CARL DEKKER
Real Name: Carl Dekker
Identity/Class: Vampire (1950s Era)
Occupation: Undead;
formerly businessman
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Katalin Nagyivanyi
Enemies: None
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: House on the graveyard, USA
First Appearance: Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1 (Spring 1952)
Powers/Abilities: As a vampire, Dekker had particular weaknesses and powers. He could probably transform into mist and live forever. However, he also likely needed human blood to renew his strength and sunlight could kill him, and he had to rest in his coffin.
History:
(Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1 (fb) - BTS) - Carl Dekker sought out the secret to eternal life. He heard that a village hid such a secret, so went there and learnt that the secret was linked to a haunted house that had been built on a graveyard.
(Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1) - The villagers did not want to reveal anything to Dekker, nor did they want him to live in the house, so Dekker instead bought the graveyard and the haunted house, despite the people's warnings and pleas. The first evening in the house, when he was alone, a fearsome phantom appeared before him. A transparent skeleton in tattered clothes floated toward him, disappearing shortly after.
The day after, Dekker hired some people to dig the ground around the house in the hope of destroying the phantom's home and finding the secret of eternal life. After dawn, another apparition arrived. This time, a beautiful female silouhette rose up from mist on the floor. The most beautiful woman Dekker had ever seen offered to him the secret he had been searching for. Entranced and lost in his love for her, Carl Dekker accepted. But her first kiss was a bite on the neck! Dekker gained eternal life as a vampire, and rested in the graveyard near the house.
Comments: Created by an uncredited writer and Russ Heath (pencils & inks).
The villagers believed that ghosts lived in the house, and the beautiful vampiress claimed that she was a phantom. Either she was lying or she was using a rather general meaning of the word. I classified Dekker and her and all the other ghosts in the story as vampires; my guess is that they used their illusion-casting abilities to scare the villagers.
Thanks to John Kaminski for pointing out that this story was originally printed in Adventures of the Weird Worlds#4/1.
The unidentified vampiress was named in Vampires: The Marvel Undead#1 (December, 2011).
Profile by Spidermay.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Carl Dekker has no known connections to
The vampiress had the powers and weaknesses of of a typical vampire. She could transform into mist, and created an illusion so that she could appear as a very beautiful woman. She had a pair of long canine teeth, which she used to drink blood from her victims. She probably had hypnotic powers, or used her illusions to entrance her victims and bend them to her will. For rest, she had to sleep in her coffin in the old graveyard.
The woman who had become the vampiress had been killed in the house on the graveyard. Other vampires also lived in the graveyard, and one of them had bitten the woman, apparently killing her, but instead trasforming her into a vampire.
After a hundred years, the vampiress showed herself to a man who had dared to enter the house: Carl Dekker. She didn't lie to him, telling him that she came from death, and that her beauty was an illusion. She convinced him to stop the excavations in the graveyard, afraid that her coffin would be destroyed. Dekker stopped the works and then gave her a kiss which was to restore her to life. But the vampiress bit him and transformed him into a vampire.
--Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1
The house on the graveyard was host to vampires among some of its graves. One of them had apparently killed a woman, and the villagers had learnt that it was very dangerous, even deadly, to enter the house. They thought that ghosts haunted the house, and they believed that the young woman waited for a victim to kiss so that she could return to life.
One hundred of years after the murder of the woman, Carl Dekker bought the graveyard and dared to enter the house. One of the "phantoms" appeared before him and terrorized him, but despite this, he nonetheless continued to have his workers dig up the ground to find the secret of eternal life. So, the vampiress appeared in all her feminine beauty and convinced him to stop the works. After that, she bit him, making him a vampire like her.
--Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1
images:
(without ads)
Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1, p6, pan6 (Carl Dekker, as a vampire)
Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1, p4, pan5 (Dekker, head shot)
Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1, p4, pan8 (vampiress under illusion)
Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1, p5, pan5 (vampiress, full image)
Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1, p1, pan1 (the house and the graveyard)
Adventures into Weird Worlds#4/1, p3, pan6 (a phantom)
Other Appearances: None
Last updated: 09/09/13
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