Tear Jerker / DC vs. Vampires

• Hal is genuinely remorseful at the fact he has to kill his Barry and would have wanted to turn him but was ordered not to due to how dangerous that would have been. Doesn’t help that Barry tries to plead with his best friend until the very end.
  Hal: (shedding a Single Tear Of Blood) I'm so sorry, Barry. I wanted to conquer the world with you.
• After Barry's death, Diana promises Hal, who everybody knows was Barry's closest friend, that they'll find the culprit. After she discovers Hal has become a vampire and is the one who did it, she can only react with anger and heartbreak before being turned herself.
• Jayna being deeply concerned about her brother Zan's disappearance is pretty upsetting. Especially when she finds out what happened to him.
  Jayna: (whilst crying, holding Zan's retrieved severed fingertip) This is all that's left of him...
• Once Hal is captured, Green Arrow, who originally didn't believe Batman when told Hal had killed Barry, asks him if his friend is still in there. Hal calmly explains he's still the same person, even if he's now a vampire and that all the adventures and memories they shared together aren't gone.
  Green Arrow: That's what I was afraid of. The friend I loved like a brother is trapped in there. And even if he can't say it right now, I know he couldn't live with what he did to Barry. This is for Barry. And this is for you, my brother.
  • Even after this, it's clear Oliver himself could only see his friend up until the very end, as when Batman questions staking Hal, Green Arrow lashes out at him and tells him not to talk to him until he has had to put down one of his own.
• Bruce himself spends most of the series hesitating about the nature of the conflict, from not being sure about trusting his friends, family and allies to wondering whether he'd be able to stake one of his own when the time comes. After several close calls and not closer than before when it comes to finding the vampire king, he decides to call the rest of the Justice League. It's then that Nightwing reveals himself as the king and kills him.
• Notably, when Barbara tells Bruce the king is one of their own, he looks at the rest of the Batfamily, but he doesn't have time to look at Dick Grayson before he attacks him from the back.
• While the rest of the Batfamily immediatly attack Nightwing in anger, Afred and Damian's reactions are particularly heartbreaking as they stop frozen for a moment after realizing what just happened.
  Damian: Father, hang on. Please. Please.
• The deaths of most of the Batfamily at Nightwing's hands, Tim and Damian each pleading with Dick to stop up until the point where Dick crushes Tim's head.
  • Wonder Woman and Nightwing are about to turn Jason into a vampire when he asks Green Arrow to shoot him.
• Of all people, Director Bones' death. After being caught in a nuclear explosion, he survives as a disembodied skull for a little while, using his last moments to guide Jayna and Supergirl to safety. While they travel, Jayna tells him that she lost someone who wanted to be a hero, and he gives her sincere and genuine encouragement. When she admits that she doesn't know if she can do it, she realizes that Bones has already passed.
  Bones: Be the hero you lost, Jayna...
  Jayna: I don't know if I have that in me, mr. Bones. I just want to make them pay for what they've done. [...] Mr. Bones?
  Bones' skull lies silent
• When Supergirl is brought to the Bottle City of Kandor by the resistance, she asks where the native Kandorians are. She's told that the vampires had already been through the city and eliminated the Kryptonians living there, all with the help of the vampire Kal-El. Supergirl is heartbroken at the news that her cousin had helped wipe out their own people.
• In general, seeing many heroes like Superman, Power Girl, Wonder Woman or Wonder Girl, having succumbed to the vampire curse can be hard for many readers, because unlike other dystopian Elseworlds like, for example, the Injustice series, none of these people have chosen this fate of their volition, but are powerless stop the external, malignant force that now shapes their new nature.
• Dark Birth, the backstory of how Dick Grayson is turned into a vampire in the first place, is a conga line of tear jerking moments, despite how short it is:
  • First of all, after Dick discovers what the vampires want from him, he rushes to leave with his sister Melinda. It's only then he realizes she has betrayed him. She was already turned and had lured him into a trap.
  • Melinda subtly mocking him and telling him the ruse was easy because family is the most important thing to him. Even so, he still doesn't want fight her and tries to flee. It's an eerie contrast to his own betrayal and ambush of the Batfamily later in the story.
  • When staking the vampires that are trying to swarm him, he keeps repeating to himself that “they are already dead”. Notably, he isn't nonchalant about it and seems to repeat it to convince himself and focus on fleeing.
  • Once he realizes he's got no way to escape, before being completely immobilized, he reminisces about Bruce, the Titans, Barbara and even Hayley...
  • Before being turned, even though he's understandably enraged at Melinda for the situation, he can't bring himself to stake her. Melinda herself seems to have a moment of tenderness and understanding with him before the Vamprie Queen sinks her teeth into his neck:
  Dick Grayson: (as he can't bring himself to stake her) I...
  Melinda Zucco: I know.
• Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel's confrontation is one of the more heartwrenching and terrifying moment in the series, due to how it's build up:
  • Throughout the story, we discover that Mary and Billy's Shazam forms are separate from their human bodies, which means turning one doesn't necessarily mean turning the other.
  • They fight and Captain Marvel tells Mary to finish her journey and become a vampire in both forms so they can be a family again. She's having none of it. Meanwhile, Booster Gold asks himself if the siblings scould truly hurt each other.
  Booster Gold: She could be okay, right? Even now, he wouldn't... She's his sister. She's his siter.
  • Captain Marvel was vampirized in his superpowered form, while Mary Broomfield was turned in her human one. While she uses her Mary Marvel form to sidestep the infection, during their fight Mary has no other option other than saying Shazam! which turns them both into their "normal" forms.
  • Human Billy doesn't remember what his other half did other than it's bad. For him it's been like having a nightmare.
  • Mary then appears from the darkness, with glowing red eyes. She hugs him an tells him everything is going to be alright.
  Mary Broomfield: (as she's about to sink her fangs into his neck) No more nightmares ever again, I promise.
  • The thirst takes over her and she bites him. When she goes back to the group, she's got blood over her mouth and asks them to kill her as she admits she doesn't know much longer will she be able to fight the thirst.