Could Dracula defeat Superman?

You know, if you read the whole thread, you’ll see this point has been raised a number of times, all with pretty interesting counters by Dracula.

The answer is yes. It happened. Dracula turned Supes into a vampire. Fortunately the rest of the Superfriends were able to save the day. :smiley:

Three (the vampire brides in the castle)
plus who knows how many Transylvanian peasants
plus the crew of the Demeter
plus two (Lucy & Renfield)
plus who knows how many “snacks” in England & on the way back to his castle.

So five confirmed plus a lot more innumerable.

I’m wondering where people are grabbing all these extra abilities and immunities for Dracula from. There is one canonical (if such can be applied to Dracula) story. And in it he is taken out by a couple of guys with knives, no stakes, garlic or sunlight necessary.

Dracula wouldn’t last 5 seconds vs any version of Superman, no matter how idiotic.

There are as many versions of Dracula as there are of Superman. Your arbitrary decision that any Dracula story not written by Stoker is non-canonical would also mean that any Superman story not penned by Jerry Siegel is non-canon.

There is some question as to whether Dracula was done inby Quincey’s bowie knife. The Stewart’s diary only states that he turned into dust when he was stabbed just as the sun disappeared under the horizon. As we already know, turning into dust was one of Drac’s powers as cataloged by Van Helsing. Personally, I believe he went back to the mountains of Transylvania where things were much, much quieter.

I’ll be using knowledge complied by Miss Mina Harker, since the various movies are very inconsistent, to say the least.

As to his powers and weaknesses:
Known powers:
[ul]
[li]Shapeshifting - Known forms are Bat, wolf, and dust. There may be more[/li][li]Mindcontrol - As a pure power, this only works on the mentally unstable.[/li][li]Can turn innocents into Vampires - during their transition, they are very succeptible to suggestion from him[/li][li]He can alter his dimentions and size - According to Van Helsing, he can make himself flat to fit through narrow spaces.[/li][/ul]These appear to be powered by magic. Also Van Helsing attests that he is a very powerful sorcerer.

Known Weaknesses:
[ul]
[li]Sunlight depowers him - It does not incapacitate him. Not sure how Supe’s stored solar energy would play into this. I suspect the effect would be negligible, since Drac is depowered depending on the sun’s position in the sky, not on whether or not it is shining directly on him.[/li][li]Religious symbolism - we know he cannot bare the sight or be in the presence of crucifixes and The Host. There are no direct accounts of him being physically harmed by exposure.[/li][li]Fresh Garlic (sorry, you can’t just buy a couple of cloves from the store, you need the flowers) is an anathema as well. Again, he is repelled by it. No direct accounts exist of it harming him.[/li][li]He cannot cross running water unaided.[/li][li]He is only active when the Moon is up. - This is Supe’s biggest advantage, I think.[/li][li]Cannot enter a dwelling unaided[/li][/ul]

In a straight up fight, arena style, Supes would win hands down.

In a real world setting, things get more interesting. We know that Drac is completely ruthless. We’re talking about a guy who impaled alive thousands of Turks, and then dined in their midst, so he could hear their screaming. He also immolated every single homeless person in Walachia because he didn’t like looking at them. Seriously, the Joker wishes he could rack up Dracula’s body count. My guess is that he seduces Lois or someone else close to Supes to get them to expose him to kyponite. Green would be good, because he could kill him. Blue would be better, because he could turn him, and have his very own super-powered thrall.

How does Dracula know Superman’s secret identity? Putting aside the “glasses and parting your hair isn’t a very good disguise” argument, because it obviously works on nearly everybody.

Lois always gets into trouble with Superman’s foes. It’s as magical as Dracula’s abilities. Lois would probably be seduced first, bringing Supes into the equation.

And from the Dracula side, that sort of coincidence seems to be his undoing as well. His first target for a new ‘bride’ in England just happens not only to have a former suitor who is a colleague of (and once saved the life of, apparently) the one guy in Europe with any actual knowledge of vampires, but also to be the best friend of the fiancee of the guy he failed to successfully kill in Transylvania. Which pretty much inevitably results in an actual team of vampire hunters on his undead ass. Seriously, what are the odds?

Yes - I should have listed having really shitty luck as one of his weaknesses.

[quote=“Maus_Magill, post:46, topic:530406”]

I’ll be using knowledge complied by Miss Mina Harker, since the various movies are very inconsistent, to say the least.

Known Weaknesses:

[ul]
[li]Religious symbolism - we know he cannot bare the sight or be in the presence of crucifixes and The Host. There are no direct accounts of him being physically harmed by exposure.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
Nitpick: direct contact with The Host did harm (pain, visible scar) a transitional partly-vampire Mina. I assume the effect would be worse on the big D himself.

And of course our only canon info comes from Van Helsing, not the most reliable of commentators. I’d wear Supes down by turning one of his enemies and see how he deals with a lesser vampire (Vampzarro! Dracula can influence the weak-minded after all.) first. Then, if things look good, you start with the wide-scale vampirism in Metropolis.

Straight up fight, Superman wins. Long-term plots-I might give it to the Count, who could out-bastard Lex Luthor.

Actually, no, it doesn’t - in a arena style fight, Superman would fight to win the fight, but that’s it - there’s no stakes. He’d just want to fight and get it over with.

Put it in a real world setting, where people are endangered, and the fact that ‘sanctity of life’ only applies to the living becomes a factor.

He has no problem obliterating an undead abomination, or a robot, or anything else that’s not a living organism. (None of the major superheroes do.)*

So, put a psychopathic undead being out in the streets of Metropolis, where he can do real damage, and Superman can and will bring his whole game.

  • Tangent… It’s been claimed that this is somehow odd, given that they’re all friends with Red Tornado, the Metal Men and/or Robotman…but here’s the thing about Reddy, or the MMs, or Cliff…or Amazo, or Killg%re, etc…they all make a habit of getting trashed…and then getting rebuilt, good - usually, in fact, better - than new. It’s knowing these folks that proves they can go all out on robots, and not worry about whether their sentience makes them ‘life’…because it’s not going to kill them.

Dammit! How could I forget that? You are correct. Extrapolating the effect on Mina, we can conclude that Holy Symbols/Artifacts are directly harmful.

Of course, the same is true of most of the non-mechanical superheroes in DC and Marvel. :smiley:

But Dracula doesn’t work like that. Remember - The only reason he was detected at Carfax, was because he bought the house next door to the asylum, and his victim’s suitor not only ran the asylum, but also was Van Helsing’s former student. Had he not eaten where he was shitting, he would have escaped detection for years.

Dracula can and does learn from his mistakes. In fact, he could be in Metropolis right now. It’s nice how they’ve cleaned up skid row.

I don’t know if this is still a possibility, but back in the 70’s when I was big into comic books, The Phantom Stranger might have mysteriously showed up on the scene to help out Superman. Being The Phantom Stranger, though, his help would have been of an indirect nature.
Are Superman and Doctor Fate still in continuity together? If I were Superman and I was dealing with Dracula, I’d want Doctor Fate on hand. Or The Specter. Batman would be even better, but he’s such a difficult person.

Slight hijack: if Drac vamped Billy Batson, does it affect Captain Marvel? :eek:

The newest incarnation of Fate is a rank rookie with lots of power and little skill. No one wants the Spectre, neither on their side nor against them. Batman isn’t as difficult as he once was, as the man under the cowl is Dick Grayson.

Or, as in 1980, the Phantom Stranger might show up to bat cleanup for Superman.