Frank Drake (comics)
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- For the American astronomer, see Frank Drake
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Frank Drake is a fictional character appearing in Marvel Comics, most notably the Tomb of Dracula series created by Gerry Conway.
Frank Drake was a direct descendant of Count Dracula. However, his bloodline is based on one of Dracula's marriages before Dracula became a vampire. Throughout the generations, Frank's ancestors would eventually change their surname to Drake to remove themselves from the unwanted connotations of their ancestry.
Frank Drake is introduced as a millionaire playboy who had squandered his inheritance and now had nothing more than an ancestral castle in his assets. Planning to sell it, Drake and friends travelled to Transylvania where the castle was located. it was discovered that this was the castle of Count Dracula, though Drake never truly believed in the Dracula legends. Drake and his friends stumble across the skeleton of Dracula and accidentally resurrect him. Drake narrowly escaped death when Dracula recognized Drake as a descendant. Drake eventually relocated to London.
Broke and in despair, Drake attempted to commit suicide but was saved by Rachel Van Helsing and Taj Nital, two vampire hunters. Through them, Drake met Quincy Harker, a descendant of Jonathan Harker whose tale was told in Bram Stoker's novel. Rachel, of course was a great granddaughter of Abraham van Helsing. Drake learned that Dracula had eventually caused the death of Jonathan Harker and Abraham van Helsing some years after they had defeated him in the book's events. Quincy, Rachel, and Taj (whose family had been killed by vampires) were dedicated to killing Dracula and his vampiric followers.
Frank Drake joined Quincy Harker's band of vampire hunters under the close tutelage of Rachel van Helsing and Quincy Harker. Other allies would include Blade, with whom Drake constantly clashed but would eventually become a valued friend and vampire detective Hannibal King, whom Drake would come to trust because of Blade. Although a close friendship grew between Drake and van Helsing, their potential for romantic involvement remained shaky due to Frank's lack of self-confidence and Rachel's fear of intimacy.
Quincy Harker eventually made the ultimate sacrifice by detonating a bomb concealed in his wheelchair which destroyed him, Dracula, and much of the castle in which they met for the last time. Quincy's final letter to Rachel and Frank urged the two of them to grow closer together and discover what they all knew was there all the time. As a result, Frank and Rachel did attempt a romance but due to Frank's later account, Rachel was an empty shell without Dracula to fight and the two shortly parted but not without deep regrets. Rachel would eventually be turned into a vampire herself and die mercifully at the hands of X-man Wolverine. Frank, upon hearing of Rachel's death realizes that Dracula is back and teams up with Blade, Hannibal King, and Doctor Strange to fight his return from the grave. Drake, King, Blade and Strange were responsible for casting the Montesi Formula which destroyed Dracula and all vampires and banished vampirism from earth. Drake, King (now cured of vampirism and the only vampire to survive the Montesi spell), and Blade decided to remain together and become private investigators, founding the firm of King, Drake, and Blade (aka Borderline Investigations). They would investigate any number of strange and not so strange cases, including a battle with the Darkholders.
Drake, wishing for a more normal life, eventually left the firm. Apparently, the friendship between King, Drake, and Blade had soured. Drake moved to Washington D.C. and married Marlene McKenna, a woman he had met sometime after parting ways with Rachel. During this time, Marlene seemed to come under the power of Dracula and scarred her face to resemble Rachel's facial scars. Drake, reluctantly called a hostile Blade and the two, assisted by Blade's friend Katinka, eventually aborted Dracula's resurrection again. This resulted in Blade's nervous breakdown and institutionalization. Drake, determined to live a normal life with Marlene, declined an invitation from Katinka, to stay in touch. Katinka suspected that things were only beginning.
With the weakening of the Montesi spell, Dr. Strange realized that not only were vampires returning, but also an increased occurrence of supernatural invasions. On this realization, Strange arranged for the release of Blade and for Drake (whose wife Marlene had again mysteriously fallen ill), to meet him and King back at their old Borderline offices where King, who had been running the business by himself had to eventually close shop due to the return of his vampirism. None of them too glad to see the other, but each having their reasons for getting back together, they form the Nightstalkers; By day, they are private investigators, by night, they fight any number of supernatural villains. Drake, armed with an anti-supernatural nanotech gun named Linda (after Linda Blair of The Exorcist) fights alongside Blade and King against such enemies as the Lilin, Hydra's DOA, and The Meatmarket. Eventually, they fight against the Atlantean vampire Varnae in which Drake overloads Linda causing an explosion that is thought to destroy him and Varnae (King having attempted to sacrifice himself by plunging a metal stake through his heart while fighting off vampire-lord Varnae's mental control). Blade escapes believing them to be dead but eventually runs into King in New Orleans who explains that Drake also survived but was left horribly scarred and crippled in both body and mind and would probably remain only a shell of his former self.
[edit] In other media
Frank Drake, who was one of the major characters in the Blade/Tomb of Dracula family of characters wasn't directly represented in the movies, probably to avoid confusion with the real life astrophysicist of that same name. In the 2004 movie Blade: Trinity, the main villain's (presumed, but not confirmed to actually be Dracula) cover name is Drake. This is a slightly ironic tip of the hat to the Marvel comic character Frank Drake.
