[citation needed] Working as a private detective, King was bitten and killed by Deacon Frost while on a case in London, England.

For the most part, eschewing his vampirism, King continues to operate as a private detective, travelling freely only by night.

[4] While investigating a friend's murder by worshipers of the occult book Darkhold, King contacts Doctor Strange.

Learning the book contains spells to create and destroy vampires, King goes with Strange, Blade and Frank Drake to Castle Mordo in Transylvania to retrieve it.

[6] Later, in a two-issue solo series in the comic book Journey Into Mystery, King sets up shop in San Francisco, where CIA Agent Tatjana Stiles enlists him to help stop a vampire plot to blackmail the Earth with biochemical weapons.

When he learns she has become a deadly vampire CIA agent, he becomes dispirited, losing interest in his work and retreating into depression.

He can withstand and recover from severe physical injury and is nearly ageless, impervious to diseases and poisons, and virtually immortal.

[citation needed] In The Tomb of Dracula #25, the reader is not immediately told that Hannibal is a vampire until the final panel.

After that, he was shown to be a regular vampire with all of the traditional strengths and weaknesses, identical to his status before the Montesi Formula was cast.

The film includes the premise that King is a former vampire, having been turned by Danica Talos, and cured by the retrovirus serum that was developed in Blade (1998).