Spitfire, Vampires, and Blood Diseases
Even before her revelation that she herself is a vampire, Spitfire’s history has been rife with vampiric shenanigans. Her origin revolves around a vampire bite and subsequent transfusion with android blood. Her son became a vampire and fathered a child on Baroness Blood before she killed him and the rest of her vampire followers by exposing them to sunlight1.
That all brings us to New Invaders #5, where Spitfire has been captured by Baroness Blood. The Baroness explains that she needs Spitfire’s blood to keep her son — Spitfire’s grandson — alive. She goes on the explain that while the vampire bite/android blood gave Spitfire her powers, it caused an inherited degenerative blood disorder in her son2, a disorder that was then passed on to his son3. The only way to keep the Baroness’s child alive is to regularly feed it Spitfire’s blood. Thus the Baroness has captured Spitfire and has her tied to a gurney (and continually transfused with blood4) so she can provide sustenance for junior whenever he wants it5.
The Baroness’s other plan is to feed her vampire lackeys6 some of her blood so that they will gain immunity to sunlight. Though unlike her, their immunity will only last for a few days. Still, that’s enough for them to wreak havoc across England. The Baroness also feeds her vampires some of Spitfire’s blood, though the reason for this is never explained – well, other than allowing the good guys a deus ex machina ending7.
Notes:
1. Not only did the Baroness clearly skip the leadership lectures of vampire school, but she never read the Evil Overlord list. (This all takes place in the first Union Jack mini-series.)
2. Apparently the vampire bite and/or android blood caused a deleterious mutation in Spitfire’s germ line cells, which is interesting because by that time in her life, her eggs had already formed. So either the blood disease was not related to the vampire/android blood, or they somehow mutated already formed cells.
3. It looks to be an autosomal dominant mutation, which means that a single copy of the mutated gene is enough to cause the disease (so it’s not a disease where the normal gene is simply not working — because that generally means both copies of the gene must be abnormal to see a negative effect — but instead one where the mutated version of the protein is actively causing the disease). This still doesn’t explain how Spitfire’s blood would keep the disease in remission. Maybe her mutated blood cells counteract the abnormal ones in the baby?
4. I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: why is an English vampire based in England using blood from the American Red Cross?
5. For a three to sixth month old baby, Johnny sure has a mouthful of teeth. I’m guessing vampire babies teeth a lot earlier than human babies.
6.The Baroness’s new lackeys that is, since she killed all of her previous ones. This is why you should always do some research on a prospective employer before signing on the dotted line.
7. The Human Torch (the android one) realizes that since the vampires drank Spitfire’s blood, they also have his blood in their system, thus he uses his powers to ignite his blood in the vampires, causing them all to burst into flame. Sound familiar? He just did the same thing to Ultron’s LMDs in the Avengers/Invaders series.
May 20th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
The obvious thing which stands out to me is that if Spitfire is getting transfusions, it’s not actually her blood that the baby is feeding on, right? At best it’d be a mixture of Spitfire and donor blood.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Of course, in this instance they’ve got a medical/scientific Get Out of Jail Free card, don’t they? After all, vampires and vampirism are essentially mystical in nature, so they don’t really need to make sense in purely medical terms. What could be important is merely that the blood come from Spitfire’s veins, not that it have been actually produced by her cells.
Whatever happened to little Johnny, anyway? I understand that the Baroness and JC got away before Hammond ignited his stolen blood in the other minions, but would he have been able to survive as a vampire child on regular blood once he’d had enough of Spitfire’s? Do they come back in the current Dracula conquers England storyline by Paul Cornell?
May 20th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Official Comment
The story mentions that junior can also survive on his mother’s blood, but suggests that Spitfire’s blood is preferable (maybe just because the Baroness is sick of always having to give junior her blood). So wherever the Baroness and Johnny are, he should be able to survive on his mother’s blood.
As to there current whereabouts…???
I was wondering the same thing myself. They have not shown up in the recent Captain Britain storyline (at least that I’ve noticed), but Spitfire’s previously-deceased son Kenneth has.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 am
I saw a report a few days ago (don’t remember where, but at least moderately respectable) of research showing the possibility that people -female people, that is- may develop egg cells into adulthood, so that part might not be such a problem.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:56 am
“why is an English vampire based in England using blood from the American Red Cross?”
Well, the UK already imports plasma for fractionating into blood products because of the risk of vCJD transmission – so if you get immunoglobulin in the UK it won’t have come from UK donors. Can prion diseases affect vampires?
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:58 am
For that matter, can you get Vampirism from transfusions? It does seem to be a problem in England.
(On the other hand, given the consequences from Super transfusions, and the proponderance of Supers in the US, would you really want to import your blood products from there?)
June 14th, 2009 at 1:20 am
” For a three to sixth month old baby, Johnny sure has a mouthful of teeth. I’m guessing vampire babies teeth a lot earlier than human babies.”
Doesn’t some central European legend say that babies of vampire parents are born with teeth?
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