In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, find out how an intended Batman homage to Christopher Lee's Dracula was awkwardly covered up

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and sixty-ninth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. This is a special Halloween edition, with three horror legends! Click here for the first legend in this installment. Click here for the second legend in this installment.

NOTE: If my Twitter page hits 5,000 followers, I'll do a bonus edition of Comic Book Legends Revealed that week. Great deal, right? So go follow my Twitter page, Brian_Cronin!

COMIC LEGEND:

DC forced Mike Grell to edit his intended homage to Christopher Lee's Dracula in an issue of Detective Comics.

STATUS:

True

A while back, I did a Comic Book Legends Revealed about Detective Comics #455's strange pedigree, how Bernie Wrightson had completed the entire issue in a detailed breakdown, but didn't actually pencil it, so Grell was given Wrightson's breakdowns and basically just copied it.

Here's Grell's opening page in the story...

detective-comics-455-1

And here is Wrightson's splash page, which was later shown somewhere, perhaps for a comic book convention?

bernie-wrightson-heart-of-a-vampire-1

Interestingly enough, though, there was a whole other amusing aspect to the story!

RELATED: Was Swamp Thing Almost Part of Kenner's Super Powers Toyline?

WHO DID GRELL INTEND TO HOMAGE WITH THIS BATMAN STORY?

In Dewey Cassell's Mike Grell: Life is Drawing Without an Eraser from TwoMorrows, Grell explained, "I was a big fan of Christopher Lee as Dracula. The first monster movie that I had seen since I was a kid that actually scared me was Christopher Lee’s Dracula. He was just such a commanding presence, and seemed like he had the power and the evil to go with it. So I did a bunch of research and found many reference photos so I could model the vampire after Christopher Lee."

Here's the great Christopher Lee as Dracula...

christopher-lee-dracula

And here's a fun compilation of Lee's various bites as Dracula over the years...

Fascinatingly, as I pointed out in an old Movie Legends Revealed, it was Christopher Lee's Dracula who would make the fangs a "thing." They weren't part of the earlier Dracula films.

In any event, you can tell where Grell was going with the vampire's design...

lee-vampire-batman

However, do you notice the major difference? Well, that came down to his editor, Julius Schwartz.

RELATED: How the Writers of Dr. Strange and Dracula Agreed to Kill Off Each Other's Characters

WHAT DID JULIUS SCHWARTZ FORCE GRELL TO CHANGE IN THE STORY?

Grell continued to explain to Cassell:

I got just as close as I could to the likeness, and took the pencils in to [DC editor] Julie Schwartz, and Julie said, “Well, it’s good except for one thing.” I said, “What’s that?” And he said, “Your vampire looks just like Christopher Lee.” I went, “That’s the point!” He said, “Yeah, no, you’ve gotta change that.” So I was upset. He said, “Why don’t you give him longer hair, like your hairstyle, instead of having it brushed back. Why don’t you give him a broken nose like yours, and maybe a scar.” I was like, “Oh, God.” So, in order to please my editor, I made those changes, but it came off looking like I was ripping off Christopher Lee instead of making an homage to Christopher Lee, which I had intended it to be. Sometimes it jumps up and bites you, you know. It doesn’t always come off the way you hoped it would.

That's a shame. Honestly, though, I bet no one actually thought Grell was ripping Lee off. I think the homage comes through anyway.

Thanks so much to Mike Grell and Dewey Cassell for that great piece of comic book history (Michael Kronenberg and Michael Eury also covered this story in their excellent Batcave Companion from TwoMorrows, as well)

CHECK OUT A TV LEGENDS REVEALED!

In the latest TV Legends Revealed - Did Ginger's friend, Courtney, almost come out of the closet in the series finale of As Told By Ginger?

MORE LEGENDS STUFF!

OK, that's it for this installment!

Thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo, which I don't even actually anymore, but I used it for years and you still see it when you see my old columns, so it's fair enough to still thank him, I think.

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com. And my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/brian_cronin, so you can ask me legends there, as well! Also, if you have a correction or a comment, feel free to also e-mail me. CBR sometimes e-mails me with e-mails they get about CBLR and that's fair enough, but the quickest way to get a correction through is to just e-mail me directly, honest. I don't mind corrections. Always best to get things accurate!

Here's my most recent book, 100 Things X-Men Fans Should Know And Do Before They Die, from Triumph Books.

If you want to order a copy, ordering it here gives me a referral fee.

Here's my second book, Why Does Batman Carry Shark Repellent? The cover is by Kevin Hopgood (the fellow who designed War Machine's armor).

If you want to order a copy, ordering it here gives me a referral fee.

Here's my book of Comic Book Legends (130 legends. -- half of them are re-worked classic legends I've featured on the blog and half of them are legends never published on the blog!).

The cover is by artist Mickey Duzyj. He did a great job on it...

If you'd like to order it, you can use this code if you'd like to send me a bit of a referral fee.

Follow Comics Should Be Good on Twitter, and on Facebook (also, feel free to share Comic Book Legends Revealed suggestions on our Facebook page!). Not only will you get updates when new blog posts show up on both Twitter and Facebook, but you'll get some original content from me, as well!

See you next time!! Happy Halloween!