HEIDI CARGAISON

Real Name: Heidi Cargaison

Identity/Class: Human;
    active circa 1930 A.D. (and likely at least 40-50+ years before that)

Occupation: Journalist

Group Membership: Los Angeles Tribune

Affiliations: None known

Enemies: Calvin Beck, Carmilla (Mircalla Karnstein), Harry Cohn, Max Nodurft, Georges Orly, Hjalmar Polezig, Vitus Verdegast, Patty Mei Wong;
    indirectly Owen Vincent "Owney" Madden (she was cowed into submission by a warning against crossing him)

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Hollywood, California;
    formerly an unspecified portion of Europe

First Appearance: Carmilla#5 (June, 1991)

Powers/Abilities: Heidi Cargaison was an experienced journalist dealing with Hollywood figures.

    She is apparently racist, notably against Asians but likely against any other people on non-European origin (and perhaps some of various European nations, as well).

History:
(Carmilla#5 (fb) - BTS) - Heidi Cargaison immigrated to the USA at some point.

(Carmilla#5 (fb) - BTS) - Heidi Cargaison was a Hollywood columnist employed by the Los Angeles Tribune.

    Under unrevealed circumstances, she learned that Max Nodurft, who was directing the Cosmopolitan Studios movie adaptation of  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla, was living with his lover, Patty Mei Wong. Disapproving of this relation between a man of European (German) descent and an Asian woman, she met with producer Vitus Verdegast. After hearing her complaints, Vitus had Max summoned to his office, and Heidi informed him of her concerns.

(Carmilla#5) - Max considered the complaint preposterous as his personal life was nobody's business but his own, but Heidiargued that as a Hollywood columnist, it was her business. She further suggested that perhaps Max was too young to recall the necessity of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and Max informed her that he hadn't even immigrated to America until 1926. Vitus further added that both he and Heidi were immigrants, while Patti Mei Wong was born in the USA. Heidi told Vitus not to be naive as they were European while Wong was Asian and that it was illegal for "her kind to marry ours." Heidi then turned to Max and added, "But, of course, you and Miss Wong are only living in sin, aren't you?"

    Calvin Beck, apparently an agent to the stars, interjected that Patty was a talented actress, whether Heidi cared to admit it or not, but he could rarely give her work. He further noted that theaters in England and France adulated Asian and Negro talent, while Americans like her degraded them.

    Heidi bluntly shared that she had photographs of Wong alone with Nordurft at his San Gabriel home and that solid sources swore that the two were having an affair. She then warned that the days Carmilla debuted, her gossip column would be brimming with this evidence and that the careers of Beck, Verdegast, Nordurft and Wong would be over, unless, of course, Max terminated "this disgusting relationship."

    Refusing to allow this, Max quit and stormed out, and Vitus sent Beck to calm him down while he dealt with Heidi. Vitus subsequently told her that he had been waiting a long time for her to screw up like this, and that while he could tolerate most gossip columnists, she was not just stupid but mean. He swore that if she printed that evidence, before the evening's night owl edition hit the streets, she would be dead. Heidi advised him that Harry Cohn (co-founder and president of Columbia Pictures) threatened her life once, and she was still alive. Vitus, in turn, advised her that Cosmopolitan Studios had Owney Madden as one of its principal stockholders, and he suggested that threatening the fortunes of the most powerful gangster in Harlem should scare the piss out of her.

(Carmilla#5 (fb) - BTS) - Sarah Karnstein, the actress playing the vampire Carmilla, was actually the 17^th Century vampire from the 19^th Century novella Carmilla, and she sent her associate Hjalmar Polezig to kill Heidi Cargaison. He entered Heidi's apartment undetected and drank her (presumably) brandy while he waited. 

    Returning to her apartment, Heidi was incensed when the doorman told her he trusted she had a pleasant day, and she vowed that she would have his job. As she turned her liquor table, she noticed a missing glass and that the bottle was half empty. When she exclaimed, "What the devil is going on?!," Hjalmar replied, "'The Devil,' precisely, Miss Cargaison."

    Shocked, she dropped the bottle and asked who he was and what he wanted. Hjalmar introduced himself, and she begged him that he could take whatever he wanted but to please not hurt her. Apologizing and revealing his right sword hand (it looked like he might have a prosthesis, and an actual sword in place of his hand), Hjalmar told her that hurting her was the sole purpose of his visit.Dropping to her knees, she begged him not to do this, but he advised her that she had brought this on herself: "You are full of wrath and rancor; now the time has come -- to pay the devil his due!"

    After stabbing her through the chest, Hjalmar told her that dying was easy, but that dying memorably was difficult. He told her that he would endeavor to create a work of art out of her death: "A grand guignol of blood -- and bone -- and flesh!"

(Carmilla#5) - Hjalmar slew and likely mutilated Heidi Cargaison.

    File this one under "Holy Crap, here's a whole level of legalized racism of which I was not aware!" Obviously times were different, but this is really hard to believe. But, I looked at a number of apparently solid websites, including legality.org and asiasociety.org, and everything back this up. Feel free to look it up, and I'd really like it if someone could prove to me that this isn't actually true:

    In the United States, interracial marriage, cohabitation and sex have been termed "miscegenation" since the term was coined in 1863. Contemporary usage of the term is infrequent, except in reference to historical laws which banned the practice. Anti-miscegenation laws were first introduced in North America by the governments of several of the Thirteen Colonies from the late seventeenth century onward, and subsequently, they were introduced by the governments of many U.S. states and U.S. territories and they remained in force in many US states until 1967.

    California’s first legislature passed a law in 1850 that prohibited marriages between white people and “negroes or mulattoes,” (mulatto being an antiquated and bigoted term for people of mixed African/black and "white" ethnicity...originally derived from the word mule, a crossbreed of a horse and a donkey--Snood) with criminal penalties for anyone who entered into or performed such a marriage. The ban was narrower than the original article suggests. It did not initially cover people of Asian or Native American descent. Those expansions came later.

    In 1872, the legislature dropped the criminal penalties but kept the prohibition in place through Civil Code Section 60, which declared all marriages between white people and “negroes or mulattoes” illegal and void. Section 69 barred county clerks from issuing licenses for those marriages. Then the ban widened: in 1880 and 1905, the legislature amended both sections to add “Mongolians” (a term then used for people of Chinese, Japanese, and other East Asian descent). In 1933, after a court ruled that Filipinos did not fall under the “Mongolian” category, legislators quickly added “Malays” to the list. Each amendment reflected who lawmakers perceived as a threat to the racial hierarchy at a given moment, not any consistent legal principle.

    In 1948, California was the first state in the country to strike down a law banning interracial marriage, doing so nearly two decades before the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the issue nationally. The 1948 California Supreme Court decision in Perez v. Sharp invalidated the state’s nearly century-old prohibition and set a legal precedent that rippled across the country. That ruling, the civil rights legislation it inspired, and the eventual federal protections that followed make California’s history with interracial marriage laws one of the most consequential in American legal history.

    In 1967, in the landmark case Loving v. Virginia, the remaining anti-miscegenation laws were ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren.

    Cargaison is apparently a French word meaning cargo. Heidi seems like more of a German name, so maybe she is of German and French origins?

    Vitus Verdegast and Hjalmar Polezig were apparently at least named after characters from the 1934 movie "The Black Cat," played by Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, respectively.

    Harry Cohn and Owney Madden were real people. You can Google them for more information.

    Courtesy of Loki, who suggested covering Mrs. Cargaison to represent Carmilla for the 25th Anniversary:

The first three issues are based on the early vampire novel Carmilla (and I think adapt it), while the next three are a sequel tale.
Not tied to anything else from Malibu AFAIK, nor is there anything to render the series inconsistent with Earth-616.
Surprisingly, despite integrating many of the iconic vampires from 19th century fiction, if even only for passing mentions in JML's vampire histories, Carmilla hasn't shown up in any Marvel comic that I know of. 

   This profile was completed 04/17/2026, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 25^th anniversary 's celebratory event.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Heidi Cargaison should be distinguished from:

• other "Heidi" or "Cargaison" characters, groups, items, events, races or places...

First posted: 09/21/2026
Last updated: 04/17/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
All other characters mentioned or pictured are ™  and © 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com

Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!

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