3 out of 5

Dracula Lives!, of a very similar vibe to the other Marvel monster mag imprints of the time, has the boon of being able to focus on its titular character (whilst the pithy Vampire Tales has to do with any ol’ fang-toother, pah!).  This doesn’t prevent the series from getting a bit long in the tooth once the routine has run its course, with the first few issues (of which I’m only focusing on the Steve Gerber-featured ones, true) reading like more fully fleshed out magazines with an editorial eye on sequencing and maintaining a balance in tone, whereas the latter half of the series starts to read like Dracula filler, to a certain degree.

An ongoing adaptation of Bram Stoker’s seminal text by Roy Thomas and Dick Giordiano, sporadically published across the run, is quite excellent, and keeps the mag grounded, while a consistently impressive roster of classic artists maintains a visual verve.  Movie reviews fall flat, written as fan-boy attests, but more patient, detailed reviews of Dracula’s real-life origin or Hammer’s horror history fare much better.

The mag generally has 2-3 feature length texts, one ongoing, one standalone, with the third the Stoker adaptation.  The ongoing feature tends to be more interesting, very much by dint of being ongoing; the standalones can rarely be more than a spin on a similar Dracula attacks omg! formula.

Gerber’s contributions here don’t stand out much, although his first issue contribution is solid – perhaps because that whole issue is a standout in quality, and so each piece feels greater as part of the whole.  Issue 2 he co-scripts with Tony Isabella, so it doesn’t fully read like Steve, and issue 6 I wish Gerber was still around so I could verify that it was actually him – it doesn’t have any of Steve’s style in the dialogue or narration (of which there’s very little, something of a tip-off to its non-Steveness), and its focus on the Darkhold is suspicious, since that’s a Gerry Conway creation… who is credited on the table of contents while Steve is not (they just list all of the writers, not per-story, unfortunately), but then Steve is credited on a tale while Conway is not…  Issues 10 and 11 tie into some work Steve was doing with Lillith, so they’re minor reads but valuable in that sense.  (The ad for issue 12 in issue 11 mentions a continuation of Steve’s work, but I don’t own the issue to confirm, and no site with breakdowns list him as actually appearing.)