Vampirella



Vampirella was created in 1969 by Forrest J. Ackerman for Warren Publishing's black and white horror anthology magazine of the same name.

In her first tale, Vampirella was an inhabitant of the planet Drakulon, which had blood instead of water, which gave rise to a race of Vampiric Human Aliens. After arriving on Earth, Vampi devoted herself to fighting evil of all kinds, as well as falling in love with one Adam Van Helsing. A later Retcon of her origin said that she was the daughter of the mythological figure Lilith and that Drakulon was really a part of Hell.

The series was revived in The Nineties by Harris Publications.

Now her adventures are published by Dynamite Entertainment.


 * Action Girl / Dark Action Girl
 * Animesque: The Vampi series (not to be confused with "Vampi" as a nickname for Vampirella), which was an Animesque version of Vampirella that went in its own direction.
 * Back From the Dead: Completely absent in the Warren times. Often enough in the Harris run (up to the point that the last time the creators killed her, afterwards they didn't even bother to properly revive her). Dynamite yet had no opinion on the matter.
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Vampi may give off the vibe of a sexy, evil creature, but she only saves her rage for the bad guys.
 * Failure Hero: In her original magazine, Vampirella rarely saved the day. Often she was incapacitated until the end of the issue, only being revived to kill the bad guy. Most of her stories ether featured, the problem resolving itself, a secondary character doing the majority of the work, and in some cases Vampirella was even the problem herself. This is not the case for the later series, where she takes a dominate role.
 * Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Vampirella is probably one of the earliest examples of a vampire protagonist, created well over twenty years before they became more common.
 * Ladyella
 * Lady in Red
 * Meaningful Name: Obvious. Nah, not really! Also used in-story: In the Warren classic "Deaths Dark Angel", villain W.W.Wade composed a classical Xanatos selfmate when he supposed Vampirella's bite would make him immortal. It didn't.
 * And she comes from the planet Drakulon. This was later justified: Dracula got his name from the place, rather than the other way around.
 * Most Common Superpower
 * Our Vampires Are Different: Originally, she was from a planet covered with natural streams of blood and populated by vampires, and as a natural creature was not affected by holy items and could not convert people into vampires. When she was later retconned into a supernatural creature, she still was not affected by many of the things that traditionally affect vampires.
 * Stripperific: Her signature red outfit, complete with Absolute Cleavage.
 * Vampires Are Sex Gods
 * Weirdness Censor: Very few people seem to notice or remark on her omnipresent red outfit, and when they do it's quickly handwaved.


 * Continuity Snarl: Three different comic companies didn't make it better. If you haven't noticed yet, you probably were too busy staring at her costume :-)
 * In the Warren years, the origin was that she was from another planet, Drakulon. In the Harris years this was changed to her being the daughter of Lilith but there were multiple variations even during that one company which varied on such facts as whether Lilith repented, what her reason was for raising Vampirella as good assuming she didn't repent, whether Lilith was in the Garden of Eden or in Hell, and some minor details such as where Vampirella's costume comes from.
 * Crossover: Several, including one with Lady Death and one with Dark Shadows. The latter was a missed opportunity--Vampirella and Dark Shadows were both around in 1971 but the crossover took place in modern times, when only Barnabas and Quentin are alive.
 * No Periods, Period: Played strictly for the lulz (Vampirella of all would know, and Pantha is a werefeline, so Vampirella can't mean it seriously) in the issue with the Russ Meyer hommage "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (yes, the title is identical) where Vampirella remarks to a raging Pantha "It's that time of the month, right?"
 * A Worldwide Punomenon: Big time in the early issues, much less later.