Captain America #117 (Sept. 1969), Colan and writer-editor Stan Lee created the Falcon, the first African-American superhero in mainstream comic books. The character came about, Colan recalled in 2008, Concurrent with his move to Marvel, Colan also contributed several stories to Warren Publishing's line of black-and-white horror comics magazines, beginning with the six-page tale "To Pay the Piper", by writer Larry Ivie, in Eerie #2 (March 1966). There and in subsequent stories for that magazine and its sister publication, Creepy, Colan would ink his own pencil work. His final original Warren story, "First Blood", appeared in Eerie #11 (Sept. 1967). The vast majority of these were written by Warren editor Archie Goodwin, with whom Colan would later collaborate on Marvel's Iron Man. Dracula and Batman Colan in the 1970s illustrated the complete 70-issue run of the acclaimed horror title The Tomb of Dracula as well as most issues of writer Steve Gerber's cult hit Howard the Duck. Colan, already one of Marvel's most well-established and prominent artists, said he had lobbied for the Tomb of Dracula assignment: Colan and Marv Wolfman created several supporting characters for the Dracula series. They introduced Blade in The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973) and Lilith in Giant-Size Chillers #1 (June 1974). Colan became the artist of Doctor Strange volume 2 with issue #6 (Feb. 1975) which introduced the Gaea character. A crossover between the two Colan-drawn series occurred in May 1976. In 2010, Comics Bulletin ranked Colan's run on The Tomb of Dracula fifth on its list of the "Top 10 1970s Marvels". His work on Doctor Strange was ranked ninth on the same list. Colan's collaboration with Steve Gerber on the Howard the Duck series saw the title character nominated by the All-Night Party, a fictional political party, as their nominee in the Presidential campaign of 1976, and led to Howard the Duck receiving thousands of write-in votes in the actual election. The Gerber-Colan team created Doctor Bong in Howard the Duck #15 (Aug. 1977). Gerber later said to Colan: "There really was almost a telepathic connection there. I would see something in my mind, and that is what you would draw! I've never had that experience with another artist before or since." Colan returned to DC in 1981, following a professional falling out with Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter. Colan recalled two decades later that Shooter He brought his shadowy, moody textures