Varnae is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Steve Perry and Steve Bissette, the character first appeared in Bizarre Adventures #33 (December 1982). Varnae is a villainous vampire who has been an adversary of several of Marvel's supernatural and fantasy-related heroes, and is a major character in Marvel's Dracula mythos. He is named after Dracula's literary predecessor, Varney the Vampire.
Publication history
Varnae first appeared in Bizarre Adventures #33 (December 1982), and was created by Steve Perry and Steve Bissette.
Varnae's involvement with Dracula's origin was a retcon to the original Marvel version of Dracula's origin. According to the origin given in Dracula Lives! #2 & 3, Dracula became the Lord of the Vampires by killing Nimrod, who held the title before him. When revisiting the characters in the black and white magazine Bizarre Adventures, Steve Bissette and John Totleben decided to go further back and create a worthy sire for Dracula, and inserted Varnae into a darker version of the story from Dracula Lives!. Much later, writer Roy Thomas revisited the character of Varnae while writing Conan the Barbarian and Doctor Strange in the early 1990s. Thomas added the history of the character as an Atlantean and a foe of Conan and Red Sonja in the former, and revived the character in modernity in the "Vampiric Verses" storyline in the latter. Varnae's history was further fleshed out by the addition of the battles with Thor (in Marvel Comics Presents) and Aamshed (in the 2005 Tomb of Dracula miniseries).
Varnae appeared as part of the "Vampires" entry in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #20.
Fictional character biography
Varnae was a sorcerer in ancient Atlantis who was a member of the cult of the Darkholders. The other Darkholders used the Darkhold tome to transform Varnae into the Earth's first vampire, but he turned on them when they tried to use him as a weapon against their nemesis, King Kull. Varnae became the Lord of the Vampires, and would retain that title for millennia. When Atlantis sank beneath the sea during the Great Cataclysm, Varnae entered a state of suspended animation, and awoke thousands of years later during the Hyborian Age. There, he fought Conan the Barbarian and his allies Red Sonja and Zula, but was forced away by Zula's magic. In ancient Sumeria circa 2000 BC, Varnae and the sorceress Aamshed created a spell that could magnify a vampire's power, but Aamshed twisted the spell so that it could only be cast on a vampire's home soil (which, in Varnae's case, no longer existed), and it could only be cast every 2,000 years. When the next opportunity came to cast the spell around 1 AD, Varnae attempted to mystically raise Atlantis, but Aamshed foiled his plans. During the Viking Age, Varnae traveled to North America, where he discovered a colony of Vikings and battled the Norse god Thor.
Eventually, Varnae tired of his existence, and set events in motion that would grant him a successor as the Lord of the Vampires. In the 15th century, Varnae manipulated a war between the Turkish Lord Turac and Dracula, who was then the mortal Vlad Tepes, prince of Transylvania. During a battle with Turac's forces, Dracula was fatally wounded by the immortal Apocalypse, but was saved from death when he was bitten and transformed into a vampire by Varnae's servant Lianda. Varnae rewarded Lianda with death, and rewarded another minion, Nimrod, with a taste of Varnae's own blood. Varnae named Nimrod the Lord of the Vampires, then set Nimrod against the fledgling vampire Dracula as a test for Dracula, who was his real choice for the title. As Varnae watched from afar, Dracula slew Nimrod and his lover Lala, only to be slain alongside the assembled vampires by a mortal priest. Varnae arranged for one of his minions to deflower a virgin near the waters where Dracula's ashes had been scattered; exposure to the former virgin's hymeneal blood was enough for Dracula to return to life. Dracula then slew the minion and confronted Varnae, but Varnae effortlessly overpowered Dracula. Varnae then forced Dracula to drink his blood to the point of saturation, placed Dracula in a coffin to sleep through the coming day, and walked into the dawn to die in the sunlight.