Welcome back to We Want Comics, a column exploring intellectual properties, whether they’re movies, TV shows, novels or video games, that we want adapted into comic books. This month, we are getting into the Halloween spirit with a look at the great British film studio Hammer Films.
The Hammer horror films of the late 50s through the mid 70s range in quality from the excellent to the embarrassing, including just about everything in between. But one of the things that almost all of the films have is mood and tone, and there are worse places to start for an adaptation than tone. There are a dozens of Hammer horror films to choose from, but as fun as The Quartermass Xperiment or The Gorgon might be, there is really one Hammer series that would fit comics the best.
A quick note: upon doing research for this column, it appears that there was a Hammer comic in the 1970s called “House of Hammer.” The series focused on adapting Hammer’s films into comic forms, and has long been out of circulation. While I would very much like to read these (and am trying to track down a copy of a recent collection as we speak), I don’t really think the Dracula films should be directly adapted into comics. More on that in a bit.
The most iconic Hammer films are the Dracula series, starring Christopher Lee as Count Dracula and Peter Cushing as Professor Van Helsing. While there were other fantastic Hammer films, and even series, it seems like the Dracula world is both the richest and the most malleable of the corners to explore. Lee’s Dracula was completely different than the most famous version of that time, the 1930s Bela Lugosi version. While Lugosi was suave and romantic, Lee’s was imposing and raw. Lugosi may kiss your hand and offer you a drink; Lee would not waste his time with such pleasantries.
Lee played Dracula in seven Hammer films, and there were two more films in the Dracula series without Lee, with Cushing as Van Helsing. I would like to split off these two characters into separate comics with very different types of stories.
At the end of each Dracula film, he is disposed of in some way, whether it is by sunlight (Dracula, known in the United States as Horror of Dracula), drowning in running water (Dracula: Prince of Darkness), destruction via the Lord’s Prayer (Dracula Has Risen From the Grave), or wagon wheel staking (Dracula A.D. 1972). Because of this, the Hammer saga traverses nearly 100 years, and it is established in (Horror of) Dracula that Dracula may be as old as 600 years old. So, even without reaching into the future, which I would love to do, you’d still have an incredible amount of eras to set stories within.
As I said before, I don’t think there is any need for an adaptation of any of the films into comic form. People know the story of Dracula, and some of the films aren’t exactly masterpieces, so instead of trying to adapt and/or fix those stories, instead, use the general touchstones of the films’ eras to tell stories in between the movies, and flesh out the story of these characters in fun ways.
Lee’s Dracula doesn’t say much, and so I sort of envision this in the Mike Mignola-“Hellboy” model of minimal dialogue at times, letting the character’s intense physicality speak for itself. Dracula: Prince of Darkness has no dialogue for the titular character, either because Lee wouldn’t say it (as he claims) or there was none in the script (as the screenwriter said). I would find a balance between this and (Horror of) Dracula, where he is a man of few words, but does speak when necessary.
In some ways, I see the Marvel “Darth Vader” series as a good touchstone for this series, in so much as you’re following a character who is feared but rarely speaks, and so much of those books are built around both a supporting cast, so I think it would be an interesting challenge to have to build up people around Dracula. Or, the series would have to be one without a protagonist of any real kind. Readers would have to be content with simply watching Dracula ruin lives and turn folks left and right.
Continued belowNow, Van Helsing would show up now and then, but I like the idea of keeping the two in different books for a few reasons. If Van Helsing is the only one who can stop Dracula in any sense, it would make a “Dracula” series less than interesting. So, much like how Batman has the Joker and then a series of other villains, there would be a need for b and c level adversaries, much like the ones seen in the non-Cushing/Van Helsing films. Some of those from the films could even show up for an arc or two.
There is also the opportunity to use the comic series to connect Lee’s two non-Hammer Dracula appearances, the 1970 German Count Dracula where a mustachioed Lee played a far more Bram Stoker-accurate portrayal, and the French comedy Dracula and Son, into some semblance of continuity. You can take the boy of a comic shop, but the comic fan never quite leaves the boy.
As a companion series, I would propose a “The Doctors Van Helsing” title, which would follow Abraham (the character from Horror of Dracula and Brides of Dracula), Lawrence (the Van Helsing from the flashback of Dracula A.D. 1972), Lorimer (the 1970s Van Helsing from the same film), and Jessica (his granddaughter, also from A.D. 1972).
Both of these books would be retcons in a way, allowing the weirdness of the films and their timelines to be somewhat straightened out. The Van Helsing from the first two films was never given a first name, and so when Lawrence is introduced in A.D. 1972, it is the start of a new timeline. By naming the ‘original’ Van Helsing Abraham, it gives a little more logic to the timeline shenanigans, and continues the precedent in A.D. 1972 of the Van Helsings being generational vampire hunters.
I could see this book as almost like Jason Aaron’s “Thor: God of Thunder” series, which featured three timelines of the God of Thunder. Instead of having a book telling the story of one Van Helsing, each issue/arc would feature multiple Van Helsings solving linked vampire crimes across a period of dozens, if not hundreds of years. You could tell tales of Van Helsings as far in the future as you’d like, or go to the very beginnings of vampirism. Imagine Jessica in a cocaine and synthesizer washed 80s vampire film, or her great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter hunting vampires on a moon base, or a medieval ancestor in armor hunting down a Dracula during the Crusades.
Both of these books could also be used to tie in the various other vampire characters from Hammer’s many, many vampire films. Maybe we see Dracula bite the first member of the Circus of the Night, or maybe Count Mitterhaus, tying into Vampire Circus. Maybe Van Helsing is trying to track down Mircalla from The Vampire Lovers trilogy. A Van Helsing/Captain Kronos team-up seems like a must.
Either of these titles could also be used to flesh out the side-characters and weirder settings for some of the Dracula-adjacent films, either in the series themselves or in spin-offs. I know I’d love to see a better/more nuanced version of the vampire meets kung-fu business we get in The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires, and think that those characters would be fantastic to explore in a comic.
While I considered making Hammer Frankenstein or Mummy series, the other two ‘flagship’ Hammer series, I’m not sure that there is as much meat on those bones, in terms of ways to make the Hammer versions stand out from other incarnations of those characters. While there have been Dracula comics from most comic publishers, the Lee Dracula is iconic and standalone enough to act as the centerpiece of a truly fun, and genuinely terrifying universe of comics.
When we first see the teeth bore in (Horror of) Dracula, it is one of the most visceral moments of any vampire film I can recall. Earlier in the film, we see that Lee’s Dracula is sexy without being romantic and imposing without being overtly threatening. But in that moment, teeth out, mouth stained with blood, it is absolutely impossible to not be afraid of Count Dracula. I can’t remember the last time a Dracula comic gave me chills, let alone made me genuinely afraid. A Hammer-inspired series may be able to do that.
