Comic Book / Vampirella

One HOT vampire lady...

Vampirella was created in 1969 by Forrest J. Ackerman and Trina Robbins for Warren Publishing's black and white horror anthology magazine of the same name. In her first series, 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 while trying to avoid the stake of his father Conrad. 112 Issues would be published of Vampirella Magazine, which would print its last in 1983.

The series was revived in The '90s by Harris Publications. This resulted in Vampirella's origin being changed to becoming the daughter of Lilith who had been brainwashed into believing she was an alien from Drakulon. Harris Publications would publish 46 issues of Vampirella across two volumes with the last years marked by a large number of crossovers.

Later, her license was acquired by Dynamite Comics, who put out a Darker and Edgier version for 2010. This series lasted 38 issues, only for the character to be given a reboot by author Nancy A. Collins. Dynamite's second volume (Vampirella's fourth) continued Vampirella's original continuity before a Crisis on Infinite Earths-style event resulted in her being banished to a new reality where she had a Lighter and Softer existence. Dynamite's third volume (Vampirella's fifth), written by Kate Leth, began in 2016, debuted her under a new more conservative costume. A fourth volume, (Vampirella's sixth) launched in 2017 and has ditched said conservative costume for a slightly different one. This new series takes place in a thousand years into the future which Vampirella awakes into a world much different from the one she left. It's quite the Mind Screw. In 2019, a fifth volume was launched which abandons the Elseworld approach of the 2017 series for a more Broad Strokes storyline set again in the present day.

Dynamite Entertainment has also re-released the original Warren comics in archive editions.

There was also a Roger Corman-produced Live-Action Adaptation in 1996, starring former Bond Girl Talisa Soto in the lead role. An earlier attempt at a movie series by Hammer Horror in the 1970s remained stuck in Development Hell until the company folded.

A summary of the character's history can be found here.

Vampirella books with their own pages:

• Vampirella: The Dark Powers
• Vampirella Strikes (2022)
• Vengeance of Vampirella (2019)

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Tropes:

The comics as a whole

• '90s Anti-Hero:
  • Naturally, Vampirella was depicted this way during the 90s. More emphasis was placed on her struggle with her Bloodlust, her already revealing outfit was drawn as even skimpier and she frequently came to blows with other heroes she crossed paths with before teaming up with them. This characterization occassionally appeared in subsequent runs.
  • Vampirella's friend, ally and occasional enemy, Pantha also fit this trope in the 90s; she wore a very revealing outfit just like Vampirella, had a vicious temper, was an Animal-Themed Superbeing, had Wolverine Claws and a tragic past of killing numerous people including her own son. Like Vampirella, this depiction of Pantha also lasted past the 90s but was more consistent.
• Action Horror: The titular character is a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire who defends humans from other monsters, similar to Blade. Many if not most stories have a great deal of action in them, with the '90s comics being very big on fight scenes.
• Bad Girl Comic: Perhaps the Ur-Example. The genre of scantily clad female anti-heroes fighting evil didn't really take off until The Dark Age of Comic Books, but Vampirella debuted in 1969. That said, her original incarnation was more of a campy space adventure heroine, with her becoming more of a Dark Action Girl after her revival in the 1990s.
• Biblical Bad Guy:
  • In one story Vampirella fights the "Black Pope of the Vampire Church", who turns out to be Judas Iscariot.
  • The Blood Red Queen of Hearts was a body-hopping demoness who was identified as the Whore of Babylon.
  • Lilith, the first wife of Adam, also used to be a malevolent figure who gave birth to many demonic races and monsters. But she has since repented and turned into The Atoner. Or so she has lead others to believe and remained evil as ever.
• Broad Strokes:
  • In the Harris publication, Vampirella has returned to her Drakulon Human Aliens origin, which renders a substantial number of these comics non-canon but they're still implied to have happened in some fashion.
  • In Vampirella/Dejah Thoris, the story glosses over the Swords of Sorrow crossover that joined Vampi and Dejah alongside Red Sonja. Though it acknowledges the Drakulon backstory, Tristen (one of the later Dynamite inclusions) is made part of Vampirella's backstory.
• Cain and Abel: A recurring theme across the several continuities is that most of the main protagonist's siblings tend to be evil monsters.
  • Vampirella with her two older Lilin siblings in the Harris publication.
  • This is elaborated on the Dynamite comic: It's revealed that Vampirella's father is none other than Cain, the First Murderer himself. In addition to be cursed to walk the Earth forever, his children would always be twins, one dark-haired and the other blonde-haired, also be cursed as well, with the latter always slaying the former to emulate the pain that Adam suffered when Cain murdered his brother. Vampirella is the dark-haired child while her twin sister Draculina is the blonde-haired one and driven to murder her sister by Cain's curse.
• Characterization Marches On: Vampirella has numerous personalities depending on her creators ranging from something akin to Elvira, Mistress of the Dark to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blade.
• Clothes Make the Legend: She is so synonymous with the red slingshot bikini that any attempt to make it Tamer and Chaster inevitably fails. She wore a battle armor Chainmail Bikini for a brief bit during the Harris years, and has had no less than three redesigns during the Dynamite years, including a Badass Longcoat and Cool Shades in 2010 that just made her look like Blade, a roller derby outfit in 2016, and a little red dress in 2017. Before long, the bikini makes a comeback.
• Compelling Voice: One of Vampirella's powers as a vampire is a hypnotic voice that makes men do what she wants. It usually only works on humans though, with supernatural foes more likely to No-Sell her.
• 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.
  • It gets to Hawkman levels of snarl with the 2011 book as Vampirella is revealed to have two mutually contradictory sets of memories about being a Human Aliens vampire and the daughter of Lilith. There's also ample evidence of both being true spread throughout the series with the opening stating she has a Shrouded in Myth origin.
  • The Dynamite comics have used both the alien world and Hell origins depending on the book and what type of story they wish to tell.
• Crapsack World: More like a Crapsack Universe since the conflict of Order Versus Chaos has filled the world with supernatural monsters which prey on humans. "Good" guys exist but even they tend to be Dark Is Not Evil types and Knight Templar heroes at best.
• Crossover Cosmology: Characters, creatures and deities from various myths and religions appear.
• Cute Monster Girl: Straightest example would be the Dynamite "Li'l Vampi" one-shot. Subverted insofar that even the sexiest monster women in the series will make you lose a few front teeth if you call them "cute" or "girl".
• Daywalking Vampire: As a direct descendant of Lilith, Vampirella herself will often walk around in the daylight with no issue whatsoever whereas most other vampires burn up on direct exposure to sunlight. This is such a non-issue for her that at least one story showed her lounging at a beach. Dracula, the progenitor of all evil vampires, has exhibited this trait as well.
• Demonic Vampires
  • The comic is kind of all over the place with this. In some versions Lilith is presented as a demon, in others she's just an ordinary vampire from the planet Drakulon who associated and/or mated with demons. Usually Earth vampires are a different species. Sometimes not.
  • According to the 2014 run, vampires were born from Lilith mating with demons. The eponymous character herself is the daughter of Lilith and has all the powers of a vampire with none of their weaknesses.
• Depending on the Artist: Vampirella's outfit is sometimes drawn as a one-piece, form-fitting swimsuit with a massive Cleavage Window and open back, but other times as a tiny, physics-defying strip of fabric that pretty much only covers her nipples and crotch. Her boots vary in length from over-the-knee to only covering half her ankles. When she develops wings, they either sprout out of her shoulder blades or her arms change into wings instead. Of course, their size varies as well, from itty bitty wings that would never be able to get off the ground to absolutely enormous ones that could easily lift up a human body. Her body type fluctuates between voluptuous and muscular, and some artists give her a very youthful, almost teenage appearance while others draw her as a grown woman. (Might be justified by pointing to Vampirellas hypnotic abilities that make her the viewers dream woman - seemingly including the artists...)
• Eldritch Abomination: Loads (at least in the Warren years), and they are no nice sight. (Random Example - Vampirella warns Pendragon that he may not look at the Djinn she just killed since he, as a mere mortal, will drop dead from the revelation.)
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Pretty much Once an Episode, someone will make a Deal with the Devil, only to find this out too late.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: There are demons under the mad god Chaos, Aztec and Egyptian deities, Arabic djinn etc.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: Vampirella is notable for being one of the earliest examples of a vampire protagonist in modern fiction. She is depicted as a Human Alien space vampire who comes from the planet Drakulon where blood is naturally occurring or she's the daughter of Lilith sent to wipe out monsterkind. Either way, Vampirella is a Vegetarian Vampire who primarily feeds on a chemistry-created blood substitute and the occasional evil doer while working to protect humankind.
• Fur Against Fang: Often, already in Warren times. With a bit of YMMV, even the matches Vampirella vs. Pantha do count.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Vampirella is a rare good example. Still: run. (exaggerated example: Linsner cover of Dynamite #0.)
• God of Chaos: The Harris age introduced the evil god Chaos as a recurring villain, who rules Hell and opposes the forces of Order (including Vampirella) either directly or through his many acolytes. He's pretty much just a stand-in for the Devil, right up to looking like your standard scary big red demon, but his chaotic nature is reflected in his disordered mindset.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Lilith goes through this repeatedly in the comic as she is either a repentant remorseful demon living the Garden of Eden or an evil murderous monster who is enemy to God.
• Hunter Of Her Own Kind: Depending on the Writer, Vee is typically portrayed as a vampiress who manages her own Horror Hunger by feeding either on Asshole Victims or blood bags stored in a fridge. She has taken down many fellow vampires in her quest to rid the world of evil, with Dracula himself being her Arch-Enemy.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Vampirella has done a number of crossovers with characters from other franchises, mostly towards the later years of the Harris Publishing run of the comic. These include Lady Death, Witchblade, Shadowhawk, Alien, and Evil Dead.
• Ladyella: She's also used the alias "Vee" on occasion, but "Vampirella" really is her name. Except for the obscure film adaptation, where she was known as just Ella before she travelled to Earth. More recent stories claim that it's an alias; her actual Drakulonian name is unpronouncable in human tongues.
• Lesbian Vampire: Vampirella has been shown with both male and female lovers, although Adam Van Helsing is her most frequent recurring Love Interest. Like many Bad Girls, she often gets into Cat Fights with female villains, but that usually goes no further than Homoerotic Subtext.
• Let's You and Him Fight: Pretty much every team up between Vampirella and any hero she crosses over with starts out this way. Most of the time this was due to a misunderstanding but a few cases saw her clashing with characters who weren't all that heroic to begin with such as Lady Death.
• Lovecraft Lite: Vampirella is a character who exists in a world filled with countless evil gods, eldritch abominations, supernatural horrors, and sci-fi creatures of the night. The gods of order and balance aren't much better either. Vampirella, however, will kick all of their ass.
• Meaningful Name: In spades in Warren times (to name just one obscure: Vampirella's hometown on Drakulon is Gosi-Bram), maybe somewhat less later, although Species Surname is always en vogue. Van Kreist, with the allusion to (anti)christ surely counts too.
• Multiple-Choice Past: Vampirella has two conflicting origin stories. Originally she was a Human Alien from the planet Drakulon which, you guessed it, is a world inhabited by vampires. When her character was resurrected in the 90s she was made into the daughter of Lilith, who still ruled in Hell and birthed Vampirella so she could hunt down evil on Earth. The circumstances of her conception are also up in the air, with some stories presenting Cain as Vampirella's blood father, while others offer that Vampirella has no father and was created by Lilith through Blood Magic. The 2010 Dynamite series includes a blurb with every issue lampshading this Continuity Snarl, implying that both the Drakulon and Hell origins may be true. Eventually the two sort of mashed together, with Drakulon sometimes being presented as a corner of Hell, or Lilith as a native from the planet Drakulon.
• Nobody Poops: Averted. There's an issue where Vampirella eats a demon and then has a hard time defecating it out.
• Not Quite Dead: Dracula and Father Jonas. Albeit, this is comic books so it should be expected.
• Order Versus Chaos: There's a cosmic war between these two forces in the setting. Vampirella fights as a (reluctant) agent of Order.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Becomes a plot point in "Death's Dark Angel" where, being a Drakulonian rather than an Earth vampire, Vampirella's bite doesn't infect Wade with vampirism but rather kills him. We later learn in "... And be a Bride of Chaos" that the influence of Chaos is the reason why Dracula's brand of vampirism is different from the original Drakulonian.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: One of Vampirella's allies is Pantha/Sekhmet, an ancient Egyptian woman who can transform into a panther. There's some degree of Morphic Resonance as well, with her stripperiffic outfit (it's not clear if they're actually clothes or formed directly from her skin) containing cat patterns.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: A plot point in "Isle of the Huntress". Vivienne's lycanthropy is immune to silver, but Vampirella can still kill her by sucking her dry. Jean's, on the other hand, is not immune.
• Protagonist Title: Vampirella.
• Retcon: Harris comics, in particular, really tried to get rid of all the sci-fi elements but never quite succeeded. They were then retconned away themselves.
• Ridiculously Small Wings: Vampirella can grow wings and fly, but their size is a case of Depending on the Artist. From her inception in 1969, she has often been drawn with cute little wings◊ that cannot support her weight. At the extreme opposite end, some artists give her an enormous, 36-feet wingspan◊.
• Rivers of Blood: Vampi's homeworld of Drakulon is covered with rivers of blood, thus allowing her race of space vampires to exist. Vampires that feed on living beings are largely seen as evil by the rest of their kind, though when the rivers run dry at one point the Drakulonians as a whole decide to invade Earth out of desperation. Later retconned to be an area of Hell.
• Rogues Gallery: Vampirella has had a shifting rogues gallery over the years. Some of her most frequent recurring enemies include Dracula, the progenitor of all evil vampires; the Mad God of Evil Chaos, who rules over Hell; Von Kreist, an undead Psycho for Hire Serial Killer; and the Blood Red Queen of Hearts, a body-hopping demoness.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: While she's sometimes depicted as not being aware of human conventions, being an alien from a planet of vampires, Vampirella is usually shown to be fully aware of how her costume is perceived by those around her. She doesn't care, since it allows her to use her sexuality as a weapon.
• "Spread Wings" Frame Shot: One of the covers for Vampirella: Bloodlust depicts Vampirella standing in front of a wall with a pair of wings made out of blood drawn on the wall behind her. Played with in that Vampi actually is a Winged Humanoid. She just hides them most of the time to appear more human. Her actual wings are not made out of blood anyway, they're bat-like.
• Supernaturally Young Parent: Lilith and her descendants don't age beyond adulthood since they're either demons or demon-lite (vampires). In the Dynamite series there's a dinner scene in Hell where Lilith, her daughter Vampirella and son-in-law Adam Van Helsing, and her grandson Lukas Van Helsing are in the same room together. They all appear 30-something. Though in Lukas's case Time Travel was also involved, and Adam, while being a normal human, was technically dead at that point.
• Technically Naked Shapeshifter: Pantha, a woman who can change into a panther. The way her transformations are depicted she is always automatically wearing her cat-print outfit (basically just underwear) instead of leaving torn clothing in her wake or needing to go shopping for clothes whenever she turns back, but the Fridge Logic is never addressed.
• Vegetarian Vampire:
  • Vampirella herself had her blood substitute serum...in Warren times. Post-Warren times found that too sissy for a Bad Girl. There is always a surplus of villains to snack on; in any case, she will avoid biting an innocent.
  • A story in her magazine had a "vegetarian vampire"...but this is a subversion of this trope, as the story played in an SF setting with intelligent plants and the guy was evil. He met the usual vampire fate - a steak through his heart.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Often. Granted, Vampirella on bloodlust (or drugged with heroin) isn't herself, but...
• Who You Gonna Call?:
  • The main character herself is a vampire who protects humans from supernatural threats. She is often aided by demon hunter Adam Van Helsing and the wizard Pendragon.
  • During the 90s, Vampirella was allied with the Danse Macabre, an organization that fought supernatural threats with considerably more extreme measures. They were unfortunately wiped out by the villainess Nyx who killed Vampirella herself.
  • Vampirella: The New Monthly introduced the comic's Church Militant variant of this trope called the Sisterhood, an organization of nuns who fought the supernatural.
  • A later run in 2001, introduced a covert branch of the FBI tasked with fighting supernatural threats called The World's End Circus.
  • There is also the Cestus Dei, a covert operation wing of the Vatican tasked with fighting monsters.
  • In the 2014 Dynamite run, Vampirella teamed up with the Kabal, an organization of monsters who policed their own kind.
• Wizards from Outer Space: In her original conception, she was a vampire from an alien planet and so was Dracula, who was said to be a rogue Drakulonian that was exiled to Earth for feeding on living beings.

Vampirella Magazine (Warren Comics)

• Affably Evil: Vampirella in her first comic is a perky flirtatious vampire who murders a bunch of astronauts to steal their ship.
• Alien Fair Folk: Vampires were originally aliens from the planet Drakulon.
• Anthology Comic: The magazine's purpose, basically, was to be a Tales From The Crypt style horror comic like before the Comics Code Authority with Vampirella as host
• The Bad Guy Wins: Happens all the time in the magazine.
• Binary Suns: Drakulon had two that were drying up its rivers of blood.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: Huitzilopochtli's are technically concentrated sunlight but otherwise fit the trope.
• Comic-Book Time: Averted in the Warren comics, where Vampirella would occasionally mention how many years she's been on Earth (such as 5 and then 8 and so forth - coinciding roughly with how many years her comic had been running). At the time of her visit to Drakulon, she mentioned that she's been on Earth 8 years and was born 26 years ago.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Huitzilopochtli in "The Betrothed of the Sun-God" fries anyone who sets a lecherous eye on Vampirella. But when Vampi decides not to go with him, he's stand-up enough to let her go.
• Disability Superpower: Conrad is blind but has a psychic vision that can warn him about evil and his hearing is good enough for him to aim a gun with.
• Disintegration Chamber: Dracula is condemned to be executed this way on Drakulon, although instead of killing him it winds up banishing him to another dimension, and from there he escapes to Earth.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Into the Inferno" Granville decides to repay Pendragon's abandoning of his family by addicting Vampirella on cocaine.
• Doing In the Wizard: Averted. Vampirella is a science-fiction Human Alien but regularly fights supernatural opponents.
• Downer Ending: The majority of the comics ended with something terrible happening to the leads.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Vampirella didn't start off as a monster-hunting superhero, she was just a refugee from Drakulon and the snarky hostess/mascot of horror stories. Vampirella took a turn to good when the god Chaos and his demons discovered her and had plans to impregnate an alien woman. (That said, a modern reader could easily declare the whole Warren run as this trope.)
  • Oh, where to start? Exhibit 1: Many of the earliest Warren horror stories are "Boo!" stuff with much Innocent Bystander redshirts and no clever twists. Exhibit 2: A story like "The Caliegia" (who is a full-fledged goddess but still a Damsel in Distress who has to be saved by the muscle-packed barbarian) would haved gotten the texter thrown out later - strong women were the rule later.
• Enemy Without: In one episode, Vampirella battles the materialization of her evil side. She wins by giving her opponent a speech that her bloodlust is an integral part of her personality.
• Evil Cripple:
  • "The Running Red" has Jabez Kruger, an Arms Dealer who plays both revolutionaries and the governments they're fighting and has gamblers Driven to Suicide by their losses.
  • An even more brutal example is the megamech Vampirella has to fight in one episode. After winning, to her horror Vampirella realizes inside the mech is the innocent daughter of the mad scientist who built the mech.
• Exact Words: In a Vampirella story, the sultan promised the sultana that he would never bodily harm her. Using this as a free ticket for adultery wasn't a good idea - the sultan force-feeds her until she looks like Blob's sister.
• Eye Scream: The Blood Red Queen had her eyes gouged out by a demon thanks to Vampi and Pendragon, so in "An Eye for an Eye" the Queen returns the favour to Vampirella once she had her captured. This is one of the two things that happens to completely break Vampirella.
• Face–Heel Turn: The demoness Astaroth once was a benign fertility goddess of the Demeter kind and somewhere took a wrong moral turn at Albuquerque.
• Genre Anthology: Very much a horror anthology series of comics collected in a magazine.
• Go Mad from the Revelation:
  • Defied when Vampirella fights a djinn and kills him. She warns her friend Pendragon not to look, or else this trope.
  • Played straight when Vampirella is about to be sacrificed to Mad God Chaos, for bearing his child. One of the cultist dames is so pissed about being deprived of this (doubtful) honor that she unties her and takes her place. If she thought she was in for hawt tentacled snu-snu, she was dead wrong. Cue one human instantly crumbling to dust, one mad Mad God wiping out the cult in anger and 1000000 inconsolable Japanese.
• Heel–Face Turn: Partly. When she possessed the character Cryssie Collins, Cryssie kinda possessed her back, to the result that she allied with Vampirella. (Even in this form Astaroth still was a Bad Girl, rest assured...)
• Here We Go Again!: At the end of "... And be a Bride of Chaos" a looter comes across a coffin and is tempted to lie in it... which was how Dracula Body Surfed his way between hosts.
• Hurricane of Puns: Big time in the early issues, much less later.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In "Slitherers of the Sand" the monster is beaten when Vampirella lures it onto its own waste, which is toxic to it.
  • In "Into the Inferno" Granville is killed by Vampirella, who he had accidentally driven into a bloodthirsty madness by the drug he had ordered given to her.
• Hotter and Sexier: The B&W comics were certainly this compared to anything else out at the time.
• Human Aliens: Vampirella's race is a collection of these. They're just vampires.
• The Ingenue: Oddly despite the fanservice and starting off with a lover, Vampirella is an example in the earlier years. Besides being an alien, she begins the comics in her late teens and is extremely naive, often going up to complete strangers to ask for help and not realizing that they're at best a horny pervert or some kind of criminal or supernatural threat. It takes her working for Pendragon at sleazy nightclubs to realize the effect her looks has on people. It took years before she outgrew this.
• Innocent Aliens: After an encounter with the Blood Red Queen that left Vampirella with her eyes cut out and Pendragon getting his heart removed, it's Game Over for the team (between her blinding and guilt over Pendragon's condition, Vampi promises the Queen she won't fight Chaos anymore). That is until a couple of benevolent alien doctors sense Vampirella's agonized thoughts and come to regenerate new organs for Vampi and Pendragon.
• Kill It with Fire:
  • In "The Resurrection of Papa Voudou", the zombiefied Papa Voudou cannot be harmed by bullets or melee attacks, so Vampirella kills him again with the fire on a brazier.
  • In "She who Waits" the Cobra Queen is killed when Pendragon uses his brandy as fuel for a fire.
• Loophole Abuse: In "Vampirella and the Sultana's Revenge" the eponymous Sultana had the Sultan promise to never harm her. So when he catches her being unfaithful, he instead has her force-fed, ruining the slimness and beauty she took pride in.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "... And be a Bride of Chaos" we learn that Dracula was a native of Drakulon who was supposed to be executed for his crimes, but the execution device was too powerful and instead of just disintegrating his body, it was sent into the dimension where Chaos was banished to.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In "... And be a Bride of Chaos" Lucretia, who wanted to become the Bride of Chaos and was jealous that Dracula had chosen Vampirella instead, freed Vampirella from her bonds to take over.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: In "The Running Red" the Traveller plays to beat Kruger for the sake of good rather than hedonism and loses his immortality for it. He dies shortly afterwards when Kruger's goons attack.
• Non-Malicious Monster: Orphee, Poor Orphee, They Made Him In A Jar Right There In The Lab! (That is the story title.) Orphee is a cross between a teddy bear and an octopus created by your standard hammy Mad Scientist. When Vampirella is threatened to get, ehm, probed by evil alien robots, Orphee doesn't realize it's just a film, comes to the "rescue".
• An Offer You Can't Refuse:
  • In "Death's Dark Angel" a corrupt sheriff threatens the Van Helsings with trumped-up charges in order to get them to follow him to Wade's place.
  • In "The Resurrection of Papa Voudou" the villains tell Conrad that Adam can be saved... if he helps them evoke the powers of Chaos.
  • In "... And be a Bride of Chaos" Conrad presses a stake against the gut of a local guide about to chicken out.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Strictly played for the lulz in "Stake Out". One SF bar buddy tells the other how they defeated the gruesome alien plant vampire (maybe he made all up). The vampire can't be killed with a (wooden) stake. So the heroes kill him with a steak. At this point of the story, intergalactic policemen storm the bar. Probably it's the Monty Python "This is silly!" police.
• Outer Limits Twist: Very common in the magazine. For example, in the first issue, a woman is trapped on a life raft with a dwindling number of survivors being killed off by a vampire. In the end, there's only her and the man she loves. She kills him only to find out the boat is the shapeshifted vampire.
  • The other stories in issue 1# included: the origins for Vampirella, a father killing his own daughter after she is infected with lycanthropy, a man who rescues a Green-Skinned Space Babe mer-woman only to discover she's actually a Deep One out to conquer the surface, a couple who has a gateway to hell as their nursery, and a man married to a monstrous Jabba the Hutt alien after hearing beautiful Amazon-like androids needed men.
• Perky Goth: Pretty much Vampirella's personality before Perky Goths existed.
• Phony Psychic: Amelie de Mort in "The Betrothed of the Sun-God" pretends to be a medium and cons people into thinking that their dead relatives want the will changed to benefit her, after which she has her victims killed for the inheritance money, though she gets more than she bargained for when Vampirella and Pendragon visit her and Huitzilopochtli speaks through her for real.
• Put on a Bus: In the second issue, it was mentioned that Vampirella has a blonde twin named Draculina. She wasn't ever mentioned again (except in a retelling of Vampirella's origin, then under the name Vampyra). See the Dynamite (2010) series for The Bus Came Back.
• Reincarnation: In one not-so-popular arc for Vampirella, it's revealed that Vampirella is the reincarnation of Queen Cleopatra. She had rejected her husband-brother Ptolemy, so when Ptolemy uses black magic to turn himself into a vampire he does the same to Cleopatra. Cleopatra eventually kills him and the god Ra appears. He can't reverse the vampirism so he makes it so that she will reincarnate in the future onto a paradise world full of blood. Vampirella's pal Pendragon was also reincarnated, he used to be Cleopatra's loyal servant.
• Scaled Up: In "She who Waits" the Cobra Queen can transform into a giant cobra.
• Shapeshifting: Vampirella into a bat (and Pantha into a panther, duh). A lot more exists (Dracula usually has the standard vampire abilities, "The Fox" is a classical Kitsune etc.).
• Sinister Minister: Father Jonas, who is actually a servant of Chaos.
• Sleeper Starship: The Arthur Clarke that crash landed on Drakulon had several crewmembers in stasis that Vampirella fed on.
• Spanner in the Works: In "The Resurrection of Papa Voudou" Paul Giraud manages to stagger into the ritual chamber, where he falls beside the altar. As a result, the spell intended to resurrect Papa Voudou splits its power between repairing the villain's mind and restoring Paul's body. Thus, Papa Voudou is raised as a sapient zombie but his body remains decayed.
• Tentacle Rope: Played seriously in the Warren times - those were horror comics after all, even if not under the restriction of the Comics Code. Practically the only incident leaning into the, eh, other trope: A monster is conjured to "handle" the witch Fleur, but due to plot twists, it gets the wrong girl and "handles" the butt-ugly brothel chief. Monster, bitterly complaining: "This is...girl?"
• Translation with an Agenda: A strange thing occurred in the first German run of the series. In cases, the translation completely ignored the English text and mangled the plots to comply with the likings of puberty youth with an IQ of 50. The guilty are still at large. Also, just for the trope, they called her the Blood Princess. (Hey, if Drac is a count...)
• What Happened to the Were: Probably due to Aborted Arc, it is never explained why the Lupae are arch enemies[tm] of the Vampiri and Cat people, even if their leader babbles about her shapeshifted form any second sentence. (Lupae. You can guess her were form yourself...)
• Weirdness Magnet: Both Van Helsings note how much the girl from Drakulon keeps attracting creeps, monsters and supernatural activity. It gets to the point, where they complain of how it ruins their occasional holidays.
• Woman Scorned: In "The Running Red" after Kruger offers Droga as collateral in his bet only to lose, the humiliated woman pushes him to his doom.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: In "Hit Six", the killer is very uncomfortable with adding a woman to his hit list. He plays stalker while trying to make his mind up, but since this is a Vampirella comic, the women are spunky and she kinda hits on him. Things get very turbulent quickly. For once, there is no downer ending and they can admire each other ankles happily ever after.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In "... And be a Bride of Chaos" Dracula was going to feed on Pendragon. Fortunately, he was distracted.

Harris Publications

• Action Politician: Adam Van Helsing is a U.S. Senator by day and monster hunter by night.
• Artificial Limbs:
  • Midwinter has a robotic hand to replace the one he lost to Pantha in the past.
  • Conny Lingus, a porn star and former member of Pantha's cult, had her leg turn off by an animal at the zoo. She had a cybernetic one to replace it. A friend of hers was working on a more life like one before he was killed by werewolves.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Johnny Sabbath, an old friend and lover of Vampirella's, sells her out to Dr. Kessler who plans to extract her blood for immortality. Sabbath is killed by Kessler since He Knows Too Much and has his organs harvested. Nonetheless, Vampirella states that even this was too cruel a fate for him to suffer.
  • Vampirella vs Pantha has Pantha hunting down and killing four depraved scientists who tortured and experimented on her.
• Attempted Rape: Dr. Kessler tries to rape Maria Esquivel. Fortunately, Vampirella comes to her rescue.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Vampirella Monthly ended its run on with a costly victory for the good guys: Vampirella and Pantha manage to stop Dr. Midwinter's ritual to become immortal by sacrificing countless souls to Lady Death, but Dixie Fattoni is murdered by him and dies in Vee's arms. Her soul is taken to the afterlife by Lady Death while Vampirella grieves her death (as well as her other loved ones) in despair.
• Doing in the Scientist:
  • Vampirella isn't actually an alien from the planet Drakulon but the daughter of Lilith born in either Hell, the Garden of Eden, on Drakulon (which is now a part of Hell), or several other origins.
  • This was also done to Pantha. Originally she was an alien shapeshifter from the plane Drakulon. The Harris books retconned her into an Ancient Egyptian priestess who was cursed with immortality by the Egyptian gods for the murders she committed.
• Devil's Job Offer: After being killed by Nyx, Vampirella ends up in Hell, which is fortunately ruled by her mother Lilith, who gives her a mission to fight vampires on Earth just before she is killed. (This was a mild retcon, since Lilith was killed, but this implied that she had been in Hell all along.)
• Disposable Sex Worker: A Pantha focused story has her meeting and befriending a porn actress named Conny Lingus who ends up getting raped and killed by one of the werewolf villains. Pantha kills them in revenge.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: Vampires after dying are absorbed into the Voidsworm, a eldritch entity that dwells in Drakulon and it's absolutely immune to any of their weakness.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Vampirella, Pendragon and Adam. Vampirella is a vampire and is the strongest, fastest and most durable of the three. Pendragon is a sorcerer and the least reliable in close-quarters combat. Adam is a Badass Normal and fights by using weapons and exploiting his enemies' weaknesses.
• Friend on the Force: Captain O'Bryant, a police captain who seeks Vampirella's help with supernatural cases.
• Ghostapo: Dr Midwinter, a high-ranking Nazi officer who was tasked with finding supernatural artifacts during World War 2. He was able to find an amulet known as the Scarab of Atum-Ra in Egypt but lost it to the immortal priestess Pantha, who tore off his arm and escaped with the amulet. Midwinter's life was extended as a result of him touching the amulet and he spent the next 60 years chasing Pantha across the world to get it back from her. In the final issues of Vampirella: The New Monthly, he concocted a plan which required him to summon Lady Death.
• Hero of Another Story: Pantha has had her own adventures independent of Vampirella where she has dealt with the immortal Nazi Dr Midwinter, the snake goddess Mamba and a pack of Nazi werewolves.
• Hotter and Sexier: Despite already being one of the most provocatively dressed stars in comic books, Harris Comics began the process of making her costume more and more like "Dental Floss" as Trina Robbins said. Doubles as an Unnecessary Makeover.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Vampirella had a lot of these in hopes of propping up flagging sales. She had ones with Chaos! Comics, Shadowhawk and several Witchblade just for starters.
• Pragmatic Villain: Brought up by one of Von Kreist's bosses after he reports to him that he managed to land a crashing plane on top of a children's playground. He doesn't seem to object to Von Kreist's action because of any moral qualms, just the lack of professionalism.
• 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 homage "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (yes, the title is identical) where Vampirella remarks to a raging Pantha "It's that time of the month, right?"
• Sex Sells: To the deterrent of the comic. Much of Harris' handling of the characters involved swimsuit calenders and cheesecake books over actual horror stories toward the end of their run with Vampirella. Notably, it didn't.
• Snake People: Mamba is a giant green-skinned snake goddess with a human upper body.
• Villainous Incest: After Pixie Fattonie is turned into a vampire, one of the first things she does to show how she's lost all humanity is to molest her sister Dixie in front of a crowd of vampires.
• Warrior Undead: The first issue of The New Monthly has Vampirella and a priest saving two humans from a squad of American Civil War era vampires. Their leader claims they have never lost thanks to their superior numbers and tactics. Vampirella and the priest break this record by killing them all with blessed rain.

Exclusive to the 2010 Dynamite series

• Action Survivor: Sofia Murray is just another innocent bystander saved by Vampirella but slowly becomes her sidekick.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Crisswell has had feelings for Vampirella ever since he saw her when he was a teenager. Vampirella is aware of his feelings for her but knows she can never love him the way she loves Adam.
• Bald of Authority: Hawking the leader of a Cestus Dei strike team.
• Big Bad: The first arc had Eldritch Abomination Yad-Ath Yermellus as this. Later arcs would share it between Dracula and Von Kreist.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Le Fanu believes herself to be Vampirella's Evil Counterpart when she's just a Smug Snake.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: Vampirella has one of these in the first story arc, allowing her to become The Chosen One.
• Body Horror: The worm-infested vampires are definitely this.
• Church Militant: The Cestus Dei are the Vatican's paramilitary monster-hunting organization that Vampirella has a friendly relationship with. Perhaps too friendly.
• Conqueror from the Future: Professor Benjamin Quatermass originates from a timeline 100 years in the future when humanity has abandoned the Earth's surface for floating cities. In a variation, he invades the past to make sure that his ancestor will invent time travel technology, allowing for the incredibly complicated series of events to ensure that he'll controll all timelines.
• Continuity Porn: Brandon Jerwa's run on the title was absolutely full of characters who had, in many cases, not been seen in decades.
• Dark Action Girl:
  • As part of the Darker and Edgier nature of the series, they turned Vampirella into one of these.
  • Vampirella fights numerous ones throughout the series.
• Darker and Edgier: Vampirella loses all of her playful flirtiness and humor to become an angry Bad Grrl, a decade after the Nineties.
• Eating the Eye Candy: Done by Sofia Murray when an unconscious Vampirella lies in bed with a blood bag hooked up to her vein to recover from her latest mishap, still wearing her classic costume. Sofia spends a good deal of time admiring her body.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Yad-Ath Yermellus is a giant worm god who created vampiredom. There are also others that are personification of concepts like hate, hunger, sorrow and fear.
• Enemy Mine: Dracula and Vampirella team up to defeat Yad-Ath Yermellus.
• Gainax Ending: The series ended with Vampirella becoming Queen of the Monsters and an order of vampire knights due to oddball circumstances only to have an Eldritch Abomination eat time due to a Xanatos Gambit by Dracula. To save Vampirella, Lilith proceeds to banish her daughter to a new reality where she was originally a comic book character.
• Genre Savvy: Dracula's reason for making Vampirella a part of his plan is because "she always wins".
• Grandfather Paradox: Defied in the 2010 Dynamite run when Conqueror from the Future Professor Quatermass visits his great-grandfather to ensure that he'll invent time travel ahead of schedule to further his plans. When his great-grandfather hesitates, Quatermass shoots him only after asking him if his grandfather is safe at home.
• Ignore the Fanservice: In Issue #36, Vampirella's allies express discomfort in her more ruthless approach to building her monster kingdom. When Adam goes to talk to her, she suggests they have sex instead. Adam, while finding the proposition tempting, refuses and insists they have their talk.
• Knight Templar: Herr Schuld is one of these as he wants to destroy his evil ancestor, Von Kreist, so much he resurrects him from the dead to do it.
• Kudzu Plot: After the relatively straightforward plots of the first twenty issues, the series gradually started returning older elements of the series without bothering to explain where they came from or who they were. It climaxed with Vampirella journeying 100 years to the future with a cameo by The Jetsons (!) in order to have an apocalyptic battle with Professor Quartermass and her adult son who is King of Hell. Oh and all from the perspective of her Nice Guy stalker Thomas Criswell with the help of a gigantic talking rabbit. This sets the ground rules for the comic's eventual Gainax Ending.
• Light Is Not Good: In the Bad Future, Adam serves the side of Order but is a massive Control Freak. To the point that he tries to kill Vampirella when he thinks she will leave him and ends up killing Thomas Crisswell by accident instead. The side of Order wear silver and gold uniforms but are portrayed as murderous Knight Templars.
• Lured into a Trap: Herr Schuld is the descendant of Vampirella baddie Von Kreist and so ashamed of it that he manipulates Vampirella into coming to an ancient city's ruins so he can have her sidekick Sofia possessed by his ancestor. He distracts Vampirella with the monsters in the city while conducting the ritual so he can resurrect Von Kreist and kill him again. This requires setting up a plane massacre, summoning an ancient evil wizard, and Tarot cards. It also fails miserably as Vampirella interrupts him before he can kill a possessed Sofia.
• Memetic Mutation: In-universe, Vampirella herself, Dynamite's "Second Coming" story arc. (How that works? Astonishingly well, you're welcome.)
• Morton's Fork: In the penultimate issue, Sister Midnight gives Lilith three instructions to give to her daughter Vampirella, each with a bad outcome. She can send Vampirella back to her newly established kingdom where she will find her subjects slaughtered by the Knight's Templar whom Vampirella thought was loyal to her. She can open a vault which unleash a horrifying, world-ending monstrosity. Or Lilith can summon Vampirella to Drakulon where she will find that every foe Vampirella has fought and defeated is in fact still alive and imprisoned.
• Pietà Plagiarism: One of the covers for issue #7 shows Sofia Murray in Mary's place and Vampirella herself in Jesus's place.
• The Lost Lenore: Adam Van Helsing is this to Vampirella.
• Real-World Episode: The first Dynamite run ends with Vampirella being sent to a universe by her mother Lilith where she is only a comicbook character.
• Shout-Out: There's a recurring Time Master who wears a giant bunny suit, presumably a reference to Frank from Donnie Darko.
• Sixth Ranger Traitor: Herr Schuld betrays Vampirella in order to infect Sofia Murray with his demonic rapist ancestor.
• Smug Snake:
  • Le Fanu is constantly owned by Vampirella despite her overwhelming confidence.
  • Herr Schuld recovers from his coma to try to recruit Vampirella. This is Too Dumb to Live and gets him killed.
• Soul Jar: Von Kreist lost most of his soul to a demon in a card game but left a piece of it in a deck of cards. He had his descendant Schuld transfer that piece into Sofia.
• Stuffed In A Fridge: Sofia Murray is killed by Dracula to cause Vampirella more stress.
• Taking the Bullet: Crisswell dies taking a blast from an evil future version of Adam that was meant for Vampirella.
• Talk to the Fist: In Issue #20, Dracula is about to give a grandoise speech but Vampirella will hear none of it and simply hits him to silence him.
  Vampirella: Oh shut up! Every time one of you idiot "Dark lords of the Universe" launch another master plan, I have to listen to you blather about it. So let's just skip the damned monologue.
• Time Master: Hopper is a time traveller wearing a bunny mask who keeps track of all events so he can guide events along their proper path. For one thing, acting as a mole against Quatermass' plot to conquer all of time.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: Giacomini's Apocrypha. Originally called the "De Fascino De Libre Tres", the book was written by a Catholic bishop named Vairo who was an expert occultist that understood the "fascination of evil". The book was stolen by one of Vairo's priests, Domenico Giacomini, who was jealous of the attention Vairo's work received in Rome. Forming a cult known as the Council of Worms, Giacomini took the ideas contained in the book further than anything Vairo had come up with and basically transformed it into an instruction manual on how to traffick with demons. The Council of Worms were eventually killed by the Cestus Dei, a covert operations force formed by Pope Clement X. It was believed the Apocrypha was destroyed by the Cestus Dei, however, some of the information within it survived and was scattered across the globe. Von Kreist intends to use it to restore his original body.
• The Worm That Walks: A recurring trend:
  • The giant worm god Yad-Ath Yermellus manifested itself as a swarm composed of thousands of worms during a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
  • The resurrected Von Kreist appears as a giant made of human skeletons in another mind sequence.
  • The demon Botis appears before a Vatican strike team in the physical world made up of hundreds of dead rats.

Exclusive to the 2014 Dynamite series

• Amphibian at Large: Issue #5 of the "Feary Tales" arc has Vampirella in a darker version of The Princess and The Frog in which the frog is a large and monstrous creature that eats people. After the "princess" punches him out for asking to stay in her bed, he returns to human form and Vampirella kills him for his crimes.
• And You Were There: Issue #2 of the "Feary Tales" miniseries has Vampirella being transported into a version of the Snow White story. There she meets fairy tail versions of her friends, Adam vs Helsing and Mordecai Pendragon.
• Bears Are Bad News: Vampirella has to deal with "werebears" in a Goldilocks and the Three Bears type story in "Feary Tales".
• Deadly Sparring: Draculina was sealed inside the book of Feary Tales by her mother Lilith when she made an attempt on Vampirella's life during one of their sparring matches.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: The first issues have Vampirella hunting down and killing certain types of vampires in order to drain their blood so she can face Chaos and his sister/wife Umbra.
• Inconspicuous Immortal: The Accursed are a trio of people whose sins were so vile that they were cursed to wonder the Earth as immortals for the remainder of all time. Each of them have relatively mundane lives in the present day; Medea is the owner of a an airline and sometimes dresses as a flight attendant, Dr. Faustus lends his services as a medical doctor wherever he goes (while secretly finding ways to spread a world-ending virus), and Cain is a farmer. This is justified by the fact that it makes it much more difficult for the Kabal to track them down.
• Interactive Narrator: Vampirella gets a very snarky one in "Feary Tales". She has a penchant for using alliteration and puns as well. She is actually the spirit of the book, modeled after Vampirella who is the keeper of the book. The reason Vampirella didn't remember the book is because Lilith erased it from her mind.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Sailor Jim is chained to the bottom of the ocean for eternity the same way he chained the mermaid princess Nala in the sun.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The first six issues deal with Vampirella hunting different breeds of vampire.
• Public Domain Character: Dr. Faust, Roderick Usher and Medea all appear in this run.
• Rhymes on a Dime: Everyone in the "Snow White" world in "Feary Tales" talks this way much to Vampirella's annoyance. Since rhyming doesn't come natural to her she sometimes just repeats the last word she said.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: Lilith imprisoned Draculina in the book of Feary Tales when she tried to kill Vampirella in a sparring match. Lilith then erased Vampirella's memory of Draculina.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: Roderick Usher is described as such by Tristan.
• Shout-Out: The "Snow White" issue of the Feary Tales" miniseries is this to the Betty Boop in Snow White cartoon. The issue is even dedicated to the animator of that cartoon, Roland C. Crandall.
• Storybook Episode:Vampirella Feary Tales'' is a five-issue miniseries in which the titular protagonist is sucked into a book of fairy tales.
  • Issue #1 has her facing Bluebeard and then escaping the captivity of her Wicked Stepmother and Ugly Stepsisters.
  • Issue #2 places Vampirella in the role of Snow White and then later on has her rescue the Little Mermaid from the abusive Sailor Jim.
  • Issue #3 has her against the The Three (were)Bears, then escapes the Nutcracker and finally in the role of Little Red Riding Hood.
  • Issue #4 has Vampirella acting out the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes in which the con artist tailors are asura and the villagers are BDSM vampires. She then goes on to battle evil, monstrous versions of Hansel and Gretel who were cursed by the food the witch gave them.
  • Issue #5 has Vampirella in a grittier version of the Princess and the Frog in which the Frog Prince is actually a serial killer. Then she goes on to the Sleeping Beauty tale where Sleeping Beauty is actually her evil twin sister Draculina who had been imprisoned in the book by Lilith.
• When Trees Attack: A sentient tree saves Vampirella from being beheaded in Issue #2 of the "Feary Tales" miniseries.
• You Kill It, You Bought It: Vampirella inherits Drago's castle after she kills him in battle.

Exclusive to the 2015 and 2016 Dynamite series

• All Part of the Show: Slade uses real monsters for her creature features and has them kill the extras for food (and payment).
• Battle Butler: Coleridge is Vampirella's. He'll do anything for her even though he's only human (though in the 2015 series he's also immortal by way of curse).
• Big Bad: Slade is the villain of the first arc, "Hollywood Horror."
• Bury Your Gays: Resoundingly averted with the supporting cast.
• The Bus Came Back: Dynamite the bus parked containing Vampirella's blonde sister Draculina in a garage on Drakulon and reintroduced her into the story line.
• Charm Person: Juliette's power and she used to be very unethical about it, including using to get women she's attracted to.
• Cool House: Vampirella owns one of these.
• Costume Evolution: Vampirella goes from the thong bikini she normally wears to an outfit more suited for the Roller Derby.
• Deal with the Devil: Genevieve's father made a deal with Slade, eventually making her effectively Slade's slave for life.
• Death Seeker: In the 2015 series, the immortals Medea, Dr. Faustus and Cain really want release and so they concoct a far-fetched plan to end the world.
• Denser and Wackier: A series with Hollywood B-movie monsters, jokes, and oddballs.
• Dysfunctional Family: Vampirella gets reunited with her twin sister Draculina, and their long-lost dad, the biblical Cain. Naturally it ends in a vicious fight between the two sisters.
• Eye Scream: Draculina viciously rakes Vampirella around the eyes with her claws. This blinds Vampirella and leaves her with gouging furroughs from forehead to cheekbone for the rest of the issue.
• Fan Disservice: During the Nancy Collin's reboot series, Lord Drago tells Vampirella how each of the rare vampire species came to be. And each time he does that, there's an accompanying picture of the beautiful Lilith having sex with a barely humanoid demon.
• Fate Worse than Death: Slade can't be killed by conventional means. So Vampirella drains her dry and then pickles her.
• Gay Best Friend: Averted as Juliette and later Genevieve are both three dimensional characters.
• Happily Married: Tristan and Vampirella in all but name.
• Happy-Ending Massage: In her hunt for the Krasue, Vampirella stays at the resort that the Krasue owns. A handsome Thai man is sent to give Vampi a massage and ends in the pair having sex.
• Horrible Hollywood: The setting for the revived series is a supernatural afflicted Los Angeles.
• Immediate Sequel: Kate Leth's Hollywood Horror story arc takes place 3 hours after Nancy Collin's Queen of the Nosferatu arc ended (Vampirella has quelled the Nosferatu uprising and given her claim to the throne to her nephew. She still gets to keep much of the wealth and the immortal butler she inherited which leads to them returning to the United States.)
• It Is Beyond Saving: In the 2015 series, the plan of the 3 cursed immortals is this. They would create a zombie plague so contagious that it would turn all of humanity into psychopathic abominations and this would make The Powers That Be destroy the world (including those immortals) and start anew.
• Lighter and Softer: A generally goofy tongue-in-cheek series versus the previous Darker and Edgier one.
• People Jars: Slade ends up as one of these.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: #1, "Fried Pie" Alternate Cover. (Probably not the only one ever.)
• Super-Strength: Slade is so strong that she can control Vampirella by force alone, using only one arm.
• Take That Us:
  • Vampirella pokes fun at her former outfit, commenting it's not terribly practical and attracts the wrong kind of attention (fanboys).
  • A similar one is made at the comic book geeks when Vampirella attends Comic Con.
• The Younger Immortal: In the 2015 series, Vampirella's parents are the biblical Lilith and Cain. However Cain notes that the first time he met his daughters was 20 years ago when he finds 2 little girls - Draculina and Vampirella, running away from home. This puts Vampirella in her mid to late twenties, making her younger than most of the humans let alone the immortals. Her own nephew is about 220 years older than her and even Tristan was a World War 2 veteran before becoming a werewolf. Her youth makes it difficult for her Nosferatu subjects to respect her, which help lead to an attempted coup d'etat on her.
• Vampires Own Nightclubs: Vampirella visits one of these when she comes to Hollywood. It becomes a regular haunt.
• Vegetarian Vampire: Vampirella lives off a blood substitute in this series and is even called out as a "vegan."

Exclusive to the 2017 series

• After the End: Vampirella wakes from hibernation into a very distant future where some unspecified catastrophe happened, but had drastically changed society.
• Alien Blood: Humanity gets this. People will have black blood, the first time any future human sees red blood was when Vicki Vincent sees Vampirella get wounded. Vampirella actually finds black blood more sustaining than our contemporary red.
• Boyish Short Hair: Vampirella adopts one as part of her new look.
• Brain Food: The Big Bad punishes a clown by removing his brain and drinking it from a tea cup.
• Clown Car: A bunch of clowns cops roll up in a police cruiser and Vampirella mocks them for only bringing two. Obviously, an entire army then emerges from the car.
• Complete Immortality: After Vampirella destroys Hell, there's no more death. Humanity falls apart in half a year, as starving and angry immortals hack away at each other, only to find no one dies. Vampirella and Vicki go on a quest to find God, so that some kind of afterlife can happen.
• Denser and Wackier: A lot of bizarre things happen in this story without explanation or context. It's weirder than anything else featured in Vampirella by far.
• Face–Heel Turn: Vampirella's old friend Pantha went a little nuts during Lucifer's global takeover and now she's a brutal sadist with a huge grudge against Vampirella for not being around when things went to hell.
• Gratuitous Nazis: In the post-apocalyptic future, the Third Reich just randomly pops up out of the ground again.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The two surviving rebels in the beginning find Vampirella's tomb, only to see she is long dead and largely decayed. To bring her back, they realize that they need to give her all their blood.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Vampirella becomes this when her adventures go Mad Max. At one point, she jokes around when she ripped the jaw off of a road warrior and beats his comrades up with it.
• Humans Are White: Vampirella, on seeing the future Los Angeles, mentions that everyone there is white (and notes the irony coming from her). There's a good reason for that, Lucifer dumped all the minorities in the lowest circle of hell - "The Circle of Otherness".
• Inner Monologue: Each page at the bottom, there's a line that's the last thought of the person involved. Usually it's Vampirella's, but others including Vicki and Lucifer had their moments.
• Light Is Not Good: Lucifer, the Big Bad, is depicted as a blonde angel with a white toga instead of a Big Red Devil.
• Make the Bear Angry Again: Implied in the backstory, during the time Vampirella was under hibernation, Russia is said to have expanded its borders across the world and has become known as Greater Russia.
• Me's a Crowd: When Vampirella does a Journey to the Center of the Mind, she encounters the various Vampirellas that symbolized memories of other realities (including L'il Vampi, Hollywood Vampirella, original Vampirella and etc.). During Vampirella's deep sleep, she completely drained out the minds of all these Vampirellas. Some of these Vampirellas were unhappy about this and an all-out brawl breaks out.
• Minidress of Power: Vampirella's outfit in this series which she buys from a store to fit in the time period.
• Monster Clown: The Clown Cops are diminutive policemen dressed like cops which serve as local law enforcement and are quite brutal.
• Oh, Crap!: Pantha gets one at the end, when the goddess Maat returns to judge her. Pantha by this time had been a villainess for centuries and gets punished by being fed to the crocodile god Sobek.
• President Evil: It's revealed that the current state of society was caused by Lucifer who managed to get elected as President of the United States and managed to ease people's lives a great deal... By having them surrendering his souls to him.
• Portable Hole: The clowns throw a hole at Vampirella and Vickie while they are trying to escape with a car.
• Retro Future: In the year 3000+, we'll be using crap from the 1960s and '70s.
• Self-Deprecation: A rare case of strawman self-deprecation in issue 7. The authors pile a buttload of sarcasm on the weaknesses of the former Vampirellas during their mega retcon for the all-new, all-different Vampirella. Which will be the final, unchangeable Vampirella. Like the ten times before.
• Skyscraper City: The city of Los Angeles is depicted like.
• Thanatos Gambit: Vicky saves the world when she pulls one of these off against Pantha. Pantha had the unique ability to send people to the world of the dead. Vicky pretends to betray Vampirella so that she can die and search for God in the afterlife.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox: In this series, there's a prophecy book that mentions that all of Vampirella's events and origins are true and Lucifer confirms this. He explains how she is a vampire human alien and etc.all at once. All those differing accounts are dream fragments of alternate realities of Vampirella and over time (1000 years of sleep) these conflicting bits of reality are becoming a part of this version of Vampi.
• This Isn't Heaven: The people are taught that heaven is only reachable by having enough money, turns out that death means you either become a digital ghost that eventually revives or you go to Hell. Luckily in this story, Lucifer is thoroughly bored with torturing souls so Hell isn't that awful.
• Too Dumb to Live: A couple of punks want payment from Vampirella if they're going to answer her questions. The main punk grabs Vampirella's breast to show what kinda payment he wants. Vampi actually lets this slide, so the punk then reaches down and shakes his penis at her. At this point, Vampirella wants to test her theory about this world's reality and kills him.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: A woman with bat-wings flying in the night doesn't scare or stun anyone in the future. They are probably used to weirder stuff.

Exclusive to the 2019 series

• All Therapists Are Muggles: After the plane crash, Vampirella starts visiting a therapist to deal with her issues. Naturally, the guy doesn't believe that she's an alien vampire or that other supernatural creatures exist. He's so committed to being The Scully that even shoving a horde of zombies in his face sends him into instant denial mode.
• Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi: A casual Friday night for Vampirella is killing a mugger to feed on him, going to see a Tom Cruise movie, and brainwashing two humans to engage in a threeway with her, then removing their memory of the event afterwards.
• Fan Disservice:
  • There's a sex scene between villains Von Kreist and the Blood Red Queen of Hearts, the former of whom is a rotting corpse, and the latter of whom is possessing a very fat woman.
  • One of the alternative covers for issue 16 shows Vampirella in her classic outfit, except without her eternal youth. It's not a pretty sight◊.
• Mugging the Monster: Vampirella is approached by a disgusting homeless addict in a subway who is clearly considering raping her. After going along with it and Showing Some Leg, she eats him.

Crossovers and Elseworlds

• Armed with Canon: Amy Chu prefers the bonkers "Vampirella is an alien from the planet Drakulon" origin to her being the daughter of Lilith. It is her origin in the Red Sonja and Vampirella Meet Betty and Veronica comic.
• Chest Burster: In Vampirella vs. Aliens, Vampi is one of several people who get a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong and subsequent baby Xenomorphs bursting out of their chests. Notable in that she actually survives thanks to her durability as a vampire and Healing Factor. Though this does lead to a winged Xenomorph later on...
• Destination Defenestration: In the crossover with KISS, the band gets thrown out of the window by the music industry. Who are demons. Luckily, Vampirella can fly.
• Face–Heel Turn: In Hack/Slash Resurrection, it's Vampirella who betrays the team. Turns out she'd been seeing the vampire Big Bad on the side for a few days and came under her spell.
• Foil: Catwoman, in the crossover, quickly realizes she is just a cute lil puttytat in comparison, especially when Pantha shows up and her claws.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: The Holy Therns kidnap both Dejah and Vampirella so that they would become "mates" (i.e. concubines) to Matai Shang, their Holy Hekkador.
• Lovely Angels: Whenever she teams up with Red Sonja during the latter's visits to the future.
• Mayfly–December Romance: In the Hack/Slash comics, Vampirella is smitten with Vlad. In those stories, she's 1000 years old while Vlad is in his thirties. Vampirella also got hot for a teen-aged vampire girl as well.
• Race Against the Clock: The plot in Vampirella/Dejah Thoris deals with an race against time to save Mars from an imminent invasion of bloodthirsty Drakulonians.
• Stealth Pun: The crossover with Catwoman, which is subtitled "The Furies". Both readings actually give away the twist: There are traditionally three furies. And two furries - Pantha will appear too.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: She shares this title with the goddess Dawn in their crossover, the demon Masodik kidnaps the two because they're the two most beautiful women in all the worlds.

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