Vampirella is a fictional character, a comic book vampire superheroine created by Forrest J. Ackerman and comic book artist Trina Robbins in Warren Publishing’s black-and-white horror comics magazine Vampirella #1 (Sept. 1969).

Vampirella

The heroine 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. She does not attack people to drink their blood, except occasionally when she herself is attacked or desires to kill. She is almost always scantily clad in her signature red sling suit with a white collar and wearing shiny black knee-high boots.

Conrad van Helsing

A blind, psychic vampire hunter. He was pursuing Dracula and initially tried to destroy Vampirella, believing her to be kin to that vampire lord.

Adam van Helsing

Conrad’s son, and the last of a long line of vampire hunters, he followed his father’s steps and became a paranormal researcher. He is portrayed as more open-minded than his father. He believed Vampirella was not evil, and eventually they fell in love. Vampirella has often helped Adam in his research. Adam was killed in Vengeance of Vampirella #25 by Mistress Nyx.

Tyler Westron

A physician who rescued Vampirella after a plane crash. Due to the injuries she sustained, he had to amputate her wings and was able to create a substitute blood serum that keeps Vampirella’s thirst under control.

Dracula

Dracula appears as the most frequently recurring villain of the series.

Pendragon / Mordecai the Great

A former sorcerer, now a sideshow magician. Vampirella calls him “Pendy dearest” and treats him as she would a kindly old uncle. While occasionally his knowledge of magic is useful to her, Pendragon is often a liability. In the Warren stories they often travel together, seeking out evil-doers, but Pendragon is generally depicted as getting lost, getting drunk, falling asleep, or otherwise fumbling at a critical moment, thus causing a crisis. Vampirella is deeply loyal to him, however; he is the only real family she has.

The Blood-Red Queen of Hearts

Formerly known as Jezebel, or the Whore of Babylon, she was once a beautiful woman of ancient Babylon. She served as high priestess of the mad-god Chaos, until she offended her master by demanding that he make her his queen. As punishment, Chaos destroyed her body and trapped her soul within a Queen of Hearts playing card. Though she no longer has a physical form of her own, she has continued to exist for thousands of years as the card. Whenever a woman touches the card, she becomes the Queen. Still seeking to marry the mad-god, the Queen needed a dowry of seven human hearts. Vampirella’s heart was to have been the last, but the Queen’s demon lost his eyes and tore the Queen’s out in anger. The Queen later cut out Vampirella’s eyes in revenge, but the former was killed by the same demon and the latter had her eyes restored by a space doctor. The Queen’s “sister,” actually another woman possessed by the card, had an incubus kill six women for their hearts and planned to have Vampirella become the bride of Chaos. She then killed the incubus and used his heart to summon Chaos. But his spilled blood drove Vampirella into a feeding frenzy and she broke her bonds. She drank much of the Queen’s blood, and then threw her into the mad-god’s giant hand. He then took the latest Queen to his hellish dimension. The Queen later possessed Vampirella and her friends in the Queen’s Gambit story arc.

Madek and Magdalene

Evil brother and sister of Vampirella, who planted false memories of the planet Drakulon in Vampirella’s mind, in one version of her origin.

Draculina, Vampirella’s blonde twin sister, who appeared once outside the story in Vampirella #2 (1969) and then never again until her appearance in a story almost 40 years later. Recent appearances of Draculina were on Feary Tales #5 and Vampirella, vol. 2, #11 (both titles by Dynamite, 2015)
Nuberus

The demon who tempted Vampirella with her true origin in order to gain access to Earth.

Sofia Murray

A young punk girl rescued by Vampirella who becomes her sidekick in the first Dynamite series.

Von Kreist

A former Prussian World War I officer, now a lich, who won his state of immortality in a card game with Satan, but at the price of steadily decaying alive. A cruel and sadistic mastermind, with a special victim preference in children.

Chaos

The ruler of Hell and the master of most of the villains that Vampirella faces.

Mistress Nyx

The daughter of a liaison between the mad-god Chaos and Lucrezia Borgia. A demonic persona, who is bent on destroying Vampirella.

Dixie Fattoni

One of two daughters of a Mafioso boss whom she was forced to kill by von Kreist; her twin sister Pixie was turned into a vampire by von Kreist’s minions. Vampirella took the orphaned girl under her wing and trained her in combating vampires.

Pantha

Initially, alien shapeshifter from Vampirella’s native planet who can morph into a black panther. She is generally portrayed as more violent and feral than Vampirella. Later stories rewrote her origin to that of an ancient Egyptian cursed by the gods because of a murderous spree. She is cursed to live forever, with periods where she does not know who or what she is.

Lilith

Vampirella’s mother and the first woman created by God. Her story is told in the alternate version of the events of Genesis, she was the first wife of Adam, and the mother of demons. She sent her daughter to Earth to atone for her mistakes.

Tristan

Vampirella’s boyfriend on Drakulon in the Old Dynamite series. He is Vampirella’s boyfriend in the 2016 Dynamite series. He is a werewolf who does not wish to be one and of generally affable demeanor.

Powers and abilities

Vampirella possesses many of the typical powers of mythological vampires. She exerts super-strength when facing her opponents and can move so fast that she appears as a blur of motion. Her senses are far beyond those of humans, allowing her to tell one’s emotional state through their scent, hear things imperceptible to humans, and see clearly in total darkness. She is very athletic, possessing great stamina, reflexes, and agility beyond that of humans. Her healing factor grants her great resilience and allows her to heal rapidly from her wounds and makes her immune to Earthly illness and toxins.

Whether she is able to turn other people into vampires is inconsistent. It was a plot point in the Warren era that she could not because she was a being from another planet and not a supernatural creature, but that origin was since revised and she could do it in the Shadowhawk crossover. However, that crossover is out of continuity for Shadowhawk and may be out of continuity for Vampirella.

She had the power to grow a giant pair of chiropteran wings to allow self-propelled flight. Her stare and even voice are hypnotic and seductive to humans, particularly males (she has been seen as having the ability to induce sexual arousal in men simply by being in their presence). She is shown to have the power of telepathy as she was able to hear the voices of demons inside Jackie Estacado’s mind.

She is immortal.

In addition to her supernatural abilities, Vampirella is a formidable hand-to-hand combatant and is shown to be skilled with modern-day firearms.