The daughter of Vlad Dracula, AKA Dracula, Lord of the Vampires, Lilith seeks to destroy her sire while forging her own path in the world as one of the deadliest of the undead.
Spawn of Dracula
Born to the 15th century warlord Vlad Dracula and a noblewoman named Zofia, as an infant Lilith is banished along with her mother from her father’s domain and forced to live as a peasant. A gypsy called Gretchin raises Lilith after Zofia takes her own life, and when Dracula arrives years later as a vampire to murder Gretchin’s son, the gypsy woman transforms Lilith into an adult vampire and curses her to torment her father forever as a form of revenge.
At first out of her head with bloodlust, Lilith learns to control her impulse and outline the form her bedevilment of Dracula would take in the years to come. In the 20th century, she swoops in to snatch her father’s intended victims away, but in the aftermath of a clash between the two, Lilith discovers she herself could never die as long as Dracula himself exists.
A Different Kind of Vampire
Though possessed of the usual vampiric abilities such as great strength, agility, and cunning, Lilith’s heritage and unique “birth” as one of the undead makes her more than simply another traditional creature of the night.
In addition to her mesmerizing gaze and power to become a bat and mist, she can control the weather and command animals, such as rats, mice, bats, and wolves. She proves immune to sunlight, does not have to sleep in her native soil, can withstand the sight of religious symbols, and can reform her body if destroyed, albeit through a lengthy ritual. Her spirit can enter an innocent woman who hates her father, transforming that body to mirror Lilith’s own, with Lilith’s full powers.
Lilith may also avoid drinking blood to stay alive, but can be stopped with a stake driven through her heart or the Montesi formula. By biting a person and depositing an enzyme in their blood, she makes her victim highly susceptible to her commands. The victim also develops a perverse erotic fixation on Lilith. If that person dies, they can rise again in three days as a vampire with conventional vampiric powers and limitations.
One of the prime, motivating factors of her existence remains in her symbiotic relationship with her father, Dracula. If he is destroyed, so too is she, and likewise if he is resurrected, she will return in similar fashion. She may also not directly destroy Dracula, but can scheme to bring about his end through other means, such as through the actions of others.
Few Friends, Many Enemies
Lilith’s life leads her to earn many enemies and virtually no allies, let alone friendships, mostly due to her self-centered personality and overwhelming compulsion to defy and destroy Dracula. Though she occasionally allies herself with various persons, such as Jericho Drumm, AKA Doctor Voodoo, Johnny Blaze, AKA Ghost Rider, and other “monsters” such as herself, but in the end these alliances have ended in flames.
On the other side of the coin, entire legions of beings have lined up to oppose Lilith, including her father, vampire hunter Quincy Harker, private investigator Hannibal King, and most significantly, Earth’s many vampire clans.
Centuries of Confrontation
After their first, violent clash in the 20th century, Lilith and her father agreed to a truce and to avoid each other as much as possible in the waking world. Later, famed vampire hunter Quincy Harker killed her, taking revenge on Dracula, but she came back in a human host named Angel O’Hara and swiftly attacked Harker with an eye toward vengeance herself.
In the aftermath, she proposed an alliance with her father, but when he refused such a bond, Lilith forced Angel to move from England to New York City to take on a mission to punish guilty parties such as serial killers, corporate chemical companies, and others she believed deserved death.
At a time when Dracula lost his vampiric powers to the Hell-Lord Mephisto, the former Lord of the Vampires entreated his daughter to turn him once again, a suggestion she dismissed and tried to kill him instead. Dracula subsequently regained his vampire status and Lilith and Angel O’Hara were physically separated by a descendant of the gypsy Gretchin.
Following this, Lilith learned of the powerful Montesi Formula from the mystic Darkhold tome and its destructive promise for Earth’s vampires. As such, she possessed the mutant Kitty Pryde (later Kate Pryde) whose parents had just filed for divorce, causing her to briefly feel ill will towards them, giving Lilith the perfect opportunity to steal a copy of the formula to destroy Dracula. The X-Men opposed her plans and the newly vampirized Rachel van Helsing defiantly speared Dracula’s heart, Lilith released Kitty. When Dr. Stephen Strange, AKA Doctor Strange, enacted the formula, Lilith went happily to her doom.
Of course, Dracula and his daughter were reborn sometime later, and when Lilith’s renewed bloodlust proved too strong for her to control, she asked Brother Voodoo (later Doctor Voodoo) to help her rein it in. In thanks, she began to aid him in hunting down the undead, but a battle with the criminal Ebenezer Laughton, AKA Scarecrow, with Ghost Rider’s Blaze and Danny Ketch joining the fray, unleashed her bloodthirst. She assaulted Blaze, who stabbed her in the leg with his hellfire-charged knife before Voodoo stopped her.
She then sought out Dr. Michael Morbius, AKA Morbius, the Living Vampire, as a potential vampire general in her army. Acquiring one of the Amulets of Damballah, Lilith took control of Simon Garth, AKA Zombie, and sent him around New York to bring her people to feed on and transform into vampire servants. Lilith stole files from mercenary Simon Stroud that led her to Morbius’ friend Dr. Jacob Weisenthal, whom she slew when he proved a dead end. Happening to encounter Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, she assumed the guise of Now Magazine reporter “Lily Drake” and convinced him that Morbius was behind the recent disappearances in New York, hoping Spider-Man would draw Morbius out of hiding. Meanwhile, Donna Garth had hired vampire and private investigator Hannibal King to find her father’s missing body, and King attacked Lilith. She considered making King her general but fled when Spider-Man joined the fight. Ultimately, King snatched the Amulet of Damballah from Lilith and released the Zombie who helped let sunlight into Lilith’s base, destroying her vampires. Lilith fled to find another ally.
Returning then to her urge to kill her father, she led Dr. Charles Seward to create a flesh-eating virus for the deed, but the scheme backfired on her and Dracula won out in the end.
While working with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s monster squad, the Howling Commandos, Lilith allied with Nina Price, AKA Vampire by Night, to infiltrate the camp of Merlin, or an evil aspect of him, who was transforming the land into a fantasy-like world. She spied on Merlin, then gave up Price to gain his favor, and met with Damon Hellstrom, AKA Hellstorm, who had also infiltrated the camp on behalf of the Commandos. Lilith bedded Merlin and in drinking his blood, she thought she had killed him but Merlin only played along and incinerated her. Though his efforts were in vain as she reformed unharmed.
After Dracula killed Lilith’s familiars, Lilith once again entered into an uneasy truce with Dracula and in a fit of pique, slew all the leaders of his vampire clan rivals, not realizing she had been manipulated to do so by her father to insure his dominance over the entire planet’s nightborne undead.
