DuBOIS, JACQUES

Real Name: Jacques DuBois

Identity/Class: human (18th Century and modern era), magic user

Occupation: former sculptor

Affiliations: agent of Cagliostro

Enemies: Dracula

Known Relatives: Helene (great-great granddaughter);
    unnamed child, grandchild, and great-grandchild

Aliases: none

Base of Operations: Paris, France (18th Century and Modern era)

First Appearance: Dracula Lives#3 (1973)

 

Powers/Abilities: DuBois was a skilled sculptor. He used a formula that could transform others into stone, or bring inanimate stone statues to life, under his control. These statues were remained rock-hard (and brittle), possessed superhuman strength, and could fly.

    He was later transformed into one such animate statue himself by the above formula. He possessed mobility during the blackest hours of the night, but was trapped in animate form during the day.

 

History: Most of DuBois' past is unknown, but at some point, he became an agent of the Italian sorcerer Cagliostro, who gave him a special potion.

(Dracula Lives#3/7 (fb)) <1769 (see comments)> - DuBois used Cagliostro's potion to animate a statue and send it to slay Dracula. Dracula slew the monstrous creature and forced it to divulge the name of its creator as it died. Dracula then confronted DuBois, casting him into the magical liquid, assuming it would turn him into an unliving statue. DuBois was indeed turned to stone, but retained mobility, though only at night time.

(Dracula Lives#3/7) - Over two centuries later, Dracula returned to Paris, where he was targeted for death by Jacques' vengeance seeking great-great granddaughter, Helene. Dracula overpowered Helene and forced her to explain herself, at which point Jacques--who possibly had sensed the presence of Dracula--arrived to attempt vengeance himself. Dracula took to the air, pursued by Jacques, and led him on a brief chase until he tricked Jacques into flying too closely to the Eiffel Tower. Jacques' navigational abilities were inferior to the vampire lord's, and he crashed into the tower, shattering into pieces at his descendant's feet.

 

 

Comments: Created by Gerry Conway and Alfonso Font.

   1769 is a little early for a conflict between Dracula and Cagliostro. Most of their known conflicts occurred between 1784-1789.  Per Jean-Marc Lofficier, author of many of the Book of the Vishanti back-ups, including a purchased, but unpublished true origin of Cagliostro, the date is closer to 1789.

    Maybe there was some connection between Cagliostro's formula and then one discovered by the Grey Gargoyle, Paul Pierre Duval (also a Frenchman!).

    Stories such as this, which use no other characters locked into the modern era, can be easily fit into the real time in which they were published. I'd like to place this story as having occurred in 1973, to fill in Dracula's adventures in the pre-modern era.

CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:

 

Helene DuBois

Great-great granddaughter of Jacques. She learned that Dracula was returning to Paris and attempted to destroy him. Like any good vampire hunter, she waited until dusk to make her attack. She found Dracula's coffin in which he rested, opened it, placed a stake against his chest, raised her mallet, and paused to summon the courage to strike. In that second, Dracula awakened and easily cast her aside. She did manage to force herself to pass out rather than reveal any information to Dracula.
    Dracula debated vamping her and getting the info that way, but was amused by her willpower and decided against it. While he took another victim some time later, she tried to stake him again, but Dracula stopped her again, and second attempt to mesmerize her was more successful. She divulged her reasons, after which her ancestor arrived and attacked Dracula. After Jacque's destruction, Helene wept over his remains.

 

    --Dracula Lives#3/7

 

 

 

First Posted: 09/14/2003
Last updated: 02/11/2004

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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