The Time Dracula Tried — and Failed — to Bite Superman
Superman has faced gods, aliens, and world-ending threats, but in Superman #180, DC decided to pit the Man of Steel against Count Dracula himself. In this 1966 issue, Clark Kent travels to Europe with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen to interview Dracula, hoping to show the world that not all vampires are monsters. Things quickly go south when Dracula hypnotizes Lois and whisks her away to his castle.
Superman intervenes and rescues Lois, but the real twist comes when Dracula attempts to bite him. What the vampire forgets, however, is that Superman’s very cells are infused with solar radiation. Instead of draining Clark’s life force, Dracula disintegrates into dust the moment his fangs pierce the Kryptonian. The story leans into campy Silver Age creativity, but it cleverly flips the vampire trope on its head.
Elseworlds Takes It Dark: Superman in Red Rain
Fast-forward to the 1990s and DC’s famous Elseworlds line, where familiar heroes were placed in alternate, darker realities. In Superman: Red Rain, the Last Son of Krypton doesn’t repel Dracula — he succumbs. After being bitten, Superman becomes a vampire himself, and suddenly his solar-powered body is at odds with a curse that thrives in darkness.
Unlike the campy take in Superman #180, this version explores moral complexity. The vampire Superman struggles between his heroic duty and an insatiable thirst for blood. It forces readers to question: what happens when the world’s greatest symbol of hope inherits a monstrous nature he cannot fully control?
My Personal Take
If we take Superman’s biology seriously, his cells are like living solar batteries. That means the sun would always feed him energy, no matter what curse he carried. In that sense, vampirism might just make him more dangerous — a being with endless energy and endless hunger.
Dracula and other vampires weaken without blood or in daylight, but Superman never runs dry. That’s a terrifying thought. On the other hand, part of what makes the Red Rain take so interesting is that it bends the rules. If vampirism is treated as a supernatural infection, it could overwrite Kryptonian physiology.
That would make sunlight his greatest threat — imagine Superman hiding in the shadows, unable to walk Metropolis in daylight, torn between saving people and preserving himself. That tragic angle is pure Gothic storytelling. If I had to lean one way? I think the sun would still strengthen him.
Kryptonian biology is too tied to solar radiation to suddenly flip. But DC being DC, I love that the other version exists — because it forces readers to wrestle with a question that has no clean answer.
The Big Debate: Sunlight — Savior or Executioner?
So the big question is that if Superman was a vampire, would the Sun Strengthen him or kill him. The Sun's ultraviolet rays which strengthens the average Superman kills the average vampire.
What do you think would be a Vampire-Superman's fate?