History OurVampiresAreDifferent / TheDCU

* The vampires that appear in the ''Comicbook/DCVsVampires'' series have the following rules:

* This trope is central to DC/Vertigo's ''ComicBook/AmericanVampire'' in several ways.
** 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.
** 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]].
** In the second arc we also meet vampires who transform into large bat like creatures.
** 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.
* The DC/Vertigo 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.

* ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' provides another DC/Vertigo example with the vampires of Rosewood (volume 2, issues #38-39). Formed from a vampire colony which had been mostly destroyed when the town was flooded, the survivors (sleeping in sealed freezer units) adapted and became ''aquatic vampires''. John Constantine explains that the vampire virus is anaerobic; running water is aerated and damages vampires, but they can tolerate stagnant water -- and being underwater shields them from direct sunlight. They were even becoming [[FishPeople fish-like]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'':
** 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.
** A SpinOff book contrasts Cassidy with a Gothic poseur vampire in the Lestat mold, to the detriment of the poseur, who gets killed by Cassidy after Cassidy discovers that he is feeding off a group of human Lestat wannabes 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.)
* ''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]].

* Sgt. Vincent Velcro of the ''Creature Commandos'' is a vampire, but an artificial/simulated vampire. This means that while he lacks the supernatural weaknesses of a true vampire, he also lacks many of their more fantastic powers and is much easier to kill (though he ''can'' turn into a bat and back).

* ''ComicBook/SwampThing'' provides another DC/Vertigo example with the vampires of Rosewood. Formed from a vampire colony which had been mostly destroyed when the town was flooded, the survivors (sleeping in sealed freezer units) adapted and became ''aquatic vampires''. John Constantine explains that the vampire virus is anaerobic; running water is aerated and damages vampires, but they can tolerate stagnant water -- and being underwater shields them from direct sunlight. They were even becoming [[FishPeople fish-like]].

* In ''Comicbook/IVampire'', sunlight doesn't harm vampires, but instead simply weakens them. They have a number of shape-shifting abilities, and many of their powers get more powerful as they get older. They are also much harder to kill as they age and killing a sire within the first three days of a vampire being turned will cure that vampire.
* ''Comicbook/SwampThing'' provides another DC/Vertigo example with the vampires of Rosewood. Formed from a vampire colony which had been mostly destroyed when the town was flooded, the survivors (sleeping in sealed freezer units) adapted and became ''aquatic vampires''. John Constantine explains that the vampire virus is anaerobic; running water is aerated and damages vampires, but they can tolerate stagnant water -- and being underwater shields them from direct sunlight. They were even becoming [[FishPeople fish-like]].

* Their 'regular' vampires are the classic kind, hiding from the sun, eating the innocent, etc. They have 'remote' control over their victims. However, these guys have learned. Running water is very scary, yes, but smelling like a hobo is scarier.
** Pre-Crisis, Superman fends off Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster, but what truly terrifies them is ComicBook/ThePhantomStranger, which is well founded since all he has to do when he shows up is banish them with a wave of his cape.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Batgirl 2009}}'' #14, Comicbook/{{Batgirl}} (Stephanie Brown) teams up with Comicbook/{{Supergirl}} to take on 24 HardLight hologram Draculas.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Final Crisis}}'', the secondary Big Bad (after ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}) was Mandrakk, a rogue, twisted Monitor who fed on the Bleed (aka ''ultramenstruum'') -- which is, technically speaking, the life blood of the ''Multiverse itself''. Mandrakk had once been the good and wise Dax Novu until he had been corrupted and overwhelmed by vampiric hunger. It was further revealed that all the Monitors - meta-beings from a sort of sentient super-universe in which the entire Multiverse was a mere ''lesion'' -- were vampiric in this way -- either by feeding on Bleed, or, in a more metaphorical way, by 'leeching' on the stories of the universes they watched. One female Monitor, Zilla Valla, was seen physically feeding on Overman, a Superman from a universe where the Nazis had won World War II. In spite of the insane scale of the Monitors, Mandrakk was, in the end, killed by having a stake driven through (what presumably was) his heart. Admittedly it was a stake composed of the joint energy of most of the Green Lantern Corps, but the principle remains. Mandrakk also had trouble coming near Franchise/{{Superman}} because of the stored sunlight in his body, so he's weak to sunlight too.

** 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, some are incredibly monstrous creatures that look like they could be aliens in a sci-fi movie.
** 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]].

* The DC/Vertigo comic, ''Bite Club'', has vampires as an ethnic group. While they drink blood they can use laboratory made substitutes, They are only little sensitive to the sun but they can be killed relatively easily, also some are color-blind. There are many ways to become a vampire, If you are bitten by vampire bats, then you become an Alpha, Betas are the sons of alphas or other Betas, and you can also make more vampires by biting humans.
* In ''Comicbook/IVampire'', sunlight doesn't harm vampires, but instead simply weakens them. They have a number of shape-shifting abilities, and many of their powers get more powerful as they get older. They are also much harder to kill as they age, and killing a sire within the first three days of a vampire being turned will cure that vampire.
* ''Comicbook/SwampThing'' provides another DC/Vertigo example with the vampires of Rosewood. Formed from a vampire colony which had been mostly destroyed when the town was flooded, the survivors (sleeping in sealed freezer units) adapted and became ''aquatic vampires''. John Constantine explains that the vampire virus is anaerobic; running water is aerated and damages vampires, but they can tolerate stagnant water -- and being underwater shields them from direct sunlight. They were even [[HollywoodEvolution becoming fish-like]].
* Sgt. Vincent Velcro of the ''Creature Commandos'' is a vampire, but an artificial/simulated vampire. This means that while he lacks the supernatural weaknesses of a true vampire, he also lacks many of their more fantastic powers and is much easier to kill (though he ''can'' turn into a bat and back).
* Cassidy from ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'' 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, the word "vampire" is never used. The closest the book comes is Cassidy referring to himself as "the V word".
** A {{spinoff}} book contrasts Cassidy with a Gothic poseur vampire in the Lestat mold, to the detriment of the poseur, who gets killed by Cassidy after Cassidy discovers that he is feeding off a group of human Lestat wannabes 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.)
** 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.
* ''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]].
* The vampires that appear in the ''Comicbook/DCVsVampires'' series, have the following rules:
** They mostly possess the classic powers (inhuman strength, speed, mind manipulation...), are weak to holy symbols and holy water and get burned by direct sunlight (though can still operate during daytime if covered), can switch between their former living appearance and [[GameFace a more monstrous one]] when attacking and can transform into bats.
** Other than direct sunlight, the only method that seems to put them down for good is a stake to the heart. When Amanda Waller [[spoiler: blows the heads of the Suicide Squad members that were vampires, the rest of the their bodies remain intact, and Batgirl even theorizes that their heads may even grow back]].
** The turned metahumans also retain the abilities they had in life and can use them to circumvent their weaknesses. [[spoiler: Hal Jordan uses his Green Lantern ring to filter the direct ultraviolet light that would normally harm him, and Wonder Woman can't be pierced by a normal stake (or arrow) due to her strength and durability]].
** The process of turning one into a vampire consists of making the victim drink the vampire's blood, and also seems to be extraordinarily fast. After being bitten, [[spoiler: Wonder Woman]] appears as a vampire at the end of the same day. When [[spoiler: Red Hood]] is being turned, the process seems takes a matter of panels, though it is interrupted when [[spoiler: Red Hood is mercy-killed by Green Arrow]].

* The vampires that appear in the Comicbook/DCVsVampires miniseries, have the following rules:
** They mostly possess the classic strengths, are weak to holy symbols and holy water and get burned by direct sunlight (though can still operate during daytime if covered), can switch between their former living appearance and [[GameFace a more monstrous one]] when attacking and can transform into bats.

** The turned metahumans also retain the abilities they had in life and can use them to circumvent their weaknesses. [[spoiler: HalJordan uses his Green Lantern ring to filter the direct ultraviolet light that would normally harm him, and Wonder Woman can't be pierced by a normal stake (or arrow) due to her strength and durability]].

** The turned metahumans also retain the abilities they had in life and can use them to circumvent their weaknesses. [[spoiler: HalJordan uses his Green Lantern ring to filter the direct ultraviolet light that would normally harm him, and Wonder Woman can't be pierced by a normal stake (or arrow) due to her strenght and durability]].

* The vampires of the Comicbook/DCVsVampires have the following rules:

* ''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]].