ABSTRACT
Dracula’s appearance in the X-Men comic represents a blending of the superhero genre and the gothic romantic horror of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. When Storm, the leader of the X-Men, is seduced by Dracula, it takes the faith of the young, innocent Kitty Pryde to break the vampire’s hold on Storm. With Chris Claremont’s heightened prose accompanied by guest penciler Bill Sienkiewicz’s art, the single issue story comes in a period when the X-Men title was experimenting with tonally distinct, genre-blending single issue stories.
Out of necessity due to the constraints in long-term superhero storytelling, Storm’s transformation is temporary. This represents an inherent tension between the superhero genre and the horror genre. Superheroes in mainstream comics inevitably reset to a familiar status. The tension in the horror genre is rooted in the threat of a permanent status change, with human characters fearing either death or a monstrous transformation. Thus, the danger of the horror genre is inevitably undone in superhero comics. However, the transformed characters do still hold a narrative appeal. This allows the reset core continuity of Marvel’s superhero universe to be maintained while creators explore the more horror-centric genre conventions in an alternate setting.
