I…Vampire

I...Vampire
Cover to I, Vampire #1 (September 2011). Art by Jenny Frison.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	House of Mystery #290
Created by	J. M. DeMatteis Tom Sutton
In-story information
Full name	Lord Andrew Bennett
Team affiliations	Justice League Dark
Abilities	Vampiric powers including supernatural strength and speed, shapeshifiting into mist, bat or wolf, hypnosis.

I...Vampire is a 24 issue series, created by writer J. M. DeMatteis, that appeared in American comic book House of Mystery between 1981 and 1983. It originally started as a backup story among House of Mystery's three story format but soon became so popular that it eventually overtook the title on the cover. Even I...Vampire's finale was almost book length.

J. M. DeMatteis pitched the series to editor Len Wein under the title "Greenberg". Wein liked the concept but rejected the title and suggested "I, Vampire" instead.

In 1591, after being turned into a vampire himself, Lord Andrew Bennett turned his lover, Mary Seward, into a vampire, and she became corrupted by the power. She took the name Mary, Queen of Blood and created a group of vampires called The Blood Red Moon bent on taking over the world. The series followed Bennett into the modern day as he tried to undo his mistake and take down Mary and The Blood Red Moon.

He was helped by his two companions Deborah Dancer, a beautiful young woman who Bennett saved from Mary at (and who was also his girlfriend) and Dmitri Mishkin, a Russian man whom Bennett rescued from Mary (and his own mother, turned by Mary) when Mishkin was a child.

To try to keep his humanity, Bennett made a vow to only drink the blood of animals and bottled human blood (which created a subtext of alcoholism). In the original series, Bennett keeps his companions at arm's length, particularly Dancer. For a time he stays away from them altogether for fear of putting them in danger.

Storylines included Mishkin's quest to find and destroy the vampire who was his mother, Bennett's pursuit of Mary through time periods leading back to a time before either of them were vampires (motivated on Mary's part by a desire to escape a strange sickness killing vampires in the present), and finally an experimental 'cure' for vampirism which leads to the final confrontation between the surviving protagonists and Mary.

Bennett has attempted suicide on several occasions to end his curse, and has also been brought back to life after each attempt due to a higher power, as seen in the 1988 run of Doctor Fate. During this run, we also see Andrew Bennett interact with the Lords of Chaos and Order to seek an end to time, which does occur due to the vampire's involvement but is later reversed. He also appeared in Day of Vengeance as a background character in the Oblivion Bar, which became Shadowpact's headquarters. He appears as a supporting character in Doctor Thirteen backup stories in the 2006 miniseries Tales of the Unexpected.