After the initial run of the series The Tomb of Dracula, the character has been depicted primarily as an antagonist to superheroes in the Marvel Universe.

Later that year, Morbius the Living Vampire appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man for the first time, and Dracula followed in his own title some months later.

But the potential for a sales-boosting crossover eventually became too tempting, and Dracula appeared in the first issue of Giant-Size Spider-Man (July 1974).

In the 19th century, he faced opposition from Abraham van Helsing and Jonathan Harker in England, the exploits of which were recorded in the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker, Dracula.

[14] In the later half of the 20th century, Dracula was once more returned from death by Clifton Graves, and subsequently came into conflict with Quincy Harker[15] and Rachel van Helsing.

[16][17] After bringing the Cult of the Darkhold under his control, Dracula began to seek the power of the dark book to remove his vampiric weaknesses and make himself truly immortal.

However, in his quest he was repeatedly foiled by the X-Men, the now-vampiric Rachel van Helsing and Lilith,[18] Thor,[19] Doctor Strange, Hannibal King and the Avengers.

[20] Dracula had one apparent post-mortem appearance when the Grandmaster summoned him and a number of other deceased heroes and villains to challenge the Avengers.

[22] In the 21st century, Dracula assembled an army of vampires in a sanctuary on the Moon and planned to conquer the United Kingdom,[23] with other supernatural villains Lilith (a different entity from his daughter), Captain Fate, and Baron Blood.

He first contacted Doctor Doom to agree to a non-aggression pact with him, and by association the Cabal, to be unopposed in his conquest.

MI-13 were manipulated into exposing the whereabouts of Quincy Harker's remains, magically treated to prevent vampires from entering the U.K. without invitation, so Dracula could destroy them.

To stop Dracula from finding out the remains were fake, he was briefly trapped in a demonic "Dream Corridor" which saw him live out his fantasies of victory.

Once he escaped, there were a series of attacks to keep him occupied until the warships entered British airspace without invitation, wiping out the bulk of his forces.

[volume & issue needed] In the final battle, he was pursued to his fortress and prevented from escaping by the Black Knight and Faiza Hussain, wielder of the sword Excalibur.

While Dracula was able to seriously wound the Black Knight, he was slain with a single blow from Excalibur, leaving Britain victorious.

Although he contemplated attacking the X-Men, Cyclops reminded him that they had had custody of his body for 17 hours before the head was reattached, suggesting that they had included a 'contingency plan' in Dracula similar to the plan that they had used to infiltrate Xarus' forces by temporarily shutting down Wolverine's healing factor so that he could be turned and then returned to normal.

In the end, Nul is defeated when Inka uses a vampire-mesmerizing spell to take the form of Betty Ross, causing the Hulk to break free of the hammer's magic and revert to normal.

On the way, she falls in love with him instead and, during the extended trip, her brothers are killed by Dracula to secure the kingdom of Monster Metropolis as his own.

This causes Shiklah to deny him the throne by marrying Deadpool, driving Dracula into a rage not because of the power and kingdom he lost, but because he was cuckolded by "an escaped mental patient".

After a fight in which he is stabbed with Deadpool's severed hand, poisoned by the mercenary's blood and his army mostly wiped out, Dracula flees into hiding, leaving Shiklah as Queen of the Monsters.

Dracula and Shiklah are married by Mephisto, while an angry Deadpool and a confused Spider-Man are tied up and made to watch.

He is capable of shapeshifting into a bat – either normal or human size – or a wolf while retaining his intelligence and into a fog or mist – partially or fully – and has the ability of weather control, such as summoning electrical storms.

Dracula has a dependence on the ingestion of fresh blood to sustain his existence, and an inability to endure direct sunlight.

He has vulnerabilities to garlic (which can both repel him and prevent him from changing form), silver and wood (both of which can cause severe pain, the latter to a lesser extent unless it penetrates his heart) and the presence of religious symbols (wielded by one who believes in their spiritual meaning), and can be killed either by beheading or by a wooden stake or blade made of silver driven through his heart.

"[39] In the mid-1970s, Roy Thomas and Dick Giordano created a serialized adaptation of the original Bram Stoker novel, published in 10- to 12-page installments in the short-lived series Dracula Lives!.

[46] Following the cancellation of Dracula Lives!, an additional installment of their adaptation appeared in Marvel Preview #8 ("The Legion of Monsters"),[47] for a total of 76 pages comprising roughly one-third of the novel.

[48] After a 30-year hiatus, Marvel commissioned Thomas and Giordano to finish the adaptation, and ran the reprinted and new material as the four-issue miniseries Stoker's Dracula (Oct. 2004 – May 2005).