open/close all folders
Pearl Jones
Pearl Jones
- Action Girl: After being converted into a vampire.
- Battle Couple: With Henry.
- Break the Cutie: Pearl was just a rising starlet until she ran into a party hosted by vampires who nearly drained her dry. And to make matters worse, the person who arranged for her death was her own best friend.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Sweet as can be, but those who push her to the breaking point usually end up slaughtered.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Not as pale as the European vampires since she can walk in the sunlight so she got a nice tan, but whenever she enters in vampire mode, her skin becomes extra pasty.
- Expy: Jones has more than an few a similarities with Seras Victoria, both being wholesome young women that were transformed into vamps to survive, who turned out into gun-toting Friendly Neighborhood Vampires.
- Friend to All Children: In Second Cycle, she turned her family household into a safe haven for vampire children.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: While she is a nice and sweet woman, she certainly qualifies for this trope from the Euro-Vamps' perspective: like many girls before her, she was given as "prey" for the Hollywood Coven to feed on, and after they were done they dumped her body into a ditch to be forgotten. However, she survived long enough to be found by Skinner Sweet, who gave her an Emergency Transformation and turned her into another American Vampire and proceeded to hunt down those responsible.
- The Heroine: She is the closest thing the comic has to one, in stark contrast to Skinner Sweet.
- Hunter Of Her Own Kind: Pearl occasionally works with the Vassals of the Morning Star to fight other vampires, specially American ones just like her.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The American vampire has elongated finger-claws, rattlesnake fangs, and are powered by sunlight, only becoming vulnerable during the nights of the new moon and can only be killed by gold.
- My Grandson, Myself: Second Cycle reveals that she pulled this trick, adopting the name Henrietta and pretending that she's her own daughter to not raise suspicion among her neighbours.
- Mama Bear: To the vampire children in her care in Second Cycle.
- Nice Girl: Even after being turned into a vampire, she tries to live morally.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Against the Hollywood Coven for nearly killing her.
- Took a Level in Badass: After becoming a vampire.
- Unstoppable Rage: Pearl. After the Hollywood Coven does bad things to her, her rage is only stopped when they're corpses.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: While Henry's usually able to handle himself, if he's in over his head, particularly against vampires, Pearl's right there and ready to rumble.
Skinner Sweet
Skinner Sweet
A psychotic outlaw in the Wild West who runs afoul of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and a group of European vampires. Becomes the first American Vampire.
- Arch-Enemy: Sweet has the tendency to become this for a lot of people: Jim Book, Abilena and her daughter Felicia, Travis Kidd, Cash McGogan, the entire Carpathian coven, etc...
- Ax-Crazy: Whenever he shows up, there's a very good chance a lot of people are going to end up dead.
- Buried Alive: For 20 years, underwater.
- Brought Down to Normal: Skinner is cured of his vampirism at the end of Second Cycle and to his distress he learns that he can't be infected again.
- Cain and Abel: As revealed in "The Beast in the Cave", he and Jim Book were adopted brothers.
- Character Tics: He likes to chew or suck on candy. Readers can always identify Sweet whenever he is disguised or taking another identity by his yellow eyes and him always chewing on candy.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: If you ally with him... watch your back.Skinner Sweet: "Everyone who meets me knows I am just plain pitiful at keeping deals... And I always got to be the last man standing."
- Evil Former Friend: Formerly Jim Book's best friend and adopted brother.
- Expy: To Alucard. Both are Sociopathic Hero vampires that have gunslinger-esque outfits, fight using guns, often in conflict with other vampires and who have a Nice Girl Friendly Neighborhood Vampire as protege.
- Faux Affably Evil: Sure he seems like a friendly guy, but don't let that fool you. He'll rip you to shreds without a moment's hesitation, just for a laugh. That said, he'll stand by his word when he makes a deal... to the letter.
- First Of Its Kind: The first American Vampire. Subverted; he's actually the second American Vampire, the first being Mimiteh.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: From an orphan adopted by Jim Book's family to a notorious outlaw that by pure chance becomes the first American vampire, even stronger and more dangerous than the common bloodline.
- The Gunslinger: Fully capable with a revolver, unsurprising for his time period of origin.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Or more accurately, quarter-human hybrid. By the end of the series, he's been infected with the American strain, the Carpathian strain, and even almost became Tongue, before his fiery descent to Earth made him human again, which makes him a perfect carrier for the Blood of Light and equal in power to the Beast in its human form.
- Hates Everyone Equally: Downplayed in that Skinner isn't predisposed towards hating anyone without reason but he is The Sociopath most of the time and generally has a dim view of morality and virtue. While Skinner doesn't really like anyone in particular (with the exception of Pearl Jones) he doesn't really have issues with any particular groups of people either and couldn't care less about anyone unless he's looking to use them or destroy them.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Towards Pearl only. He remains abrasive to her and constantly tries to push her away, but would much rather she die a quick death than suffer at the Tongue or its minions, and saves her on more than one occasion.
- Joker Immunity: Has a knack for evading death several times.
- Manipulative Bastard
- Monster Progenitor: While Mimiteh is the first American Vampire, most of the present-day bloodline can be traced back to him.
- Not Quite Dead: Is seemingly killed in Ghost War, only to be shown to have survived his seemingly fatal stabbing by the time of Death Race.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The American vampire has elongated finger-claws, rattlesnake fangs, and are powered by sunlight, only becoming vulnerable during the nights of the new moon and can only be killed by gold.
- Pet the Dog: Skinner saving Pearl's life may count (though it is possible he has ulterior motives or simply wanted to screw up the Hollywood Coven's plans).
- In Second Cycle, he attempts to pull off a Heroic Sacrifice to save Calvin's life when Sweet is about to be possessed by the Beast influence.
- Skinner's interaction with Kitty at the ending of 'Strange Frontiers', in which he shows he truly did love her.
- Redemption Earns Life: A literal and surprisingly dark variant for this trope. After a lifetime of crimes, betrayals and atrocities, he decides to sacrifice his live to save Calvin by manually directing their spacepod from outside to enter Earth's atmosphere, while burning during re-entry. He wants to do this because the Beast is currently inside his body and he wants to take it out while still being himself... He manages to survive the process and find out he has been cured of his vampirism, making him technically alive again.
- Redemption Equals Death: Sacrifices his own life by feeding the Blood of Light to the Beast, saving the VMS and all humanity in the process.
- Slasher Smile: Seems to be his preferred expression.
- Sweet Tooth: He retains this trait even after becoming a vampire.
- Reforged into a Minion: A heroic example: he is found and resurrected by the Vassals of the Morning Star just to serve as their agent.
- Villain Protagonist: While Pearl is The Heroine, Skinner carries the plot a great more deal.
- The Wild West
- Worthy Opponent: Skinner sees Jim Book as this, as seen in 'Strange Frontiers' when he murders the actor who is playing the part of Book in a Wild West show.Skinner: You don't deserve to wear Jim Book's name! *tears off head*
Henry Preston
Henry Preston
- Badass Normal: Otherwise, a normal human next to his wife, who is an American vampire.
- Battle Couple: With Pearl.
- Semper Fi: A Marine in World War I, and enlists in World War II to rejoin.
- Taking You with Me: Shoots Hattie in the head at the end of The Blacklist, but dies shortly thereafter of his wounds.
Hattie Hargrove
Hattie Hargrove
- Arc Villain: For The Blacklist (particularly issues 31 to 33 of the first series).
- Ax-Crazy: When she comes back from her near-death experience, she becomes much more wantonly murderous and bloodthirsty.
- Boom, Headshot!: Shot in the head by Henry in The Blacklist shortly before he himself expired.
- Evil Former Friend: Goes from Pearl's best friends to one of her greatest enemies.
- Evil Is Petty: Set her best friend up to be vampire-chow just so she can become a famous actress.
- Evil Redhead: An Ax-Crazy vampire with bright orange hair.
- Glasgow Grin: As the result of having the gold star from her dressing room shoved down her throat.
- I Have Your Wife: Pearl is lured into an ambush when Hattie gets kidnapped by vampires. Unfortunately for Pearl, Hattie is in on the whole thing.
- Not Quite Dead: Pearl appears to kill her near the end of volume one via gold star down the throat, only for it to eventually be revealed that she was merely put into a death-like state. Other vampires recovered her body from the morgue and used her as a guinea pig to find out the weakness of American Vampires.
- Rage Against the Reflection: She had no idea about her Glasgow Grin as she hadn't been near in a mirror in years. When she sees the scars on her face after escaping her imprisonment, she, for lack of a better word, snaps.
James Book
James Book
- Back from the Dead: He did not merely survive the gunshot from Abelina in the West, but rather was resurrected by her using an ancient vampire strain's blood, as explained in 1976.
- Came Back Wrong: After his resurrection in 1976, he sides with the Tongue and its ilk, and ultimately becomes the host to the Beast. He credits the ancient strain used to resurrect him with his change of heart.
- Heroic Willpower: Jim manage to go on without feeding for three years. Sure, he was tormented the whole time, but that is damn impressive.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Asks his best friend's daughter to kill him rather than live as a vampire.
- May–December Romance: His best friend's daughter has a crush on him despite possibly having at least 20 to 40 years on her. Taken to an extreme degree when she only agrees to kill him if he slept with her and gave her a child to remember him by.
- Pinkerton Detective: A rare example of one played purely heroically. Until his Face–Heel Turn that is.
- Tragic Monster: Gets turned into an American Vampire when Skinner Sweet's blood enters his body.
Abilena Carmino
Abilena Carmino
- Action Girl: She was willing to jump into the fray along with the men when Skinner re-emerged.
- Action Mom: Abilena joined the Vassals of the Morning Star following Felicia's birth and became a top agent.
- May–December Romance: Abilena always loved Jim, who was old enough to be her father.
- Never Mess with Granny: She served the order way past the 60s before resigning.
- Seers: The venom of her last hunt has the property of allowing those who are infected by it to have visions of the future at the expense of drawing evil toward them, something she utilizes reluctantly in Issue 34 of the original series.
- Staking the Loved One: Not really staking, but she did gun Jim Book down during the New Moon at his own request to end his suffering.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: She was forced to fight alongside Skinner Sweet, the man who ruined the love of her life.
- Vampire Hunter: As a member of the Vassals of the Morning Star.
Felicia Book
Felicia Book
- Action Girl: She is a top member of the Vassals of the Morning Star and proficient vampire hunter.
- Action Mom: Ends up raising Gus McGogan as her own son.
- Big Good: Following Linden Hobbes' sacrifice, she leads the Vassals and takes the order into a new direction: to fight against evil, instead of merely hunting vampires.
- The Chosen One: One of the Ancients Vampires that were awakened in Survival of the Fittest refer to one as one, but to what purpose its not said.
- Dhampyr: Her father was an American vampire and her mother was a human. While she doesn't necessarily show any obvious vampiric traits, she is not completely human either. In Second Cycle, she has shown no obvious signs of aging despite her being over 50 years old.
- Even the Girls Want Her: In Survival of the Fittest a group of female VMS agents Squee as she passes by.
- It's Personal: Skinner turned her father Jim into a vampire, who was so tormented by his state he begged Abilena to kill him after providing her with a child.
- Ms. Fanservice: While Felicia doesn't usually play this role and dresses modestly, she had a completely gratuitous nude scene in Survival of the Fittest, being the only female character to feature one in the comic so far. Pearl was nude in her introduction, but the circumstances were disturbing rather than titillating.
- No-Sell: One Carpathian vampire tried to bite her, only to recoil away in disgust from drinking her blood.
- Promoted to Parent: She pretty much raises Gus following his father's passing.
- Someone to Remember Him By: Felicia was conceived by her parents as part of an agreement that her mother would end her father's suffering if he gave her a child.
- Tragic Keepsake: Cash's cap becomes this to her after "Survival of the Fittest".
- Vampire Hunter: The Hunter of His Own Kind variant of Dhampyr, and a member of the Vassals of the Morning Star.
Cash McCogan
Cash McCogan
- Action Dad: He joins the Vassals of the Morning Star after his son's birth.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Cash goes out in a true blaze as he makes his last stand against the Nazi vampires, singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and then detonating several grenades.
- Find the Cure!: His goal in Survival of the Fittest is to find the cure of vampirism to his son. He does at the cost of his own life.
- Happily Adopted: His father was a sheriff who adopted him when no other couple would.
- Heroic Sacrifice: In order to ensure Felicia's escape and takes the cure to his son, he performs a final stand against the pursuing vampires detonating several grenades strapped to his body.
- Morality Pet: To his father Gus, who was a Gaelic-Prime vampire.
- Trauma Conga Line: Cash's investigation leads him to lose his adoptive father and his wife, both of them victims to Skinner Sweet, and his unborn son being turned into a vampire by Skinner's blood injection.
- Vampire Hunter: A member of the Vassals of the Morning Star.
Linden Hobbes
Linden Hobbes
- Big Good: He leads the Vassals of the Morning Star at the time of the series.
- Cool Old Guy
- Dying Moment of Awesome: Dies in a Mutual Kill with Dracula.
- Knight Templar: Surprisingly averted. In his first appearance, he seems to be obsessed with destroying all vampires, no matter how harmless, however, by the 'Lord of Nightmares' arc, he's mellowed out a lot, allying himself with Pearl and Felicia, two known vampires, as well as allowing The Firsts (a group of surviving vampires who are out to kill Dracula) to live.
- Reasonable Authority Figure
- Vampire Hunter: The leader of the Vassals of the Morning Star.
Calvin Poole
Calvin Poole
- Beware the Nice Ones: He is harassed by a couple of racists and he even gives them one last chance to apologize. Had they known they were Mugging the Monster.
- Black Dude Dies First: Inverted; he is the only African-American member of the team and survives the Ghost War ordeal, but emerged as an American Vampire.
- Nice Guy: Very mild-mannered and comforting to his friends, especially Pearl and Henry.
Travis Kidd
Travis Kidd
- Badass Normal: Possibly the series's greatest example, lacking any powers, allies or decades of experience, but still taking on scores of vampires on his own and fighting Skinner Sweet to a standstill.
- Greaser Delinquents
- Unscrupulous Hero: Mercilessly executes Piper rather than let her get in the way of his vampire hunting crusade.
- Vampire Hunter: He's very good at what he does, despite being a Badass Normal. He’s also notably not a member of the Vassals of the Morning Star until the second Anthology.
Gus McGogan
Gus McGogan
- The Chosen One: By Dracula to become his vessel.
- Creepy Child: When we first see the poor kid, he is a small and disfigured vampire baby trapped inside a cage and being fed small animals by his father. He gets better. He's still an American Vampire, but like the others he now looks human when he's not vamping out.
- Dead Guy Junior: Gus was named after his grandfather, who was a ancient Celtic vampire.
- Generation Xerox: His story tragically mirrors his father's as both of them were orphaned at early age and adopted by someone else. He is also a vampire like his grandfather and namesake, although Gus the Elder was a Gaelic-Prime, while little Gus is an American Vampire.
- Fetus Terrible: He was born twisted and disfigured as result of Skinner injecting Lilly with his blood while she was pregnant with Gus. He eventually gets cured of the physical side effects of his vampirism and looks like a normal human child. Mostly.
- Tragic Monster: Poor kid was just another victim to Skinner.
Dracula
Dracula/Ensi
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: While the comparisons are not flat out stated, Dracula and by proxy, his progeny, shares some subtle characteristics with them such as racial supremacism and carrying out a genocide against other vampire bloodlines for considering them "inferior" like the humans. While Dracula himself was locked up in a prison by the time of World War II and did not see the Nazis himself, his followers sided with them due to sharing their same Master Race beliefs and going as far as experimenting on other vampires.
- Been There, Shaped History:
- Agent William S. Harker of the Vassals of the Morning Star, recovering with his cousin Bram Stoker from an encounter with this vampire, told his story which formed the Dracula novel.
- His Not Quite Dead body was able to create Jack the Ripper.
- Cannot Cross Running Water: Like all Carpathian vampires, he cannot swim. This trait is exploited by Hobbes to kill him by sinking the ship transporting him.
- The Corrupter: According to Hobbes, all strains other than the Carpathian one can become either a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire or at least a Non-Malicious Monster, but something about Dracula's line ensures that all Carpathians are Always Chaotic Evil. His use of human Mouth of Sauron hosts called The Renfield proves that his influence is not just some random coincidence, but a genuine power.
- The Dreaded: He is always referred to in a ominous manner and with good reason. The prospect of him being released into the world terrifies Hobbes.
- Dracula: It's stated that the fictional character were inspired by him.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: He comes back only to unceremoniously get his head chopped off by Mimiteh just when it looks like he has Calvin and Travis backed into a corner.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: It's speculated that rather than a nobleman, he could just as easily have been a mere pig farmer before rising up as vampire, but nobody knows for sure. At the time he was created, his bloodline wasn't particularly powerful or virulent and went by largely ignored by the Vassals until the 1700s, when they became the most populous vampire species in Europe and nearly wiped out the every other species in the world in the following century.
- Humanoid Abomination: Rather frighteningly, he is depicted as a being made of shadows than anything close to a human. His real face looks like a bat.
- Mind Rape: He is capable of causing this: when Albert, Duke of Clarence requested to see Dracula in person during 1888, he was driven insane, and murdered five prostitutes later that year.
- Monster Lord: When active, he can force every Carpathian within a thousand miles to do his bidding.
- Monster Progenitor: To the Carpathian bloodline.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Vlad the Impaler is among his many identities speculated by the Vassals of the Morning Star, but they note this is only a theory and he could have originated as a peasant.
- No Name Given: "Dracula" is not really his actual name, merely how he is referred by characters because how he inspired the book. Subverted when his real name is revealed to be Ensi.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: At some point while attempting to reach America by sea, he was captured by the Vassals and trapped inside a vault.
- Serial Killer: Or rather, he makes them. He's responsible for Prince Albert becoming Jack the Ripper, and is speculated to be The Man Behind the Man to a series of flayings in New York in 1976.
- The Spook: Besides him being of Romanian origin, his true identity and how he became a vampire in the first place are unknown.
- Stronger with Age: One thing that makes him so much dangerous than Skinner is that Dracula is so much stronger and powerful than any of his progeny.
- Unseen Evil: His body is almost always covered in shadow. That said, he pales in comparison to The Beast.
- Vampire Monarch: The European vampires started with him and its stated he has absolute control over all of them.
- Villain of Another Story: While he is part of the setting's background and his influence affects them, he is never faced by the protagonists in the main series. Rather, he is the Big Bad in the limited miniseries Lord of Nightmares. Graduates to a relatively minor threat to the protagonists in 1976.
The Gray Trader
The Gray Trader
- The Antichrist: A combination of both this and Satanic Archetype, though he's in service to the actual Devil and acts as his messenger, spreading chaos on the earth on his behalf.
- Card-Carrying Villain: He sums it up rather perfectly in 1976.Victim 1: Please Huron... don't do this. You were a hero once.
Victim 2: There *cough* there's still good in you.
Gray Trader: Ha! No there's not. - Cold-Blooded Torture: He is shown interrogating a native by dismembering very slowly.
- The Dragon: Originally thought to be a strong contender for Big Bad in the series, he is actually serving the will of the Beast.
- The Dreaded: Anyone who knows him sweats and trembles in fear from just hearing his name.
- The Faceless: His face is always covered in darkness, his eyes being little white dots.
- Fallen Hero: He was not just a VMS member, but the order's actual founder.
- Humanoid Abomination: One even more horrifying than Dracula.
- I Have Many Names: Huron, the Great Protector, the Great Traitor, the Grey Trader, the latter is a bastardization of his Great Traitor from over the years.
- Knight of Cerebus: When he first makes an appearance, you just know the story is gonna get much darker than it already is. The VMS' goal shifts from hunting vampires to ensuring the world doesn't end by his hand.
- No Ontological Inertia: As with all of the Beast's followers, he is destroyed when it dies.
- The Paragon Always Rebels: Originally, the Vassals of the Morning Star were united under his banner to fight the Beast. They ultimately succeeded in defeating it, but their leader suckled on the monster's teats, gaining its power and becoming his champion. His actual name is supposed to be the Great Traitor, but it has been bastardized to its current form.
- Satanic Archetype: Calvin calls him the actual Devil. He is actually not quite, but as Felicia explains his backstory he fits the archetype regardless, see The Paragon Always Rebels.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: He wears an old gentleman's costume.
- Villainous Breakdown: Panics when Skinner finally kills the Beast, killing him as well.The Gray Trader: What have you dooonnnne…
- Was Once a Man: A normal human at first, but then he became the Beast's champion, he was elevated into... something else entirely.
The Beast
The Beast
An ancient entity that plagued the Mesopotamic world with its demonic offspring, the Vassals of the Morning Star were created to defeat her. They succeeded in doing so, but it was not destroyed, since it managed to successfully corrupt the order's founder Hurin into becoming its protector and champion.- Ancient Evil: It was released on Earth in 13,000 BC and for a thousand years reigned supreme until the Vassals challenged it.
- Big Bad: Quite possibly the greatest example in the series, bigger than Skinner, Dracula, and even The Gray Trader, who is ultimately revealed to be the Beast's own Dragon.
- The Corrupter: Its "milk" turned Hurin into the Great Traitor. Its also capable of turning other beings - and yes, including vampires - into its servants.
- Eldritch Abomination: This thing used to walk the Earth when mankind was still young, terrorizing mortals with its demonic spawn. Its a force of nature beyond human and vampire comprehension.
- I Have Many Names: Tiamat, the Mother of Beasts, the Dragon, the Worm.
- Mother of a Thousand Young: It had spawned countless demons upon the world and can turn her human minions into monsters.
- Outside-Context Problem: While the Vassals were founded specifically to fight it and its minions, this thing is a whole new can of worms seemingly unrelated to vampires and belonging to a Cosmic Horror Story instead of this one. The heroes also are poorly equipped to take care of it.
- Satanic Archetype: Inverted, as it is the inspiration for Satan, rather than the other way around. While not the Satan of the Bible, it's the direct inspiration for him and looks the part when inhabiting a human body.
- Villainous Breakdown: Breaks down into pleading for its life when it is in the body of Jim Book and is grievously wounded by Felicia's Heroic Sacrifice.Jim Book/The Beast: Skinner? Skinner, don't do this. Please, hear me. You're dying. Give me a moment to heal and -- and I'll save you! More than save you, I'll give you immortality again! You know I can! We'll rule side by side! Just you and me. But if you kill me, everyone tainted by my blood, and anyone near them… they'll forget, brother. Forget my influence, forget it all. So understand this. If I die, not only will you die, too, but worse — no one will ever know what you did here. You'll die forgotten. Your ultimate fear!
