BloodRayne

Origin

Mary Gallo was born a Dhampir, the product of her human mother’s rape by her vampire father, Kagan. Years later, Kagan returned and killed Mary’s mother. In 1932 the young Mary, now calling herself Rayne, was apprehended in Ireland after carving a path of destruction while trying to track down and kill her biological father. The girl claimed that the people she killed were actually vampires, as was her father who was still at large. After killing a troublesome wolf on Declan Finney‘s doorstep, he recognized Rayne for what she was and took her in. It was Declan who gave Rayne her signature weapons, the Twin Blades, and set her on a path to join the Brimstone Society.

Creation

BloodRayne was initially created in 2002 by Majesco Entertainment to be the featured character in a successful line of action video games. Comic books featuring BloodRayne began publication in 2004 by Echo 3 Worldwide, under the Digital Webbing imprint line.

Character Evolution

BloodRayne evolved from an earlier video game character called Svetlana Dupescu, who was also a Dhampir and appeared in a 1999 video game called Nocturne. Svetlana was severe and angular in appearance, so BloodRayne was made more sexy and curvaceous to lend more visual appeal to the character. Her appearance is so similar to a British comic book vampire named Durham Red (who first appeared in 1989) that BloodRayne’s creators were questioned about it in interviews, but they denied knowing of Durham Red’s existence or of being influenced by her look.

With her shoulder-length red hair and sexy black dominatrix-like costume, BloodRayne also bears a strong resemblance to a popular 1990’s Chaos Comics Bad Girl vampire, Chastity, while BloodRayne’s signature twin arm blades are very similar to the weaponry of another popular 1990’s Bad Girl character, Razor.

Powers

Rayne is a Dhampir with many powers:

• Like a vampire, she draws energy from drinking blood.
• She can run far faster than a normal human and can leap vertically up to two stories.
• Rayne is far stronger than a normal human.
• She is equally proficient with both arms and can easily wield dual blades and dual assault rifles.
• Rayne possesses enhanced senses, especially vision. She can see an object in clear detail from a much further distance than any human.

Weaknesses

• Water burns Rayne, but it doesn’t kill her immediately like it does true vampires.

• Sunlight hurts Rayne considerably, but she can survive a small amount of sunlight, unlike a true vampire.

Weapons

Rayne uses her signature twin blades to dispatch enemies. Rayne has a wrist mounted harpoon which she shoots at enemies to pulls them in and feed on them. She also employs various types of firearms including handguns, shotguns, and assault rifles.