that this is probably the first vampire comic book ever! I think that deserves an extra point, leaving it at 4/5
Before I go, I normally won't do this, but since this is in the public domain and someone was kind enough to upload it to Comicbook+, you can read the full Golden Age Doctor Occult works legally and free of charge right here.
Okay, we've reached the end of this entry, and frankly, I'm a little surprised at how much bullshit I can write up about a one-page comic book (1200 words!) Hahahaha, maybe I should consider getting into journalism. I'll try to cut down the details a little going forward (especially on longer entries) but I don't promise anything. Anyway, thank you for reading and bye, have a nice rest of your day.
No comments:
Post a Comment