I, Vampire

I, Vampire (collected editions)

by J.M. DeMatteis

Lord Andrew Bennett, a vampire, turned his lover, Mary Seward, into a vampire, in the hopes of keeping her by his side through eternity. However, her power caused her to become evil. She took the name Mary, Queen of Blood and led a group of vampires called The Blood Red Moon in a quest to take over the world. The series follows Bennett into the modern day as he tries to defeat Mary and The Blood Red Moon.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Vampires, Graphic Novels Comics, Fantasy, Dc Comics

Paperback

First published February 1, 2012

About the author

Also Credited As:
DeMatteis, John Marc
Ellis, Michael
Lombego, Wally

Bio:
J.M. DeMatteis was a professional musician/singer and rock music journalist before entering comics in the late 70's.

Credits include Spider-Man, Moonshadow, Brooklyn Dreams, Justice League, Abadazad, Hero Squared, the Life and Times of Savior 28.

Created I, Vampire , Creature Commandos, Moonshadow, Hero Squared (co-creator), Abadazad, Stardust Kid, Savior 28 and more.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different comic read. One of the first anti-hero comics to showcase a very non-standard main character. Good read with some very nice art from the era. Recommended

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a series that was ahead of its time. I'm sure it had to be influenced somewhat by Interview with a Vampire. You have a vampire in the 1500s who changes his bride to be into a vampire so they can spend eternity together, only to have her evil side win out. So he spends the next 400 years battling her as she forms a vampire organization in an attempt to take over the world. He ends up with a couple of human companions, both with cool backstories. Through in some time travel (even woodstock) and you end up with a great vampire tale. This ran through the old House of Mystery horror comic so the chapters were shorter, which actually worked great for this series.

If you like are a fan of vampire stories, whether you like Anne Rice or not, check this one out. It's close enough to Anne Rice type stories that her fans will enjoy it, but it has enough traditional Dracula style content that other vampire fans will enjoy it as well.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects the run of I...Vampire! that ran in various issues of House of Mystery in the early 1980s. Series creators J.M. DeMatteis and Tom Sutton only produced a hand full of these stories, and later writers include Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn and artist Ernie Colon and others. Covers included are by legendary artists Joe Kubert and Michael Kaluta.

The story centers around nobleman Andrew Bennett, who 400 years ago was turned into a vampire and eventually turned his girlfriend, Mary Seward, as well. The difference is that Bennett recoils from the hunger for human blood whereas Mary revels in it. Soon they become bitter enemies, as Mary starts her Cult of the Blood Red Moon in her attempt to eradicate humanity and bring her vampire followers to the fore.

Along the way, Bennett picks up a couple of hangers-on, Deborah Dancer and Dmitri Mishkin, two human accomplices who help Bennett in his quest to bring Mary and her minions to heel. Bennett travels around the world and through time before the classic ending presented here.

These stories range from 8 to 12 pages, so for many readers the stories will appear short and a bit jumpy. At first, the I...V feature was erratic, then it became the regular lead feature, so each story does not always flow into the next all that well. I found the overall reading experience exhilarating, though, and by the end of the book the arc of the story is seamless and left me wanting more.

House of Mystery was canceled sometime right before Crisis on Infinite Earths, I believe, and I...V was wrapped up very nicely also. This volume also includes a team-up with Batman from The Brave and The Bold, placed at the end because, even though time-wise it is out of place there, to try and fit it in the middle of the book would have been jarring. It's really not necessary to continuity, but considering our current Batmania it was probably included as a pull for Batman fans. Written by Mike W Barr and drawn by B&B artist Jim Aparo, it's a rather neat one-and-done.

So, this is a full story. Definitely worth reading. The reproduction is very nice, as the art and colors look better here on glossy paper than the original newsprint. I'll be diving into the New 52's version of I, Vampire (with the original ellipses replaced by a comma) and seeing how well they compare. Definitely recommended for Bronze Era DC fans.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a lot of fun. I dug the premise, the chapter length (it was an ongoing story in the DC anthology House of Mystery), and all the characters. I was not a huge fan of Sutton's artwork, which put me off, as I thought I'd always heard such great things about his stuff, that I'd automatically dig it. The few stories where Ernie Colón filled in for Sutton made his return extra-painful.
The writing was usually solid, with a few notable exceptions: one particular story was a flashback to Woodstock that was unintentionally hilarious. Seeing the heroic vampire walking through the crowds of stoned hippies, staking the undercover vampires while everyone else zoned on the music, made me giggle a bit. Other than that, this was a blast: there's an ending (marred by the out-of-continuity team-up w/ Batman thrown onto the end of the collection), mind-bogglingly impossible time travel (yes, I know that sounds absurd itself), and twists & turns galore. Recommended for fans of pulp/serial fun and anyone who digs supernatural adventure. Like a lovely blend of Tomb of Dracula - Volume 1, The Night Stalker, and The Fu Manchu Omnibus 1.

[Mike Clooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised, albeit pleasantly so, to see this nearly-forgotten little gem from the late Bronze Age collected. It was never a huge fan favorite even in its original run, and I doubt many modern fans were even aware of its existence. I suppose it was published to tie in with Andrew Bennett's current revival in DC's "New 52" line.

Although it's become an almost hackneyed cliche in the wake of Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer, the idea of a tortured vampire protagonist was fairly unique in 1980. The dialogue and art are a bit clunky by modern standards, but there's a fun gothic atmosphere, and the frequent flashbacks (as well as a time-travel arc) allow for adventures in various historical milieus. Love, love, love the eerie covers by the great Mike Kaluta - pin-up quality stuff.

The series is collected here in its entirety, with a Batman team-up from BRAVE AND THE BOLD tacked on for good measure. My only real objection is that the glossy paper chosen for this collection makes the primary color palette used in comics of the 80s for cheap newsprint seem almost garish. This would have looked much better printed on softer stock. Not high literature by any means, but a fun diversionary read.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always a sucker for vampires but I've never really delved sufficiently into the world of vampire comics. But I've had this collection for a while and figured it would be a good starting point, especially since while I also want to tackle Tomb of Dracula, one volume is more manageable than five.

Speaking of, the timing makes me assume this may have been a rather belated DC attempt to imitate Marvel's big vampire series. Perhaps wisely they chose to go with entire original vampires, even if they stick closely to the classic vampire rules. Well, pretty closely. Sunlight is always deadly but it seems to vary from story to story whether stakes are an instant kill or just a disabler, and in general there's some stuff with the setting and rules that feels a bit fluid between and even within issues.

But the overall premise is pretty great. The titular vampire is Andrew Bennett, once a mortal man in the time of Queen Elizabeth until he was bitten by a vampire. Perhaps because he slew his sire before turning or perhaps for some other reason, Andrew isn't a monster like most other vampires. Something he learned only too well when he gave into his lover's demands and bit her, transforming her into Mary, Queen of Blood, series archvillain and leader of an amorphously large criminal organization of vampires with somewhat nebulous goals.

The typical story sees Andrew and his mortal assistants, the Russian vaguely Van Helsingish Mishkin and love interested Deborah, find a group of vampires working for Mary who are up to no good. The heroes then proceed to fight them and their mortal pawns, using staking a bunch of vampires and possibly coming face to face with Mary only for her to escape. It's fun to see evil vampires manipulating 80s culture, doing things like backing white supremacist groups or turning a whole temple of taoist monks into vampires.

The stories do tend to suffer a bit from being just one part of an anthology comic, with the result that they're usually 10-12 pages. You get enough time to sketch out an idea, and often a pretty cool one, but I feel like things would be even better if there was more time to breathe. While the comic has a fair bit of continuity from the start, it soon starts doing strongly serialized storylines. Probably the two biggest are one involving time travel and a cancer cure, and a second that actually closes out Andrew's story.

The first starts simple enough with vampires dying from human blood tainted by a cancer vaccine, only to quick get bonkers when time travel is introduced. I know I'm reading a comic book about vampires but there's something that always rankles a little when you start throwing completely new supernatural or sci-fi elements into something that's so far just had one specific premise. Then again, the time travel does allow for revisiting Andrew's origin and tying him more closely to Deborah by showing him saving her as a child. This then leads into a backstory issue about how they first met at Woodstock which has a hilarious moment where a bunch of newborn vamps are disintegrated by sheer good vibes. The story finally gets back on track and ends with some fun revelations about where the cancer cure came from and why exactly it's killing vampires.

The final story feels like it was meant to be longer, but Andrew's tales ended up wrapping just before House of Mystery itself did. Mishkin's mother is a vampire, a plot thread that only pops up a few times during the course of the series, but it leads the cast to the Soviet Union. There they discover solar laser weapons that can kill vampires and a possible cure for the bad side of vampirism. Of course, it seems that the cure is not all it first appears, and soon things are moving rapidly towards a final showdown with Mary. The ending is relatively satisfactory though it actually ends up with me wanting a follow up story showing the new adventures of the surviving characters, or at least one more epilogue.

Amusingly the people compiling this volume couldn't seem to figure out where to place the Batman crossover, so that gets shoved in right at the end after an emotional resolution. It's not a bad story though it does expose how little I know about Batman's early 80s status quo. And it's funny to explicitly tie this story into the wider DC universe given stuff like the cancer cure that should've been looked into by plenty of the resident supers. Plus, given what happens in the main story it seems unlikely that Andrew and Bruce would've ever had occasion to team up a second time.

Still, while I have some quibbles - I would've ditched the time travel stuff and used those issues to expand some of the other plot threads - I had a lot of fun reading this. The story has a great premise that helps set it up for a good number of different adventures, and it's nice to see something with strong continuity but that doesn't turn into a sprawling mess or require me to track down five unrelated comics. The art is great and it's definitely an enjoyable vampire story. I think I would've liked this even if the series just petered out at the end, but having a proper resolution is pretty cool. And I'm not actually done with Andrew yet, because they revived him for the New 52, so I have three whole volumes of 2010s vampire comics I now need to read.

[Tressa23 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The comic I got hooked on. Wonderful childhood flashback!

[Artur Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este curioso personagem da DC é mantido vivo enquanto elemento secundário dos títulos da editora mais virados para o sobrenatural, como Justice League Dark ou as várias iterações de Constantine. O curioso é descobrir que, na sua aparição original nos anos 80, o personagem foi planeado como de vida curta, criado por J.M DeMatteis e Tom Sutton para a House of Mystery.

É esse arco original que este livro nos traz. DeMatteis e Sutton conceberam Andrew Bennett como um anti-herói - um vampiro atípico, consciente do mal, e que se dedica a combater uma organização secreta de vampiros que procura dominar o mundo. O toque de melancolia é dado pela rainha dos vampiros, a mulher que Bennett sempre amou, e quis transformar em vampira para garantir a imortalidade do seu amor. Mas nem todos têm a fibra moral de Bennett para se manterem acima dos impulsos vampíricos, e a mulher de Bennett é ao mesmo tempo um ideal perdido e uma inimiga formidável.

A saga de I... Vampire! conta-se em episódios que se vão alongando à medida que a série ganhou fãs. O tema é sempre o mesmo. Bennett e um par de aliados, uma jovem destemida cujo passado tem uma relação com o vampiro, e um velho russo que procura a sua mãe, transformada em vampira e ela própria uma das mais poderosas. Os conflitos com outros vampiros são constantes, e a história evolui de formas bizarras, envolvendo experiências genéticas, viagens no tempo, ou tecnologia soviética para manter imortais os membros do politburo com toques de vampirismo (notem que este comic foi originalmente publicado nos anos 80). Termina com a morte de Bennett após tomar a fórmula soviética, que lhe restaura parcialmente a humanidade com a mortalidade incluída, e também a morte da rainha dos vampiros, às mãos da jovem que ajuda Bennett, ela própria transformada num novo tipo de vampiro.

Este I... Vampire! original é bizarro e surreal, com os argumentistas a experimentar todas as tropes do sobrenatural que se lembraram para meter nas histórias. DeMatteis é conhecido pelas suas histórias mais esotéricas, mas a continuidade da série foi entregue a Bruce Jones e outros, e é aí que ela se torna ainda mais weird. Bennett inverte o mito de Dracula com um vampiro nostálgico pelo amor que perdeu, capaz de ceder aos seus impulsos de morder pescoços, e inimigo mortal dos vampiros tradicionalmente predadores dos humanos. Um divertido blast from the past, que enquadra um personagem sombrio que a DC vai mantendo nas periferias das suas séries regulares.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ian Sattler dropped the ball in editing this collection. First he omits the backstory of an important device. There is a footnote that says "see previous story." Readers of I... Vampire! in periodical form, unless they had a mutilated copy, had access to this backstory, while the contemporary reader has to search back issue bins. One wonders if he actually read the material before assembling this volume. Witness the inclusion of the Batman team-up from The Brave and the Bold inserted as though it were an appendix, when the series has a definitive conclusion right before. Although the story is a little extraneous to the flow, it fits a lot better chronologically after the story of the same month, which is the end of a story arc. The next month's story is the beginning of the conclusion, and significant time has passed between the two issues, so no one who actually looked at the material would put it before the story of that same month.

I read J.M. DeMatteis's material the first day I bought this and told him via that I thought it holds up well. He left the book too soon. I am guessing he thinks so as well, since he brought Andrew Bennett back when he wrote Doctor Fate, although I read that two years ago and don't recall how he did it (or if--it's possible he ignored Mishkin and Cohn's conclusion). Mishkin and Cohn's work is nearly as good, and really barrels the story to a climax, tying up loose ends like why cancer isn't cured in the DC Universe when Bruce Jones's arc suggests that it has, and eventually leading toward the final (and surprising) fates of Andrew Bennett and Deborah Dancer. DeMatteis and Cohn and Mishkin managed to keep me guessing, and the art, by the likes of Tom Sutton, Dan Day, Ernie Colón and Paris Cullins feels more like the dark and trippy seventies than the staid and sedate art of 1980s comics (the serial ended in 1983). I cannot say the same for that of Bruce Jones, which felt predictable and comic-booky in the negative sense. During the course that I read this volume, I also read Bruce Jones's "A Little Knowledge..." in Weird War Tales #103, and I was thoroughly impressed. It may be that he was called upon to write material that didn't affect the status quo of the series, although the cancer cure plot element seems to suggest otherwise, particularly when he left before that element was resolved. I don't really know the exigencies of the second act lull, just that I found it that way.

It would be great if DC had felt the urge to include Deborah Dancer in subsequent stories with a supernatural bend. It appears her only subsequent appearance was in Doctor Fate (vol. 2) #2, and that might have been a flashback. (My Doctor Fate issues are in a storage unit that I can afford to visit only about once a month or a bit less, and I was still only about 70% done with this volume on my last visit, so I didn't know that I would want to check.)

This volume was clearly brought out to tie in with the unsuccessful New 52 I, Vampire, which was cancelled after only 19 issues. (It would be amusing if the fact that I... Vampire! ended in House of Mystery #319 had anything to do with that decision.) That may account for the omission of "The Rings of Kur-Alet" from House of Mystery #305, which was written by Bruce Jones and April Campbell and serves as a prelude to Jones's entire arc of the series. If even more care had been taken in the volume, Stephen DeStefano's parody, "I... Baby Vampire" from House of Mystery #321 (the final issue) might also have been included. I doubt DC will be putting out a new edition of this any time soon. Apparently sales figures weren't any better than the revival to warrant a volume put together with care. It seems to me that volumes in which the last page is comics rather than a house ad for other trades are rush jobs, but perhaps that has something to do with page signatures, instead. It just seems like these sorts of mistakes, such as the cover of The Superman Chronicles vol. 2 claiming to feature Lex Luthor, which it doesn't (although the bald Ultra-Humanite might make it appear so on flipping through) appear more often in volumes where no such ads are included. This is more a concern in a library copy, when such pages often come out. I purchased mine with a 40% off discount ($30 for this volume is pretty steep--although it collects a lot of issues, this was a serial and never took anywhere close to the entirety of an issue--but the paper is high grade and the material worth having), so this isn't so much of an issue.

While the idea of a vampire resisting harming innocent people and playing the hero has become commonplace, it was relatively new at the time, at least for the somber and serious treatment it receives here. Marvel's Michael Morbius didn't take that route until his self-titled series in 1992. Previously, he was riddled with guilt but always succumbed, and after being cured (temporarily), he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, brought down from first degree murder with the aid of Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk). John Landis's film, Innocent Blood, also appeared in 1992. Dwayne McDuffie and Ernie Colón's Monster in My Pocket, in which a good Vampire battled with an evil Warlock over the fate of humanity, appeared in 1991. Andrew Bennett was introduced in 1981, a point when it seems the only vampires that were even particularly sympathetic were Barnabas Collins and Michael Morbius. The volume really gets into Bennett's anguish, and as we read further, other vampires' anguish at their affliction. Also, while Michael Morbius was conceived as a scientific vampire in keeping with the themes of the Spider-Man series, which normally eschews the supernatural, Bennett's condition, while treated as true vampirism, is studied scientifically behind the scenes and given a scientific explanation. While often imitated, these concepts definitely hold up in the original version, and one wonders why Bennett was never included in any Vertigo series. He would have been a natural back in the day when Vertigo was primarily exploring the supernatural end of the DC Universe.

[Blake Selph · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a little bit silly almost, in its borderline theatrical presentation of Andrew Bennett... Vampire!!! But I say silly in an endearing way. It is, overall, a pretty simple story about a good vampire trying to fight and take responsibility for evil, and it's really well told. The colors are intense and the artwork dynamic. The emotional stakes are real. Recommended.

[Erin Newton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover art for this is amazing. The story is an adventurous saga that’s soooo long. This was so confusing to follow and the lettering was too slanted and tiny.

[Bill Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Telling the tale of Andrew Bennett, the vampire who narrates the story, this collection chronicles his struggle to put an end to the woman who was once the love of his life, but is now Mary, Queen of Blood. Through a series of short stories, Bennett's life unfolds including the fateful day he is transformed into a vampire and his quest to fix the things he and his kind had broken.

This compilation of the long-running House of Mystery series is hard to read. The prose is purple and the art is, well, expressive. The opening line of every little bit of story begins with a mission statement that gets to the point and gets you into the story.

"400 years ago, my vampiric kiss transformed the woman I loved into a soulless thing called Mary, Queen of Blood. Today, she seeks undead domination of the planet. While I seek to stop her before it is too late. I, Andrew Bennett... I Vampire!"

The settings for the drama and fights are familiar from horror stories of that era... the abandoned funhouse, the lost Nazi submarine full of murderous skeletons, the deconsecrated church, Paris. Those sites were probably novel in the day, but seem a bit worn now.

There is some original thinking in the story and interesting story-telling with an eye toward compression. The odd bit in this trade is the issue of The Brave and the Bold when Andrew Bennett meets Batman and the two of them fight gangsters.

An interesting, flawed work but dated.

[Mark Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book is definitely of its time in terms of writing and more kid friendly story points, it also goes places you don't expect. Blood and Death are around every corner and no one is safe. This volume is a complete story, leading to it's final cataclysmic ending. While there might have been some 70s/80s comic silliness along the way ultimately its a fun story all around.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh so melodramatic.

[Beau Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I managed to get hold of a copy of this as a pre-teen and was blown away. I haven't read it in years, but I'm going to dig it out of the storage container and read it again.