Line #22 OurVampiresAreDifferent/ComicBooks


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6	!!The following have their own pages:
7	[[index]]
8	* ''OurVampiresAreDifferent/TheDCU''
9	* ''OurVampiresAreDifferent/MarvelUniverse''
10	[[/index]]
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12	[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/TarotWitchOfTheBlackRose https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/l1empb8nb3vzcly8dmhn5lappwy8adfi4jui02t3lnntynkvotrxepaktae0gm2t04liyauhmkjwggyyilpwg_tjzntn2yu_lae8qdfqk9orij5vrmzo4nhlvj_fcbouyvczkkwyg_xkvwlcnxbbx_flkzcvokxxfdsdk_kwydjqcbktvf8auxwuaeqk6sz8wfbrj5rrf043idvrnw.jpeg]]]]
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14	Examples of vampires present in the comic book medium.
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16	[[AC: Other]]
17	* ''ComicBook/ThirtyDaysOfNight'': Vampires, instead of just two neat, little fangs for canines, have entire mouthfuls of pointed teeth, like sharks. A bite or scratch transforms a victim into one of them unless the victim is immediately killed. They have superhuman strength sufficient to rip humans apart like phone books. They are also some of the most hostile vampires ever put to any medium, while still retaining a measure of individuality. Turning into a vampire in this series generally seems to entail degenerating into a [[TranshumanTreachery dick]].
18	** As for their weaknesses, vampires in this series seem to vary based on the author. They seem superhumanly tough, capable of taking such serious injuries as being impaled, shot in the face or even having grenades going off on their person. As one vampire character puts it, 'It'll all grow back, except the head'. The only thing that seems to consistently hurt the vampires in this series is sunlight, though this is balanced by the fact that it seems to take very, very little sunlight to reduce a vamp to ashes.
19	* ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'':
20	** Durham Red of ''ComicBook/StrontiumDog'' is immune to diseases and toxins and doesn't age. She has long fangs and uses them to drink blood from people and animals, which she needs to survive. Red's condition is never treated as supernatural, and it isn't. Rather, it is a form of mutation caused by strontium-90 fallout, which happened to cause a condition similar to folkloristic vampirism in her particular case.
21	** ''ComicBook/FiendsOfTheEasternFront'':
22	*** Subverted; the vampires play almost every single vampire trope straight. They drink blood, are hurt by sunlight so they only appear during the night, they sleep in coffins, they don't have reflections, they can turn into both bats and wolves (as well as mist), they're vulnerable to crosses and garlic, they can't cross water, and can be killed by decapitation, fire, silver bullets, and a stake to the heart. About the only one missing is the vampire invitation.
23	*** DoubleSubversion in later stories, which reveal that Constanta himself is the only "pure" vampire, having made a DealWithTheDevil with a coven of witches to transform him as he was close to death; everyone else [[MonsterProgenitor turned by Constanta]] are his acolytes, possessing a slightly less potent version of his power set. There is also a different vampire subspecies who are more closely related to bats than Constanta and his ilk and are enemies of the regular vampires.
24	* This trope is central to ''ComicBook/AmericanVampire'' in several ways.
25	** First, vampires from different regions of the world or different backgrounds can look, behave, and have powers that are wildly different. Some will be almost indistinguishable from humans, while others are incredibly monstrous creatures that look like they could be aliens in a sci-fi movie.
26	** The dominant group of vampires from the 18th century on are old European nobility with the traditional weaknesses (sunlight, wood, running water). However, when Skinner Sweet, a [[TheWildWest Wild West]] outlaw and the titular American vampire, gets turned inadvertently he turns out to be the first in a new breed. Notably, he (and later, his progeny) can [[DaywalkingVampire walk around in daylight just fine]], has a GameFace with massive claws and fangs, (which can tear people and other vamps apart like they're MadeOfPlasticine) and the elder vampires are at a complete loss as to how to kill him. It doesn't help that he was AxCrazy even before he was turned, and was buried for several decades before being freed, which didn't do much to improve his disposition. It turns out that the new breed [[spoiler:are powerless and vulnerable during the new moon, and gold is a weakness as well]].
27	** In the second arc we also meet vampires who transform into large bat like creatures.
28	** The Vassals (the resident vampire hunters) admit that there is no such thing as a 'vampire', just a bunch of different blood-drinking monsters with just enough similarities to be grouped together.
29	* ''ComicBook/AstroCity'' has [[spoiler:[[ReligiousVampire the Confessor]]]], a vampire super-hero. He's also [[spoiler:a former priest and wears a large cross on his costume. The pain helps him resist his bloodlust]].
30	* ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'': Robo and [[HypercompetentSidekick Jenkins]] sometimes fight off invasions from the "Vampire Dimension", a parallel AfterTheEnd world where ferocious blood-drinking monsters resembling a cross between human and bat reign. Robo notes that they're actually ''not'' vampires, as they have no connection to the creatures of myth, don't follow any of their rules, and possess only vague similarities. The characters just [[CallASmeerpARabbit use "vampire" as a shorthand that gets the gist across]].
31	-->''"They're not ''literally'' vampires. Sunlight, garlic, crosses, none of that applies. But we call them vampires because they're ageless super strong monsters that feed on the blood of the living."''
32	* In an issue of ''ComicBook/TheBadger'', Norbert "The Badger" Sykes sets out to fight a vampire. Being politically correct (he lives in Madison, Wisconsin), he realizes that one cannot assume that everybody has the same culture as oneself, so he carries a variety of Christian, Jewish and Muslim relics to cover different eventualities. Badger is helped by a pig who can snuffle out vampires, although she confuses their scent with that of IRS employees.
33	* ''Literature/{{Baltimore}}'': Vampires are the offspring of the Red Death, who's basically the GodOfEvil. Vampires were once the dominant species on Earth, but as [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve mankind found other gods to worship]] the Red Death and vampires lost their power until they eventually went dormant. That is, until the carnage of World War I reawakened them.
34	* The Creator/{{DC\|Comics}}/Creator/{{Vertigo\|Comics}} comic ''Bite Club'' has vampires as an ethnic group. While they drink blood, they can use laboratory-made substitutes. They are only a little sensitive to the sun, but they can be killed relatively easily, and some are color-blind. There are many ways to become a vampire; you become an Alpha if you are bitten by vampire bats, Betas are the sons of alphas or other Betas, and you can also make more vampires by biting humans.
35	* ''ComicBook/ChickTracts'': The Vampires in "First Bite" are not only capable of getting pregnant (and impregnating others), but also lose their fangs once converted to Christianity. This one does make sense, from point of view of mainstream theology and conventional mythology. Vampirism is either a curse from God, a punishment for sin, or it's a dark blessing from Satan. Sincerely accepting Christ into one's heart would indeed be more than enough to gain absolution of one's sins, and obviously Satan would have to withdraw his blessing from someone who truly and sincerely loved God. This ''might'' be the first and only time Chick [[ShownTheirWork did his homework]].
36	* ''Magazine/CreepyMagazine'': In the story "Valley of the Vampires" from issue #28, vampires are humanoids with the ears, wings and feet of a bat. Their supposed weakness to garlic, holy water and crosses is a myth perpetuated by them, but they can be harmed by ordinary bullets.
37	* In ''ComicBook/{{Grendel}}'', Tujiro is an Asian vampire who has a largely different set of rules from the traditional European type. For one thing, he seems to change only into a cat, being hit with water is highly painful and fire is a concern when he is exposed to it. However, sunlight is no impediment for him, which he uses to maximum effect to give the Christine Spar Grendel the scare of her life when she wakes up in the middle of the morning and finds the vampire waiting right at her bed just to taunt her.
38	** Later in the series, the vampiric plague started by [[spoiler: Pellon Cross]] clarifies several details about vampires in the world of ''Grendel'': each one can assume a single animal form, called a 'totem', that [[AnimalStereotypes reflects his or her personality]]; they don't bleed unless they'd previously been hemophiliacs, in which case it makes them ravenously hungry; they can subsist on blood from animals or dispensed by machines; they share Tojiro's vulnerability to water, which can kill them in sufficient amounts; and, while sunlight couldn't kill Tojiro (probably due to his age), younger vampires dislike it so much that they prefer to live far from the equator.
39	* ''Comicbook/{{Hellboy}}'': Various kinds of vampires appear, from human hybrids bred by the Nazis in the Second World War to bestial ghouls of Mexican folklore. The European vampires fit the ClassicalMovieVampire mould, but they have been in hiding for centuries, waiting for the day when [[WeHaveBecomeComplacent humans forget how to fight them]].
40	* In the first storyline of the ''ComicBook/JackStaff'' comics, tabloid reporter Becky Burdock (known in her paper as "Becky Burdock, Girl Reporter", much to her distaste) is killed and transformed by an evil vampire. However, it turns out that she doesn't ''have'' to drink blood to survive, and has no trouble standing in sunlight. She's more concerned by the vampire hunter who's now fallen in love with her and the demonic hounds who want her to join their evil army. Worse, her newspaper has given her the even tackier title of "Becky Burdock, ''Vampire'' Reporter"...
41	* ''ComicBook/LenoreTheCuteLittleDeadGirl'' has a 420 year old vampire named Ragamuffin, who instead of sucking blood, kills and eats people to survive. That is, until, [[spoiler: he happens to kill the wrong person at the wrong time, and is turned into a doll for the majority of the comic]].
42	* ''ComicBook/TheMaskedMarvel'': These are purple, skeletal monsters borne of black magic, who can only be killed by silver bullets or staking.
43	* Vampires in ''ComicBook/NikolaiDante'' are members of the Selene family, and most commonly beautiful women. They have impressive claws and are capable of extending black wings from their shoulders, and cannot be detected by any form of surveillance equipment.
44	* ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'':
45	** Cassidy is a vulgar, foul-mouthed, grungy character who looks and acts human for almost all intents and purposes. His hair and nails grow, he breathes, he has apparently fathered children (although we never meet any), he has human-temperature skin and bleeds if he's cut. Holy symbols have no effect on him, he casts a reflection and can be photographed, he eats and drinks (and drinks, and drinks...) like a mortal, but needs blood for healing wounds and prolonging his life. He can drink nonhuman blood just fine and prefers getting it from rare steak, and only bites humans if they're trying to kill him. He can't change shape. He doesn't age. Sunlight causes his body to burst into flames but nothing else can kill him, up to and including being shot by the Saint of Killers. Stakes don't kill him, but they hurt, and he has also survived decapitation. He doesn't even have fangs! Despite this, [[NotUsingTheZWord the word "vampire" is never used]]. The closest the book comes is Cassidy referring to himself as "the V word". Even though Cassidy averts almost all the traditional vampire tropes (he's left with needing blood, although rare meat is good enough, and bursting into flame in the sun), it's revealed near the middle-to-end of the series that Cassidy is very much a metaphorical vampire, based on how he handles relationships.
46	** A SpinOff book contrasts Cassidy with a fellow vampire, a guy trying way too hard to be a ClassicalMovieVampire (he says he once tried to turn into a bat and broke both his legs), to the detriment of the poseur, who gets killed by Cassidy after Cassidy discovers that he is feeding off a group of {{Vampire Vannabe}}s using the false promise of turning them into vampires, and for being "too much of a wanker to live". (This and Cassidy's own turning imply that ''Preacher'' vampirism works on a disease model and that anybody bitten by a vampire who isn't drained to death turns into a vampire without actually dying. Vampires are implied to be rare because vampires don't have the self-control to bite someone without killing unless they're violently interrupted.)
47	* In ''ComicBook/{{Raptors}}'', they are never actually called the [[NotUsingTheZWord v-word]], but its pretty obvious what they are supposed to be. They can levitate, hypnotize their victims, are long-lived, super-strong, immune to all human diseases and are extremely hard to kill. Having said that, only a handful of them have these abilities since the vast majority of their race elected to establish the {{Masquerade}} to control humanity and mingle among them in hopes of gradually replacing it (and by the time the series takes place, they are pretty close). This came at the cost of losing much of their powers to the point they can age and die like humans through conventional damage or normal diseases like leukemia. They are distinguishable from normal humans and the renegade vampires due to a cyst from behind their right ears, which is apparently the source of their newfound vulnerability. Despite this, they are very much AlwaysChaoticEvil, even Drago and Camilla who care for and love each other are still very cruel, and when [[spoiler:Vicky and Aznar's]] vampire natures are awakened, they become cold and unfeeling towards others (and they are arguably the ''nicest of the bunch'').
48	* ''ComicBook/RequiemVampireKnight'': Vampires are the ruling class of the world of Résurrection. As per usual they're aristocratic, pale (mostly), beautiful (sometimes), proud, vulnerable to silver and just plain evil. As per unusual, they're often addicted to a drug called the Black Opium to help them forget their past sins, and they're not immortal but are as susceptible to regression as anyone else in Resurrection; only receiving Dracula's [[FountainOfYouth Dark Kiss]] makes you immune to [[MerlinSickness rejuvenation]], and that's pretty hard to come by. Rebirth as a vampire in Resurrection is reserved only for the very worst of the worst among humans including (but not limited to) Attila the Hun, Robespierre, Elizabeth Bathory, Nero, various Nazis and of course Vlad Tepes himself. [[spoiler:Oddly enough, Hitler didn't make the list, instead kept on ice as a superweapon by Dracula against the Lemures, many of which were Holocaust victims]].
49	* ''Franchise/StarWars'': Creatures heavily based on vampires and their associated tropes turn up on several occasions. None of them are actually undead beings, or usually specifically referred to as vampires, but are instead a variety of alien beings with behaviors, feeding preferences and narrative roles that nonetheless make them very vampire-like.
50	** ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' has the Anzati, essentially a race of psychic vampires, featured prominently in the comics about AntiHero Quinlan Vos, whose parents they killed. Anzati live for millennia, have no pulse, and can regenerate from a lot of grievous injuries. They feed by mesmerizing their prey, before inserting the proboscises extending from their cheeks into the nostrils of the victims, and drinking their "soup". That is, their brains, and their imprint in the Force. Weirdly enough, they're also the resident {{ninja}}s.
51	** ''ComicBook/StarWarsTheScreamingCitadel'': The Queen of Ktath'atn is heavily based off of horror movie vampires. She's a reclusive figure clad in black and red, living in a brooding clifftop castle towering over a village of cringing human peasants, feeding by absorbing life energy, and using elegance and decadence to beguile victims before either consuming them or turning them into entities like herself but under her control.
52	* ''ComicBook/TheosOccultCuriosities'': Aside from being [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld several hundred years old]], the vampire displays none of the traits usually associated with vampires: he is unaffected by sunlight (he spent 150 years living in the jungles of South America), doesn't seem to be able to transform himself into a bat, etc. He does drink blood, but that is more because of a warped sense of duty -- he is a devout Christian who believes that God has chosen him to purify the souls of sinners by drinking their blood -- than out of necessity.
53	* ''ComicBook/{{Trencher}}'': The titular character fights a vampire named Dr. Tushman who lives on farts instead of blood, frequents a strip club where they only serve baked beans for his victims, and, when he's finished draining a victim, puts a fake butt over their real butt in order to cover up the bite marks. Trencher beats him by lighting a match. Yes, it is as ridiculous and immature as one would expect from Keith Giffen.
54	* ''ComicBook/TheUnwritten'': Lampshaded. Since the comic is all about stories interacting with the real world, when one character gets turned into a vampire, his friends have to run tests to figure out which author's vampire rules are in play.
55	* ComicBook/{{Vampirella}} is a vampire, since she is the daughter of Lilith and needs blood to survive and has many of the typical vampiric powers, including superhuman physical abilities, shapeshifting into a bat, immortality, and a mesmeric stare. She is not prone to the race's traditional weaknesses, such as daylight, holy water, garlic, or crosses. [[DependingOnTheWriter Alternatively, she's a Human Alien from the planet Drakulon where blood is like water.]] Becomes a plot point in "Death's Dark Angel" where, being a Drakulonian rather than an Earth vampire, [[spoiler:Vampirella's bite doesn't infect Wade with vampirism but rather kills him]]. We later learn in "... And be a Bride of Chaos" that [[spoiler:the influence of Chaos is the reason why Dracula's brand of vampirism is different from the original Drakulonian]].
56	* In ''ComicBook/VictorianUndead II: Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula'', vampires are much more bat-oriented. Forming bat wings on parts of their body (from the back, under their arms, from their hands, etc) and also have a weird swirling mist about them. Their skin can be damaged but feeding will fix it instantly. It also takes fate on both sides for religious symbols to work since when confronting Lucy and Dracula's brides. Only Lucy wasn't affected since she states the brides were from a more religious time. Also when heavily damaged rather than blood, a green mist flows from their body and why burst into green flames when fully killed.
57	* ''ComicBook/WarlordOfMars'': ''Warlord of Mars: Dejah Thoris'' has the Vathek, an alien race from the planet Saturn that [[HumanAliens resemble humans very closely]] with [[UndeathlyPallor pale skin]], [[FangsAreEvil sharp fangs]] and [[RedEyesTakeWarning red eyes]]. Despite looking like classic vampires, their condition is caused by a plague that turned them into blood-thirsty monsters and they use the Palidor, another Saturnian race that is immune to their plague, as blood farms. The Vathek are sensitive to sunlight, so they cover their planet with dust that filters it, are capable of forging a mind link with another person by drinking their blood and its implied they can convert others into Vathek, though its never explicitly shown. One Vathek in love with Dejah Thoris, [[GreenSkinnedSpaceBabe a Red Martian]], offers to turn her into his vampire bride by drinking her blood and giving some of his own, but ultimately refuses.
58	* ''ComicStrip/TheWizardOfId'' discussed this trope in the June 2, 2013 (Sunday) strip. Dracula visits the local bar and the others discuss the differences in vampires. Dracula then confesses that's why he doesn't get out much.

Context OurVampiresAreDifferent / ComicBooks