CHARLES BARNABUS

Real Name: Charles Barnabus

Identity/Class: Human vampire

Occupation: Lawyer, Executor to the Estate of Ulysses Bloodstone

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Adam, Elsa Bloodstone

Enemies: The Nosferati

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: "Chuck" (former)

Base of Operations: Bloodstone Manor in Boston, Massachusetts

First Appearance: Bloodstone#1 (December, 2001)

Powers/Abilities: Charles Barnabus possesses all the powers of a conventional vampire, including superhuman strength to an unknown degree, superhuman resistance to injury, enhanced vitality and the abilities to change his form into a bat and to mesmerize his potential victims. His powers are dependant on him consuming fresh quantities of human blood. His extent of power is equal to most vampires, surpassed only by Dracula himself.

Limitations: Charles Barnabus is required to subsist on human blood to exist; without it, he tends to lose his normal youthful appearance and can take the form of a withered corpse, but upon drinking fresh blood, he can regain his true appearance. He can be weakened in the presence of sunlight which can eventually destroy him and in the presence of religious artifacts, such as the cross, crucifix, holy water and the Star of David. It should be noted that the image of these items are not strong enough to destroy him, only one's belief in these objects to harm him. He can also be harmed by the inherent anathema of silver.

Height: Unrevealed
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Black

History:
(Bloodstone#2 (fb) - BTS) - Not much is known about the past of Charles Barnabus or his life before he became a vampire, but he confesses once worked in the public defender's office before coming into the employ of adventurer Ulysses Bloodstone to manage his estate.

(Bloodstone#1 (fb) - BTS) - After the death of Ulysses Bloodstone, Charles takes it upon himself to trace his nearest surviving relatives to take control of the estate, locating his ex-wife and daughter living in England. He instructs Adam, Bloodstone's caretaker, the former Frankenstein's Monster, to take it slow in revealing the Bloodstone family secrets.

(Bloodstone#1) - Several years after the death of Ulysses Bloodstone, Charles finally met with Elise Bloodstone and her daughter, Elsa, as beneficiaries of the estate. Reserved, charismatic and mysterious, he was charmed by Elsa's flippant personality while discussing Elise's future prospect for the mansion and properties. Elsa meanwhile prodded him for details of her late father's life. Charles made arrangements for the ladies to stay at the home of his clerk and assistant, Mr. Dluga, whose elderly father cast aspersions that Charles Barnabus was a vampire.

(Bloodstone#2) - Charles Barnabus took Elise out to dinner to further discuss her plans with the estate and develop it into a emporium for curios. She promised to stay in town if he would promise not to disclose her husband's past to Elsa.

(Bloodstone#3) - Charles was encouraged by the news of Elise and her daughter staying and confessed to Elsa his respect for her mother. In doing so, he noticed that Adam in his exuberance had already been guiding her in following her father's heritage as a monster hunter. During the confrontation, a pair of Nosferati stormed the mansion, incapacitating Adam, knocking out Elsa and abducting Charles.

(Bloodstone#4) - Charles discovered he was just one of several vampires along with Dracula taken by the Nosferati to use in bioengineering a virus to infect pureblood vampires such as himself to provide nourishment for the Nosferati. Elsa, Adam and her friend Tomas Dluga, followed and invaded the underground missile silo the Nosferati had seized for their research in order to rescue him. Freed from the tube restraining him, Dracula lent Elsa his cape to protect Charles as he and Adam, the former Frankenstein's Monster, opened the silo doors to destroy the Nosferati by exposing the interior to sunlight.

Indebted to Elsa for saving him, Barnabus vowed to keep her secret on the condition she would stop calling him "Chuck" just before her next mission after the Kraken.

SECRET WARS III HAPPENED

(Blood Hunters I#2/3) - Elsa was playing chess with Adam when Charles, who had gone feral, attacked them. Elsa fought him while Adam used potions to create a mystic circle with chains that held Charles down until Elsa could figure out why Charles had gone feral.

Comments: Adapted by  Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning

Although Charles Barnabus had a mini-profile on the Elsa Bloodstone profile, a few things made me want to honor him with a full bio: 1) an appreciation of the Bloodstone Limited Series, 2) a fondness for horror movies for which this series has several monster cameos, 3) Charles' oblique nod to Barnabas Collins, the repentant vampire from the popular Gothic TV series, "Dark Shadows" (1965-1971), a show very close to me, and the odd antique/curio parallel to another popular horror TV series, "Friday The 13th - The Series" (1987-1990), another series very close to my heart. And maybe a chance to pitch my ghost website down below... (and you all possibly thought I was only obsessed with mythology)

Not only does Charles Barnabus share his name with a popular TV vampire, but is likeness seems to hearken to Brad Pitt's portrayal of Louis Lioncourt, the hero of the movie, "Interview with a Vampire" based on Anne Rice's novel. In fact, Elsa Bloodstone could be considered an amalgamated parallel of both Lara Croft and Buffy the Vampire-Killer.

I'm not sure what to make of this "pureblood" vampire business, but it seems there are three types of vampires in the media: the true vampires like Dracula, Charles, Barnabas Collins and Nicholas Knight from "Forever Knight," the demonic-type from "Buffy" and "From Dusk Till Dawn" whose victims become vampires more quickly than the traditional three bites and the human vampire like Morbius. I think the Nosferati are supposed to be the Class Two type.

Actually, I'd have liked to know more about the ghosts of the manor - there's not an abundance of haunted houses in the MU. 

About Adam's remark to Abbott and Costello, the bio on Adam as the Frankenstein's Monster questions whether it means the Universal Monster's continuity could have happened in the Marvel Universe, although possibly not exactly as we saw those events in the movies where the monster's brain was replaced so often that it must have rattled like a Cuban maraca. I consider it just a remark considering Adam confesses a fondness for the old movies, as well as being obsessed with modern culture (the Mickey-D super-size reference in Charles' pic above). When Jack Elam played the humbled monster for the short-lived 1979 TV series, "Struck By Lightning," he said he was upset by his portrayal in those James Whale movies. I tried to rectify the same reference with Frankenstein and the Abbott and Costello movie at the Collinsport Ghost Society when I made the bio for Longwater Castle (the location in the movie) to exist in the same universe with the Munsters.