As the dust settles from King in Black, the Avengers must face a reckoning for the sinister reinforcements they enlisted to fight against Knull.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Avengers #45, by Jason Aaron, Luca Maresca, David Curiel and VC’s Cory Petit, on sale now.
The Marvel Universe was spared the wrath of Knull and his symbiote armies in the crossover event King in Black, narrowly snatching a hard-fought victory from the jaws of impending defeat. In order to stem the invasion of symbiote monsters rampaging around Earth, the Avengers were forced to make some desperate alliances.
In a moment of desperation, Dracula provided his vampire hordes in service to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes’ battle against the dark god. And now that Knull has been vanquished and his army driven from the planet, the Lord of Vampires has come calling to collect on what he is now owed for lending valuable reinforcements to finish the fight in Avengers #45.
Darkhawk gives Avengers leader Black Panther the heads up that Dracula is petitioning his case to the American government for his own vampire nation-state in return for lending his support in defeating Knull. Congress approves Dracula’s request, granting the vampires a sovereign state in the ruins of Chernobyl, with Dracula himself reestablishing his throne within the former nuclear plant. However, just staking out his own federally recognized kingdom is far from Dracula’s only demand. He soon lays out his additional conditions for his newly founded nation, which may prove to be the breaking point between Blade and the Avengers.
Enraged that the heroes’ first instinct upon Knull’s defeat was to allow Blade to immediately hunt the vampires that assisted during the fight in Manhattan, Dracula makes even more demands to account for the butchering of his people. As the vampires settle in the radioactive ruins of northern Ukraine, Dracula demands regular ships of blood to nourish his fledging nation, for the vampires’ sovereignty to be recognized by the United Nations and for all the prisoners the Avengers captured during the recent vampire civil war in Russia to be released.
The kicker is that Dracula also wants Blade to answer for his attack on the allied vampires by facing judgment in Chernobyl. While T’Challa is able to manufacture synthetic blood to keep the vampires sated without draining it from actual, living humans, the idea of releasing the prisoners back to Dracula and turning himself over to the vampires obviously doesn’t sit well with Blade. While the UN capitulates on Dracula’s remaining demands, including official recognition and relinquishment of prisoners, Blade is sent to Chernobyl. He’s not there to answer for accused injustices, but rather to serve as the UN’s official inspector to ensure the vampires don’t plot against their human neighbors.
The Avengers knew obtaining the support of Dracula and his vampire army was going to come back to haunt them and, all things considered, giving up a piece of radioactive land for the vampires to found their own nation isn’t the worst outcome. Dracula has always been a mortal enemy of Blade and has recently menaced Wolverine with his vampire nation.
But now, the Lord of Vampires now faces the scrutiny of the United Nations. While Dracula got the sovereignty that he wanted, he’ll have to live with the Blade constantly monitoring him more closely than ever before.
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