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Mary, Queen of Blood is a powerful 16th Century vampire and leader to the Cult of the Blood Red Moon. Her arch-nemesis and former lover is Andrew Bennett, a good vampire who hunts her across the Earth to end the evil he started.

Origins

In the year 1591, Mary lived in London as a handmaiden to Queen Elizabeth. Her lover Andrew Bennett was a decorated nobleman, one day bitten and turned into a vampire. Mary begged Andrew to bite her as well, so that they might spend eternity together. Although Andrew maintained his conscience and resisted the bloodlust, Mary embraced the power of Hell and became a ruthless murderer. They split apart and she formed an international vampire cult called the Blood Red Moon, while Andrew hunted her down across the centuries to stop her.[1]

There were many hurt or killed in her adventures over the years. In Russia she bit a woman named Dunya Mishkin, causing Andrew to raise her son Dmitri Mishkin as a vampire hunter.[2] When she attended the Woodstock festival to recruit more vampires, she drove another young woman named Deborah Dancer into Andrew's crusade.[3] Her visit to the Temple of the Ineffable Tao created a rare group of peaceful vampire monks led by Master Shoju.[4]

I...Vampire!

Andrew Bennett, Deborah Dancer and Dmitri Mishkin hunt Mary down to New York City where they are embarrassed by an impostor.[1] She later drives him away from his friends having the Blood Red Moon use hired human killers during the daytime.[5]

He catches up to her at a traveling carnival in St. Louis the Blood Red Moon are using to kidnap victims. Mary manages the operation herself and Andrew tries to infiltrate their organization.[6] She catches him and stabs him through the chest with a stake, but Andrew manages to survive. He burns the carnival down and pins her agents in a flaming trailer, but Mary escapes as a bat into the night.[7]

Vampires begin dying when scientist Allen Barr invents a cancer cure that makes human blood poisonous to them. Mary tricks Andrew into helping her find the magical Rings of Kur-Alet so she can escape into the past.[8] In London she tries to kill Barr's mother before he's born, but she's stopped by Andrew and Jack the Ripper.[9] To force Andrew off her trail, she time-travels to a young Deborah Dancer and threatens her to make Andrew give up his ring.[10] Her next destination is their own past, where Andrew and Mary switch places with their own human past selves.[11] This ploy is ruined when they're discovered and accused of being witches, briefly fighting their past selves until they can escape into the present.[12] Andrew throws his ring away to make both of them unusable, holding both of them in the modern era.[13] The cancer serum threat is later ended when Mary sends Maggie Carle to kill Barr and burn down his laboratory.[14] Mary tries to grab a foothold in Gotham City by turning crimelord Johnny the Gun into a vampire, but Andrew Bennett teams up with Batman to stop them.[15]

In Russia, Mary investigates the experimental Rashnikov Formula while her agent Dunya Mishkin kills Dmitri Mishkin.[16] Andrew Bennett becomes human again with vampire strengths when he takes the untested formula, but Mary captures him in France as his body goes through rigor mortis.[17] Mary holds Bennett to torture him as his body rapidly decays the course of 400 years. She bites his lover Deborah Dancer in front of him, so that he might watch her turn as well. Deborah reveals that she also took the formula and it has no negative side effects for humans, making her a vampire with no weaknesses. Mary and Deborah battle over Andrew's corpse until Mary is finally beaten and defeated. Deborah drags her out into the sunlight and Mary dies exploding into flames.[18]

Seeing is Believing

Following her death, the Blood Red Moon hold a ceremony every three years on Halloween to try and resurrect Mary. This is routinely stopped by Batman, although Alfred Pennyworth sends his Outsiders in when Batman is unavailable. They stop the cult, but it is revealed that Deborah Dancer was manipulating them for her own purposes. Instead of Mary she resurrects Andrew Bennett, who is furious that his peace has been disturbed.[19]

Powers

  • Vampirism: In addition to the various mental and physical benefits that vampires are heir to, they also possess the ability to turn others into vampires as well. Each new vampire is traditionally subservient to the one who "turned" them, but some strong-willed vampires have been known to rebel against their masters.
    • Enhanced Senses: A vampire's senses are enhanced far beyond those of a normal human being.
    • Immortality: So long as vampires continue to consume blood, they will not age beyond the physical state they were in when they first became a vampire.
    • Invulnerability: Vampires are invulnerable to most forms of injury (certain exceptions apply). Bullets, blades and blunt objects do little to no damage to a vampire's body.
    • Regeneration: In addition to being virtually indestructible, whatever damage a vampire does in fact suffer can be healed through the consumption of human blood.
    • Superhuman Strength: A vampire's strength level is several times that of a normal human being and they are considered superhuman.
    • Superhuman Speed: A vampire's speed level is several times that of a normal human being and they are considered superhuman.
    • Superhuman Stamina: So long as they continue to consume human blood, a vampire can function tirelessly without rest or relaxation. However, a vampire's stamina wanes the closer it is to sunrise.
    • Psychokinesis: Most vampires possess some form of psychokinesis. Some are clairvoyant, others can communicate telepathically, some possess mind control. Particularly powerful vampires can control the minds of several people at once.
    • Transformation: Vampires often possess the ability to transform into a variety of creatures or effects such as bats, wolves, rats or even mist. While their physical attributes may fluctuate during such states, a vampire's mental acuity is the same as that when they are in their human shape. A vampire who transforms into an animal may also benefit from that particular animal's attributes including razor-sharp claws, fangs or the ability to fly. Vampires also often demonstrate the ability to alter their appearance at will.


  • Although this character was originally introduced during DC's Earth-One era of publication, their existence following the events of the 1985–86 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths remains intact. However, some elements of the character's Pre-Crisis history may have been altered or removed for Post-Crisis New Earth continuity, and should be considered apocryphal.

Related

Footnotes


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