Comic Book Transfusions: Batman
September 21st, 2008
Just how much of a badass is Batman?
He donates blood to vampires…voluntarily.
scene from The Brave and the Bold #195
The context: Batman is hunting gangster Johnny the Gun, and Andrew Bennett (aka I…Vampire) is hunting his ex-lover turned evil vampire Mary. Their paths cross when they discover that Mary has turned Johnny the Gun into a vampire gangster. A fight ensues, and Bennett takes the bullets meant for Batman (that, of course, just happened to be silver). Batman repays Bennett’s actions by donating enough blood to keep the vampire alive. I’d make my usual comment about blood types now, but do vampires even have blood types?
Other Comic Book Transfusions
September 22nd, 2008 at 8:22 am
Sure they do: all of them.
/horn sound
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:30 am
They probably become some sort of “multiversal recipient” (beyond “universal recipient”) — they can take blood from any human, and from most animals, too!
‘Course, since it’s all semi-magical, it’s probably not working on the same mechanism as a true blood transfusion. I mean, vamps typically take their “transfusions” orally, not intravenously.
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:33 am
Just a guess here: Bob Haney?
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:46 am
Official Comment
Chris,
Surprisingly no, this is Mike Barr’s work.
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
They’re always drinking blood though, not receiving it in IVs, so their digestive system may have adapted to handle blood. However vampires are traditionally shown as not having a heartbeat, so they wouldn’t have circulation, so how could you give them blood with an IV?
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 pm
No heartbeat? Not necessarily. ;-)
September 23rd, 2008 at 2:28 am
Since Bennet recently turned a talking gorilla into a vampire I’m going to guess No on that blood type thing for DC vamps…
September 23rd, 2008 at 11:15 am
I remember being very fond of a short story in one of the Alfred Hitchcock collections involving a man with a rare blood type (presumably one of those odd twisted proteins) finding out that the blood bank he was donating to was run by a vampire who could only digest that blood type. I was impressed at the explanations of vampiric weaknesses (”Yes, we do react very badly to sunlight. But so do you humans. It just works a lot more slowly and you call it sunburn.”) and I was amazed at the time at the idea of people actually getting paid to donate their blood (it was actually a bugaboo of the protagonist in that his blood was apparently rare enough to command top dollar and the Red Cross kept asking him to donate for free, the nerve!).
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:15 pm
If the Batman bit a vampire, would that vampire contract the curse of Humanism?
September 26th, 2008 at 12:59 am
Oooooh I must find this issue, it looks too wierd not to miss.
Alas, the internet has failed me. *cries*
October 11th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Batman repays Bennett’s actions by donating enough blood to keep the vampire alive…ooh, but for how long, such a waste of good blood!
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