Dracula, the most fearsome and famous vampire!
Vampires were a supernatural race native to Earth, particularly Transylvania. They fed on blood and could be destroyed with garlic, sunlight, holy water, stakes, silver darts or bullets, or crosses.
One such vampire was Dracula, who also had the ability to transform humans into vampires, simply by blasting rays from his eyes at his victims. Vampires also had the ability to transform into bats.
Known Vampires
Appearance
Vampires in the Superfriends Universe
As the Superfriends was a cartoon geared towards kids and shown on Saturday mornings, the traditional method of creating vampires (i.e. biting a person on the neck) couldn't be used. Instead, vampires in the Superfriends universe use beams to turn humans into vampires. Dracula and his victims use eye beams to make new vampires whereas Vampiress and her victims use beams from the diamonds on their upper fangs.
Light sensitivity seems to be an attribute that carries over in vampires. We see it clearly in Voodoo Vampire where Black Vulcan amplifies the light of moon to drive Vampiress back into her tomb and free the Superfriends and the safari group. In "Attack of the Vampire" we don't see sunlight, but all of the action takes places at night, an implicit nod to sensitivity to sunlight.
Transformation into a bat is another power that vampires in the Superfriends universe have. The power appears more frequently in "Attack of the Vampire," where Dracula transforms into a bat to release his vampire powder onto an airplane and the citizens of Vienna (as well as to guide Vampire Superman to his first victims); the vampires made on the airplane transform into bats to travel to Dracula's castle and to the village to spread Dracula's control, and another set of vampires take bat form and turn the ship and dockworkers into vampires as bats. In "Voodoo Vampire" we only see Vampiress and the safari guide Malu Mabitti transform into bats. However, Vampire Malu gives us the memorable scene of turning into a bat and attacking Batman with his fangs.
Superman becomes a vampire under both Dracula and Vampiress's control. In "Attack of the Vampire," Superman is the first Superfriend to become a vampire and he subsequently turns the Wonder Twins into vampires. In Voodoo Vampire, however, he and Aquaman become vampires after locking vampire Batman and Robin in a holding cell. Both stories take the position that Superman can be made into a vampire where other DC stories have posited that he cannot be made into a vampire. Voodoo Vampire has four of the Superfriends becoming vampires whereas Attack of the Vampire has three.
Some commentators have described the vampires in both stories as "mindless," but this misunderstands the transformation that happens to the victims. The image of the vampire horde as "mindless" comes about because most victims in both stories don't speak and merely follow the order to make more vampires, but there are actions in both stories that dispel this image of "mindlessness." In "Voodoo Vampire," the major figure to dispel this "mindless" image is Vampire Batman. When Batman is hit by the vampire beam and turned, he lowers his head and hides under his cape. Robin comes to tell Batman that Black Vuclan and he will help him and Batman, now resting against a tree, responses back that won't be necessary. That Vampire Batman can speak shatters the mindless image into pieces. Those pieces get crushed even further when after Black Vulcan disappears from the fight scene, Vampire Batman proposes that they go to the Hall of Justice and make the other Superfriends vampires, which further demonstrates Vampire Batman's capacity for thought has not been hampered by becoming a vampire. Vampire Robin smiles at Vampire Batman's proposal, meaning he too understands and approves, another instance of thought and comprehension. And lastly, when guide Malu Mabitti is made into a vampire, his reaction is not emotionless, it is in fact one of pleasure at being transformed, one more instance than debunks the mindless depiction.
At first glance the vampires of "Attack of the Vampire" seem mindless because they don't speak and merely follow Dracula's order to transform the entire world into vampires. A scene that debunks that is Vampire Superman turning the Wonder Twins into vampires. The Twins freeze Vampire Superman and the horde of vampires he leads, then unfreeze Vampire Superman, which allows him to use his eye beams to turn them into vampires. The action Vampire Superman takes after this is the debunking moment: he uses his heat vision and unfreezes the other vampires and continues on his mission. If Vampire Superman were "mindlessly" obeying Dracula's command, he wouldn't have given a thought about the other vampires; he would simply recognize that he made two new vampires and depart with the Vampire Wonder Twins to make more vampires. But he instead realizes that all the other vampires have been frozen and he has been unfrozen along with the fact that he has a way to unfreeze the other vampires. At that point he uses inference to come up with a situation to correct the situation and using inference is to be not mindless and actually use mental capacity.
Along with Vampire Superman's use of his heat vision is his usage of flight. A mindless Vampire Superman wouldn't really have awareness of his powers and would just either walk like the other vampires or turn into a bat like the other vampires. But when Dracula commands him to follow and make more vampires, Superman follows him using his flight power and begins transforming people from the sky. Between the usage of his heat vision and his flight, Vampire Superman is aware of his abilities and he uses them to further his master's command to transform vampires. Awareness is not something a mindless creature would have. And the vampires themselves have to have awareness to enact the transformation from human to bat. The pilot and copilot after becoming vampires activate the airplane's autopilot and to do that means they still have their knowledge of piloting a plane. So again we see the vampires of Attack of the Vampire are not mindless.
The idea of the "mindless" vampire I think emerges from the ways in which "Attack of the Vampire" blatantly evokes the zombie paradigm (Voodoo Vampire doesn't draw on it so heavily and breaks it in the apparent ways I've outlined above). Dracula unleashes his vampire transformation to turn the entire world into vampires, much in the same way the zombie outbreaks in movies like Resident Evil and shows like The Walking Dead spread over the globe. But The Walking Dead reminds us that the walkers do have limited brain function and at the end of the series we see the walkers' capacity of actions increasing, moving slowly away from the "mindless" label. The vampires in Attack of the Vampire do have capacities and knowledge, but they largely don't use them. Rather than being mindless, it might be better to say they are under the "thrall" of their vampire masters. The "thrall" of Dracula is much stronger, with the vampires not speaking but being committed to carry out their master's command very intently. The "thrall" of Vampiress allows for a much more active engagement in her vampire slaves. But in both stories, the vampires are not and should not be seen as "mindless."
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