Midnight X-Men just turned mutants like Storm and Gambit into bloodsucking vampires, but Marvel Comics has had the undead biting gods, beheading heroes, and blocking out the sun for decades before the Midnight Universe was ever invented. Midnight X-Men #1 by Jonathan Hickman and Matteo Della Fonte was one of three new comics that launched the new Midnight Universe horror line for Marvel, and in the X-Men title, it was all about the vampires. Instead of focusing on the old standbys like Dracula and Blade, this was all about the mutant vampires, referred to as Empyres, and the Catholic Church, which has arrived under the leadership of William Stryker and his Purifiers to eliminate them.
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However, vampires are a classic monster that has been around in Marvel Comics since the 1970s. In fact, one of the first Marvel Comics horror series was The Tomb of Dracula, which featured the legendary bloodsucker as its main character and villain. It wasn’t just Dracula either, as Marvel has a deep history of powerful vampires long before Midnight X-Men ever came around.
10) Bloodline
Bloodline made her debut in Free Comic Book Day 2022: Avengers/X-Men #1 (2022) by Danny Lore and Karen S. Darboe. She is Blade’s daughter, and her mother, Safron Caulder, was Blade’s love interest from his 1970s The Tomb of Dracula days. After her introduction on Free Comic Book Day, she next appeared in Crypt of Shadows #1 and then got her own solo five-issue miniseries, Bloodline: Daughter of Blade (2023). She didn’t show up for years because Blade had Doctor Strange use a spell to suppress her vampire side to protect her, but when Doctor Strange died in 2021, the spell faded, and she gained all her powers, as well as the vampire bloodlust.
Bloodline is different from regular vampires and is also different from her own father, a daywalker. She has vampire strength, speed, reflexes, senses, and night vision, but only at night. She can walk in the sun, like her father, but she is depowered by day, and her powers shift at sunrise and sunset. Her most important role came in “Blood Hunt,” when Blade was possessed by Varnae and Dracula recruited her to help stop her father.
9) Bloodstorm
In Uncanny X-Men #159 by Chris Claremont and Bill Sienkiewicz, Dracula comes to abduct Storm to turn her into one of his brides. Kitty Pryde witnesses this, and the X-Men race to save her, going into battle with Dracula and his legion of undead beings. When Kitty shows up and prepares to stake Storm, who is already starting to change, Storm regains control, and her indomitable will overcomes the bite. She stops her transformation, returns to normal, and beats Dracula. In the Mutant X universe (Earth-1298), this didn’t have the same ending.
Instead, when Kitty refuses to stake Storm, she bites Kitty, turning her into a familiar, while feeding on her when needed. Storm took on the name Bloodstorm, and this version of the character debuted long after her transformation, in the pages of Mutant X #1 (1998) by Howard Mackie and Tom Raney. While she went full vampire, she maintained control and fought off Dracula’s influence, eventually returning to the X-Men and then joining the Six, which is when she made her first appearance. She has all the power of a vampire, but she also has Storm’s Omega-level weather control as well.
8) Hannibal King
Hannibal King debuted in The Tomb of Dracula #25 (1974) by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. He is a Milwaukee private detective who was bitten and killed by Deacon Frost while working a case in London. He swore never to pass the curse on and survives on blood from blood banks, corpses, or animals instead of living people. This made him one of the rare vampire heroes of the time, and he quickly became an ally to Blade in his mission to rid the world of vampires.
Hannibal has the same basic powers as all vampires, including superhuman physical abilities, hypnosis, controlling rats, turning into mist to fly, and turning into a wolf. He also has the same weaknesses as regular vampires, including not being able to walk in the daylight. He has gone through several changes, first remaining alive when Doctor Strange cast a spell to turn all vampires to dust and later being called a neo-vampire since he never drank directly from a living human. Ryan Reynolds played Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity.
7) Baron Blood
There have been three characters who have gone by the moniker of Baron Blood in Marvel Comics. They were John Falsworth, Victor Strange (the brother of Doctor Strange), and Kenneth Crichton, the original Baron Blood’s great-nephew. John Falsworth was a vampire who existed during World War I and World War II, and Kenneth Crichton was turned into a vampire in the Union Jack miniseries in 1998. The original Baron Blood debuted in The Invaders #7 (1976) by Roy Thomas and Frank Robbins.
The original Baron Blood was an English aristocrat who left home after his brother James inherited the family fortune. In Transylvania, Dracula drained him, turned him, and sent him back to England to cause havoc. He sided with Germany in World War I as Baron Blood while fighting his brother James (Union Jack), although neither knew the other’s identity. Baron Blood has the typical vampire powers, but can fly without turning into a bat, walk in sunlight for short periods, and can’t shapeshift.
6) Deacon Frost
Deacon Frost made his debut in The Tomb of Dracula #13 (1973) by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. He was a scientist seeking immortality and ended up accidentally injecting himself with the blood of a freshly killed vampire, becoming one himself. His goal was to replace Dracula as the Lord of Vampires, which made him an enemy of both Dracula and Blade. He has one power that is unique to other vampires. When he bites someone, they become a vampire doppelganger under his total mind control, and he can make copies of those doppelgangers that can absorb the original victim.
He was Blade’s main enemy, even more than Dracula, because it was Deacon Frost who killed Blade’s mother while she was giving birth, which is the event that created Blade as a daywalker. He is also the vampire who turned Hannibal King, although he couldn’t control him. This means that Deacon Frost created two of his most dangerous enemies, who are also two of Marvel Comics’ best-known vampire hunters. He has died more than once, but he keeps coming back, including in 2023’s Bloodline: Daughter of Blade.
5) Lilith, Daughter of Dracula
Lilith is Dracula’s daughter, and she made her debut in Giant-Size Chillers Featuring The Curse of Dracula #1 (1974) by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. The first scene in this book has her killing an abusive father, making her role as a hero or villain confusing at first. Lilith is Dracula’s oldest child, born to his first wife, Zofia. She was raised by a Romani foster mother, Gretchin, and after Dracula killed Gretchin’s son, Gretchin cursed Lilith to become a vampire with different powers, built to be her father’s eternal enemy.
She is immune to sunlight, isn’t repelled by holy symbols, doesn’t need to rest in native soil, and isn’t fully dependent on blood. Lilith can become a wolf, bat, or mist, has limited weather control, and commands various creatures with her mental abilities. She also has resurrection powers. When she dies, her spirit finds and possesses an innocent woman who wants her father dead. Lilith is one of the most important Marvel vampires in history, one of the few who can fight on even ground with Dracula himself.
4) Varnae
Varnae made his debut in Bizarre Adventures #33 (1982) by Steve Perry and Steve Bissette. It is Varnae, and not Dracula, who is the first vampire in Marvel history. He was an Atlantean sorcerer in the Darkholders cult, and the cult turned him into a vampire using the Darkhold. He turned on them when they tried to use him against King Kull, and he then ruled as Lord of the Vampires for millennia. He has all the regular vampire powers, but on a much more powerful level.
He has fought heroes for ages, surviving the sinking of Atlantis and waking up in the Hyborian Age, where he fought Conan the Barbarian. In the 15th century, he manipulated the war between Turac and Vlad Tepes. He named Nimrod the Lord of the Vampires while secretly wanting Dracula on the throne. Dracula killed Nimrod, and Varnae arranged Dracula’s resurrection with a virgin’s blood, then walked into the dawn to die. He returned in “Blood Hunt,” where he possessed Blade and almost led vampires to take over the Earth by blocking out the sun.
3) Morbius
Morbius is a unique vampire because he was created by science and was not bitten and turned by another vampire. He debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 (1971) by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane. Michael Morbius was a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who tried to cure his rare blood disease with electricity and chemicals, gaining many vampire strengths, few of the weaknesses, and a need for human blood. He has superhuman abilities similar to those of vampires, but because he is not a vampire by blood, he is immune to most vampire weaknesses.
Morbius also doesn’t have the same power as vampires to turn other people into vampires. When he passes on his infection, most of the people who receive it either die or survive injured. He has lost his powers before, first when he bit Spider-Man, and then he got them back later and joined the Midnight Sons supernatural team of antiheroes. He also has psionic hypnosis powers that result in short-term memory loss for his victims. While he is an antihero, he has moments when he turns full villain when the rage overcomes him.
2) Blade
Blade is the most famous vampire hunter in Marvel Comics. He debuted in The Tomb of Dracula #10 (1973) by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. Eric Brooks was born in a Soho brothel in 1929 when the vampire Deacon Frost killed his mother during childbirth. The vampire enzymes passed into his body, giving him immunity to vampire bites and a lifelong mission to kill all vampires. He has many of the same powers as vampires, including their superhuman strength and physical attributes.
Blade is also immune to vampire bites and hypnosis, can sense supernatural activity around him, and has no weakness to sunlight. He also has signature weapons that were created specifically to capitalize on vampires’ weaknesses. Originally, his powers were not as powerful as a vampire’s, with only immunity and the ability to sense supernatural activity around him, but with diluted vampire strength and durability. However, after Morbius bit him, he gained Daywalker vampire powers. He became a terrifying villain in “Blood Hunt” when Varnae possessed him, but he has also been a member of the Avengers on more than one occasion.
1) Dracula
Dracula is the old-school vampire character created by Bram Stoker, and Marvel brought him into the comic book universe with his debut in The Tomb of Dracula #1 (1972) by Gerry Conway and Gene Colan. While Dracula’s name is in the title, he is the villain of the story, and different characters showed up to try to stop him, including Blade and Hannibal King. He has typical vampire powers, but at a level higher than almost any other vampire thanks to his role as Lord of the Vampires.
His power is immense. In The Tomb of Dracula #50 (1976), he fought the Silver Surfer and actually knocked him to the ground and battered him with storm winds before leaving. In Uncanny X-Men #159, he drained Storm to turn her into a bride, but she somehow withstood it (although in another universe, she couldn’t and became Bloodstorm). He returned to help battle Knull in “King in Black” and then again in “Blood Hunt,” where he helped fight a Varnae-possessed Blade. It was here that Dracula announced that sunlight could no longer harm vampires.
What are your thoughts on the Midnight X-Men series from Marvel? Let us know your favorite vampires in Marvel Comics in the comments below.
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