Jubilee vs Vampire

[angelophile]

Back in the 1998 Generation X Annual, the Gen X kids came into conflict with the granddaddy of all vampires - Dracula. (Possibly because Dracula was pissed at Chamber for being a descendant of his old enemy, Apocalypse, but that's another story entirely.) Anyway, they didn't fare great - Chamber was plagued by nightmarish visions, Paige gets stalked in her underwear (just so you know it really is a Dracula story, presumably) and Jubilee, well, it wasn't her finest hour...

This might possibly prove to be relevant.













Later there's a trip to the theater, where Jono gets tackled by a vampire in the rest room (although why he even needs to go there is a mystery), leaving Paige and Jubilee alone in the school.







Which means sneaking up on the blonde while she's wandering around in her underwear and kidnapping her, in good Dracula tradition. The rest of Gen X mount a rescue mission, but Jono's distracted by Dracula attempting to sway him with visions of his face and body restored and winds up being a snack, while Jubilee tries for a rematch.

It's brief.









Good to see Jono was raised on the Hammer Horror classics.

Comments

[arilou_skiff]

I love how hammy Marvel's Dracula is. He's traditional and he damn well knows it.

[dorksidefiker]

Considering what happened in Apocalypse vs Dracula, this becomes that much more hilarious in hindsight.

[protogarrett]

What happened?

[dorksidefiker]

Well, it turned out that Jono was descended from one of the two surviving members of Clan Akkaba (a fire breathing opium addicted policeman). Sadly, I lack scans to show this, though I constantly check the mini-series in question out from the library.

[espanolbot]

Hm, I'd have thought that with part of his neck and chest also being made of that fire stuff biting him would be potentially explosive if they had poor aim.

[psychopathicus_rex]

There are other places that a vampire can bite you, y'know. The neck is traditional, but not obligatory.

[cainofdreaming]

Brat. Seriously? The writer manages an otherwise pretty good dialog, but then has to fumble and fall with such a pedestrian insult. Stick to the melodrama with Drac, that's where it's at.

[icon_uk]

How much blood, and how much of an operating circulatory system does Jono actually have, what with apparently having no heart or upper chest?

[dorksidefiker]

I'd say "Not much of one." I take most of what happened with Jono in this to be Drac screwing with his mind.

[icon_uk]

Well it mentions that Jono ends up as a snack, when really there'd be bugger all for a vampire to chow down on in him.

[dorksidefiker]

Sounds like a case of the writer not thinking things through.

[angelophile]

I always think, when considering Jono's powers, it's the readers who shouldn't try and think things through. That way madness lies.

[dorksidefiker]

Sanity is highly overrated.

[psychopathicus_rex]

There are other possibilities, though. One interpretation of the vampiric bloodlust that I've seen more than once is that it's not the actual BLOOD that they need, per se, it's the life force that the blood carries. Presumably, if the energy in Jono's chest is keeping him alive regardless of the whopping great hole in him, it must essentially be about as strong and pure an expression of life force as you can get, which would presumably be quite a treat for your average vampire.

[icon_uk]

Yeah, by MU Dracula has always, AFAIK, been a traditionalist vampire with a liquid only diet.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, yes, but that may be simply because he's never had any particular NEED to deviate from the norm before. Just about everyone has blood, after all, but it's not every day that you encounter someone who literally has lifeforce spewing from his chest.

[icon_uk]

I suppose I really don't consider the firey thing he has to be his life force per se, it's a psychically generated life support machine as much as anything, more akin to a Green Lantern construct perhaps.

I find it easier to accept the writer hadn't thought it through than suddenly have the MU Dracula completely change his eating habits for one story.

[psychopathicus_rex]

But my point is that he WOULDN'T be changing his eating habits - going by this hypothesis, vampires suck blood because the lifeforce is IN the blood. In this case, though, Jono HAS no blood, or at least not a normally functional circulatory system, so his lifeforce isn't in it - it's manifesting in a more concentrated form than usual as the energy that keeps him alive. If Dracula fed on Jono, he would still be sucking out the lifeforce like he's been doing for centuries - it's just that said lifeforce would be PURE lifeforce, without being mixed with blood.
And I'll grant you that the writer probably didn't write the story with all these background details in mind - this is just my own attempt to explain Dracula's actions. If I'd written Marvel a letter at the time, I'll bet I would've gotten a No-Prize.

[icon_uk]

And I admire the creativity applied in your No-Prize proposal, but I still don't buy it. The hypothesis requires Dracula to display a never seen before and never seen after ability, and the "we really feed on lifeforce" notion is not present in MU vampires AFAIK, who drink blood for sustenance (and as Dracula is seen doing to Jono, what with the bloodstained mouth and everything).

It'd be more akin to me deciding to not eat meat any more when I can stick my fingers into a power outlet instead.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, yes, but the difference between the two situations is that if you did that, you'd be fried, whereas presumably, tapping directly into the lifeforce would NOT fry a vampire, as it's merely a logical extension of what they already do.

[icon_uk]

Only if you accept that "blood = lifeforce and lifeforce is the important bit, not the blood" as logical, which I accept you do, but which I don't.

[psychopathicus_rex]

*shrugs* Well, it's just a hypothesis. It just seems to me that there must be something IN the blood which keeps vampires going, and lifeforce is as good an explanation as any. (It would also explain how sometimes the victims become vampires themselves - presumably, if vampires can extract lifeforce, they can also inject a bit of their own, perverted lifeforce into the victim in the process, which remains in the body after death and resurrects them.) Still, it's not like I can provide documentation to support my point or anything.

[blake_reitz]

Good point. I thought the intensity of his power meant he was pretty much a walking corpse animated by sentient explosive psychic energy stuff.

[protogarrett]

I like Jubilee out of her character. But let's admit it, she didn't know how to use her powers and for the most part they were useless in a fight. "Look out! They're bright litle lights that cause very tiny explosions. I swear, these things can sorta kinda mess up a paint job on a kid's trike."

Only Synch knew how to REALLY use them. I mean, her power, technically is to explode matter at the subatomic level. She could wipe out cities. Yet she kept it at the level of dime store bottle rockets.

[angelophile]

Well, that was established that she was consciously and unconsciously holding back for fear of doing anyone permanent damage. When she doesn't hold back, the results were more... impressive. Leveling one of the school buildings impressive, if memory serves.

[rhythmbandit]

So Jubes could actually do some damage with her powers? Didn't know that; I assumed they kept her around for her witty remarks.

[jlbarnett]

Jubilee has blown up plenty of stufff. She and Wolverine have talked about her giving people strokes. But she prefers to go non-lethal. It's intentional. She's not that kind of person.

[psychopathicus_rex]

They work in this instance, though, since they're evidently enough to break Drac's concentration.

[sandoz_iscariot]

Possibly because Dracula was pissed at Chamber for being a descendant of his old enemy, Apocalypse, but that's another story entirely.

Ah, a sentence one only sees when talking about comics!

Another thought

[dorksidefiker]

I now feel the urge to write Dracula/Chamber slash. Hell, Drac calls him beautiful repeatedly.

[okkult3000]

If Jono became a vampire, how would he drink blood?

[bruinsfan]

Pull it out of people telekinetically and funnel it directly into his digestive system? Damned if I know... Chamber's biology /powers havenever made sense to me.