Cain (I, Vampire)

Cain in Justice League Dark v1 #8.

Cain is a male comic supervillain who features in DC Comics.

Biography

Cain

After turning hundreds to their vampiric 'children', Cain and Lilith came across a cult of vampire hunters. When she succumbed to her rage and loss, Lilith transformed into the first beast. Though they thought they killed all of the vampire hunters, enough survived to found the Order of the Van Helsings. (I, Vampire v1 #16) After a time of living like monstrous monarchs, they were met by a demon who had come to take back the power that they had got. Though he could not be killed, the Demon took the souls of all of those he had turned, including Lilith. He was promised, on that night, that if he fed just once upon a truly innocent soul, he would be cursed to spend his days locked in a vacuum of nothingness, eternally. (I, Vampire v1 #0)

At some point, Cain would encounter an Amazon in the north and drank her blood turning her into a vampire Through her, he learnt of the land of Themyscira with its population of powerful Amazons. He would determine that such a force under his thrall would provide him an unbeatable army to conquer the lands. With his Amazon guide, he made his way down south where he would pillage village after village and adding their number to his forces. In 1043 A.D., he and his army would ravage a village in the northern territory of the Holy Roman Empire in order to feed his forces as well as turn more humans into soldiers during the march to Themyscira. This chain of events attracted the notice of Al Jabr who decided to reassemble the Demon Knights and task them with stopping Cain. (Demon Knights v1 #16)

In the late 16th Century, Cain came across the broken carriage of a young man, to whom he told the story of himself and his bride, including the tale of the demon, when prompted on the basis that he was clearly not human (having realized this when a stab to Cain's body did not make him bleed). Misconstruing the young man's love for a young maid as lust, Cain fed upon him. Unfortunately, the victim, Andrew Bennett, was truly innocent, and so was capable of containing his power, as per the curse of the demon. (I, Vampire v1 #0) He was thereafter trapped within the House of Mystery, while the young man became a partial vampire. (I, Vampire v1 #19) This punishment was engineered by the Order of the Van Helsings itself as a means to contain him, given his immortality far beyond that of any vampire after him. (I, Vampire v1 #7)

Upon the murder of Andrew Bennett by Tig Rafelson in the early 21st Century, Cain was freed from his imprisonment for the first time in five hundred years. (I, Vampire v1 #6) He quickly took up command of the sunlight-tolerant, vampiric army of Mary, Queen of Blood, the very woman of which he was told by Andrew so many centuries ago. Stealing magic as it was used in order to strengthen his army, Cain became stronger himself with each spell used by the Justice League Dark in attempts to fight his vampiric forces. (Justice League Dark v1 #7) Though Mary tried to confront Cain over his lack of respect to her and theft of all control of her army, he proved too strong for her to face, causing her to join forces with those aimed to stop his attempt to take over the entire Earth. Unfortunately, her efforts proved of little importance as he used his siphoned magical energy to rid all of his vampires of their traditional weaknesses, making them supremely powerful as a result. (I, Vampire v1 #7) Due to the interference of the Crystal One at the behest of Madame Xanadu, the world's magic was transferred from Cain to a resurrected Andrew while the former was fighting the Justice League Dark, which Andrew acknowledged as he came to the battle. (Justice League Dark v1 #8) With Andrew's first use of his magic, he turned the vampire army to dust, and with his second, he resurrected them, setting them upon their former master before decapitating Cain. Andrew thereafter used the world's magic to absorb all of the evils of the vampires into his own body, rendering himself the only vampire in the entire world as Cain nonetheless re-materialized out of the view of the assembled heroes, aware of Andrew's newfound evil. (I, Vampire v1 #8)

After Andrew had absorbed all of the evil of the vampires, Cain was rendered without his vampiric powers. Found by the newly human Mary and her companions, he readily admitted to being Bennett's sire. (I, Vampire v1 #15) He tried to tell his story to the assembled vampire hunters, but they grew frustrated with the lack of information about the newly corrupted Andrew, eventually leaving in the middle of his tale when it became clear that the vampire had killed most of the Order of the Van Helsings and was on the move. (I, Vampire v1 #16) Arriving at the House of Mystery, where a portal was being opened to Hell using a stone from the top of the Tower of Babel, which had touched Heaven thus instead opening up to them both and causing a break in reality itself, he attempted to use said portal, kept open by the magic-using vampire Charles Thompson, to free his wife from Hell. (I, Vampire v1 #17) Cain was disappointed when there was no sign of Lilith. Realizing that not only the evils of the vampires were inside of Andrew, but also the very souls of all of them, Cain ripped those souls from him, locating the soul of Lilith in the process. Though the portal began to become unstable as well as unable to be closed, Cain was unconcerned, as he soon would have his Lilith back with him. To expedite that, he threw the soul into the dead body of Tig Rafelson, Andrew's new "queen" as well as mortal enemy, causing her to begin to transform into Lilith before his very eyes. (I, Vampire v1 #18) Though attempts by Andrew and Deborah Dancer fail to kill him, with him even being able to regenerate his head if decapitated, Cain prepared to usher in the destruction of the universe with Lilith by his side. As he wished to kill his sire, Cain followed Andrew to the main part of the House of Mystery, where he was once imprisoned. There, he found himself in a court room, face to face with Lucifer as his judge. Despite Cain's attempt to pass his Mark of Cain on to Andrew, he had taken it back when he resurrected Lilith. As punishment for his crimes, he was sentenced to a fate worse than death: eternal life in the House of Mystery, forever suffering. (I, Vampire v1 #19)

Notes

• Cain was created by

Appearances

• Justice League Dark v1:
• I, Vampire v1:
• Demon Knights v1:

External Links

• DC Database Entry
• Comicvine Entry

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