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Originally created to by writer Brian Pulido in the pages of Evil Ernie: Revenge in 1994 as some sort of rival to Lady Death, Purgatori is a comic book character originally published by Chaos! Comics, as well as a number of subsequent studios following the original one's bankruptcy. Purgatori is a vampire demigoddess and former consort of Satan whose origin story dates back from Ancient Egypt around 1390.

Born as a common slave, her original name was Sakkara and part of a team of slaves tasked with building a tomb for the local queen, with her job being to grind corn all day. After being nearly ran over by Queen Ostraca's chariot, Sakkara had mesmerized the queen with her beauty, and became the newest acquisition to her harem. The two were married, and for a year Sakkara lived a life of luxury. However, the situation with the citizens of Alexandria had grown steadily worse. The Queen realized that if they rebelled, she would never get her tomb finished and never be allowed in the afterlife. The general of her army, Ramses, made her an offer: if she married him and made him pharaoh, he would keep the population in check and ensure the completion of the tomb. He had one condition: Ramses must be her only lover, and all of her harem must die. Sakkara returned to the palace one night to find all the other girls dead. She fled into the night, in search of an old Celtic slave who told her a way to escape slavery and achieve immortality.

She was directed by the old slave to an old cave that was the lair to an ancient Celtic vampire named Rath, whom offered immortality in return if she would help bring anarchy upon the world. After drinking her blood and mixing with his own, Sakkara was discovered to have the blood of fallen angels running through her veins, which transformed her into a creature with blood red skin, horns, glowing white eyes, and bat-like wings. She returned to the Egyptian temple where Ostraca and Ramses' wedding ceremony was being held, killed everyone, but turned the two newlyweds into vampires before locking them inside a tomb for five days, turning them into insane and wizened vampires forever. This blood bath did not go unnoticed since Lucifer took notice of her and teleported her to Hell so she could become his bride. Sakara had other ideas: as soon as he joined her in his bedchamber, she bit him and drank from him. Infuriated, but impressed by her spirit, he cast her through the Nexus of All Things, exiling her to the city of Necropolis. Lucifer also gave her a new name: Purgatori. For a millennia, she would remain in the Necropolis feasting on its inhabitants until one day, she found a way to escape after Lady Death managed to overthrow Lucifer and become Queen of Hell. Purgatori set her sights on Lady Death, knowing her blood would be rich in power, and she wanted both her blood and the soul of Lucifer, now trapped inside Lady Death.

The character clashed with Lady Death and many other Chaos! properties and even became a central threat of sorts in following crossovers before the company's bankruptcy. Her intelectual property was bought by Devil's Due Publishing in 2005, though her books were short-lived lasting only a year. In 2010, Purgatori was revealed to have been bought by Dynamite Comics and had published a limited series revamping her character and featured her in the Swords of Sorrow crossover as well as the Chaos series, featuring other characters from Chaos! Comics.


Purgatori contains examples of the following tropes:

  • Anarchy Is Chaos: Purgatori's sire Rath wants nothing more than to see civilization torn down and humans being on the same level as beasts, and views this as true balance.
  • And I Must Scream: Once she's turned from an Egyptian slave girl to a pissed off vampire/demon, Purgatori returns to her former lover, the queen who tried to kill her, and the husband she was willing to kill her for and seals them both in a tomb... after she's turned them into vampires.
  • Artistic License – History: Purgatori's origin story refers to the city of Alexandria, but it's clear that it takes place in the second millennium BC when Alexandria wasn't founded by Alexander the Great until 331 BC. If you're feeling charitable, you could say that they're referring to Rhacotis, the native Egyptian city that Alexandria was built around. Also Egypt's tombs and pyramids were built by paid workers, not slave labor, although to be fair this is still a widespread misconception.
  • Bad Girl Comic: One of the many produced during the Nineties.
  • Beautiful Slave Girl: When she was human. Behold. So much so that Queen Ostraca fell in love at first sight with her and had to make Sakkara her concubine.
  • Blood Bath Villain Origin: After becoming a vampire, her first act was to exact revenge on her former lover who tried to have her killed for political convenience and murdering all people in the ceremony.
  • Bloody Murder: She had the power to control blood through blood alchemy.
  • Bury Your Gays: In her backstory, Sakkara was the only one to survive the massacre of Ostraca's lesbian harem on Ramses' orders as part of their marriage agreement.
  • Cessation of Existence: The demon Cremator invents a sword capable of erasing demons from existence, including Lucifer. If they are hurt with any other weapon, they'll just regenerate.
  • Cruel Mercy: After Lucifer takes away her powers and sends her to Earth to suffer never-ending hunger, Purgatori repays him by leaving Lucifer to fend for himself in the pit of hell after he just lost most of his own power due to Cremator's demon-destroying blade.
  • Cute Monster Girl: A beautiful creature with blood red skin, glowing white eyes, horns and wings.
  • Demon of Human Origin: Purgatori is an interesting variation since she looks like a stunningly attractive Big Red Devil, but is really the result of vampirization mixing with her Fallen Angel heritage.
  • Demonic Vampires: She's a demonic-looking vampire, the result of her Fallen Angel blood reacting to being turned by a normal (if very ancient) vampire. She frequently interacts with the forces of Hell as well.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Purgatori's search for power and control often puts her at odds with other equally evil beings.
  • Fallen Angel: She was descended from them, which explains her appearance after she rose as a vampire.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: Sakkara was just a female slave from Ancient Egypt that would have died in obscurity, but went on to become an extra-dimensional threat.
  • Hell Has New Management: A blood-clone of Purgatori tried to convince the demon Cremator to seize the throne from Lucifer Morningstar with a specially-designed demon-destroying blade, planning to dispose of him afterwards. This met with partial success since Lucifer was left as a shadow of his former self, but then the real Purgatori shows up in Hell to kill Cremator and absorb her clone. It becomes a subversion since Purgatori decides not to take Lucifer's throne for herself and instead leave him in charge but unable to defend himself from any future runner-up.
  • Horned Humanoid/Winged Humanoid: As result of the blood of Fallen Angels flowing through her veins, she gained a set of demonic horns and wings.
  • Hot as Hell: Purgatori is actually a vampire, but, due to her Fallen Angel blood, she appears to look like a devil (wings, horns, red skin... no goat hooves, though).
  • Hot Consort: She was one to Lucifer for a short time, until he got fed up with her and exiled her in the Necropolis.
  • I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Jade has a pretty hostile relationship with her sire Purgatori, who was responsible for killing her human family before turning her into a vampire.
  • Lesbian Vampire: Purgatori targets beautiful young ladies to feed and also pines over her arch-enemy Lady Death. Justified as she was a lesbian before becoming a vampire.
  • Mind Rape: In her introduction in Lady Death: Between Heaven and Hell, she attempts to break Lady Death's mind by projecting false memories of her just as evil as her hated father Matthias with Hope being Daddy's Little Villain by enforcing his will, sacrificing innocents and unleashing plagues. Purgatori would have likely succeeded if she didn't make Hope believe that she murdered her own mother, which really tipped her off to the illusion since she genuinely loved her mother and would never dare harm her.
  • The Necrocracy: In Purgatori: Empire, she had founded in the distant future the Scarlet Imperium, an nation comprised of nothing but undead with her (a demon vampire) as its queen.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: She is a rather unique creature as result of the mixing between her Fallen Angel heritage and her sire's blood.
  • Out with a Bang: The vampire Jade prefers to have sex with her male victims before draining them of their lifeforce.
  • Painful Transformation: Despite her huh, "reaction" to receiving the Kiss of the Vampire, her actual transformation into the creature she is had horns and wings erupting violently from her body and blood coming out of her eyes.
  • Psycho Lesbian: While she served as Lucifer's concubine for a time, all her semi-consensual relationships have been with women.
  • Red and Black and Evil All Over: Purgatori has red skin and black hair. She wears Black Bra and Panties, black opera gloves and black Combat Stilettos.
  • Royal Harem: Part of her backstory. Queen Ostraca had an exclusively female harem which she later adds Sakkara after falling in love with her, and she lives two years of pure bliss and happiness. This is cut short after instability in the kingdom forces Ostraca to marry her general in an Arranged Marriage to quell the unrest on the condition that her lesbian harem was put to the sword. This massacre became Sakkara's Start of Darkness.
  • Semi-Divine: Sakkara has the blood of Fallen Angels in her.
  • Villain Protagonist: In her own comic series. She's an unrepentant vampire who casually slaughters people and is only fighting other evils for her self-interest.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: After Lucifer strips her of her powers, she still retains a vampire's lust for blood but can't gain any sustenance from it. So she's just bleeding people dry left and right before vomiting out buckets of blood.

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