DRACO

Real Name: Demosthenes Q. Drake

Identity/Class: Human mutate

Occupation: Former scientist;
    later would-be conqueror;
    later-still a hunter/gatherer reptile

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Led an army of robot Dragon Men

Enemies: Spider-Man

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: King of the Dragon Men, Master of the Heavens

Base of Operations: Manhattan, New York (formerly its sewers); formerly the Amazon

First Appearance: Spider-Man: Invasion of the Dragon Men (1974, Power Records Special)

 

 

 

 

Powers/Abilities: Draco had super-human strength (possibly Class 25, allowing him to lift/press approximately 25 tons) and durability.  He was ten feet tall and had the ability to fly and to expel flames and poisonous gasses from his mouth--well, make that the ability to breathe flame and poison gas anyway.  He did have wings, but...
    He also had a large tail, though he wasn't shown to use it in the fight.

    He had a genius intellect, capable of creating powerful robots and weapons, such as his Hydro-Magnetic Energy Deactivator, which was apparently capable of temporarily neutralizing all forms of energy, and could even paralyze living beings.

 

 

 

History:
(Spider-Man: Invasion of the Dragon Men (fb) ) - Demosthenes Q. Drake was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology, who was reported lost during an expedition in the Amazon years ago.  However, this was merely a cover story for his greatest experiment: the deliberate introduction of the genes of a giant species of iguana into the bloodstream of a human.  Drake, of course, tested it out on himself, and was transformed into "a huge fire-eating dragon that walks like a man!."
    
Apparently naming himself after the constellation, Draco the Dragon--or the dragon Draco that it represented, he then decided that he would conquer the world.  He built a pair of robot Dragon Men and his Hydro-Magnetic Energy Deactivator.

 

(Spider-Man: Invasion of the Dragon Men) - Capitalizing on the constellation, Draco and his Dragon Men showed up during an astronomy lecture, just after a meteor shower, so that it appeared as if they had just flown down to Earth.  He announced his name and his plan to rule all of Earth before vanishing.  He then relocated to a base in the sewers of New York City, where he and his Dragon Men constructed (or installed) his Hydro-Magnetic Energy Deactivator.  Spider-Man, on the lookout for Draco after he had announced himself, followed his spider sense into the sewers and found Draco and his minions.  Draco spotted Spider-Man and bragged about his plans to use the Deactivator to force the world to acknowledge him as its ruler.  However, Spidey goaded Draco into chasing after him, and Spidey gummed up the start mechanism of the deactivator.  When Draco sent the Dragon Men after him, Spidey blinded them with webbing and then opened up a pipeline, flooding the tunnel and washing them all away.

The deactivated Dragon Men were later found and revealed as robots, and Spider-Man swung up to the top of the Empire State Building to think things through.  He saw the constellation Draco, still in place, and realized that Draco wasn't an invader from outer space (?).  Anyway, Draco then showed up at the top of the building as well and attacked Spidey after revealing his origins.  Draco kept Spidey off balance with his fire breath, stunned him with poison gas, and then charged at the webslinger.  Spidey ducked down, and Draco leapt over top of him and then fell screaming to the ground below.  Spidey checked out the scene on the ground, but found not a splattered Dragon Man, but rather a normal, tiny iguana, which fled into a hole in a wall.

Comments: Created by Arthur Korb. The Draco story was drawn by Larry Hama and Dick Giordano, according to a Hama checklist at http://qktheatre.com/hama/artist.htm as pointed out by Grant Rybicki, the Continental Op.

This story (and thus Draco and the Dragon Men) lies in the same zone as the novels and the hostess ads.  There's nothing to stop it from being continuity, but it's just not officially considered canon.  I tried to slip it into the Spider-Man Encyclopedia in an appendix entry, but it was quickly knocked out.  Anyway, Draco the Dragon Man turned into an iguana, and maybe could meet up with THE Iguana, who started out as a normal iguana, and then turned back into an iguana.  Maybe the Iguana was a female, and the two could mate and have kids? -- Dracig?  Dracuana?  Iguaco?

Draco took his name from the constellation Draco the Dragon.  The story was actually pretty decent, except for the part where Spider-Man realized that Draco couldn't be from outer space, because he could still see the constellation when Draco was on Earth.  Oh, that and the fact that Spidey never would have known to look for Draco if he hadn't announced his presence.  Still, it was clearly written for a younger group, so I'll let those slide.
    
What I can't let slide is how Draco fell screaming to the earth after he leapt over Spider-Man.  The guy has wings!  He was never shown actually flying, so maybe they were just for show.  What I like to think is that he could fly originally, but right at the end, his fight with Spidey kicked up his metabolism and pushed his transformation into a full iguana.  He was beginning to transform as he fell, and his brain was regressing, and his wings were shrinking--so he couldn't fly.  That's my answer anyway.  Otherwise, those wings are just stupid!
    
Seriously, it's a fun, light story.  I kind of wish I still had a record player.  I don't think my parents do, either.

    
A lot of the Power Records issues pictured on the inside front and back covers look like reprints, but there was one I wasn't sure about.

Conan: The Crawler in the Mist per Robert McKinney: The Conan record was new, adapted by Neal Adams from a Robert E. Howard story.  And according to someone else, it was later adapted in Conan the Barbarian I#119 or so.

Draco of Myth and Constellation

The ancient story of the Dragon concerns the Golden Apples of the Hesperides and Heracles' Eleventh Labor.  The eleventh task of Heracles (some references say it was the Twelfth) was to steal the golden apples from the apple tree which Gaia (Mother Earth) had given to Hera, Queen of the Heavens, at her wedding to Zeus.  Hera had chosen Ladon, a monstrous dragon with a hundred heads, to guard her precious tree.  So Ladon would lay in the garden, coiling himself around the tree, and Hera feared no one would steal her apples.
    Heracles went about collecting useful bits of information about the dragon, finding out how to fool it and steal the apples.  One suggestion was to take along Atlas, who could be of some assistance.  For having opposed Zeus, Atlas had been punished by having to carry the world on his shoulders.  Heracles devised the perfect plan; he offered to relieve Atlas of the terrible burden for an hour or so, long enough for Atlas to perform a favor in return: fetch the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides.
    Atlas was in agreement; anything for a little rest.  But there was one problem: the terrible dragon.  Heracles saw no problem.  He shot an arrow over the garden wall, killing Ladon instantly.  While Heracles hoisted up the globe, Atlas trotted off to retrieve the three golden apples.  At his return Atlas found he could go on living quite happily without the weight of the world on his shoulders, so he told Heracles, "just a few more months and I'll return," planning to leave Heracles the task of carrying the worldly globe.
    Heracles agreed but asked Atlas if he could get more comfortable.  He begged Atlas to take the globe for a moment while he put some padding on his head.  Atlas placed the apples on the ground and picked up the globe.  Heracles thanked him very much and walked away with the three apples.
    As for Ladon, Hera felt miserable over its loss and placed it in the heavens, coiled around the north pole.
    Ladon was the offspring of Typhon and Echidna.  I believe both its death and the theft of the Golden Apples were two more reasons why Hera so strongly dislikes Hercules.
    Anyway, you can get more info than you can possibly handle about the constellation at this link: http://www.dibonsmith.com/dra_con.htm
    Thanks to Joe Littrell to pointing that site out to me...and thanks to Prime Eternal for pointing out the writer/producer of the Invasion of the Dragon Men story, which was listed on the record itself.

As pointed out by Ron Byrd, here's a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 - type review of this story. Enjoy!
http://www.subreality.com/mst3k/dragonmen.htm

Profile updated/edited by Kyle Sims

CLARIFICATIONS:
Draco is named for:

No known connection to:

The Dragon Men

A pair of robot henchman apparently created by and serving Draco, they helped him assemble the Hydro-Magnetic Energy Deactivator.  Draco sent them to attack Spider-Man, but he blinded them with his webbing and they were apparently deactivated when he flooded the tunnels.

They may have had some superhuman powers, but if so, they weren't given the chance to use them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last updated: 10/25/03

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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