Rachel Van Helsing

Few characters in Marvel's Bronze Age horror canon carry the weight of a name like Van Helsing, and Rachel Van Helsing — introduced in Tomb of Dracula #3 in 1972 by the legendary team of Archie Goodwin and Gene Colan — arrived bearing all of that legacy's gravity. She emerged at the dawn of Marvel's monster-comics renaissance, a figure defined by her place in one of the most celebrated horror titles of the era, sharing those atmospheric, Colan-illustrated pages with the likes of Frank Drake, Quincy Harker, and a young Eric Brooks — better known to the world as Blade. With 89 catalog appearances spanning nearly five decades, two of them recognized as key collector issues, and a presence stretching across Tomb of Dracula, Dracula Lives, and beyond, Rachel Van Helsing is a cornerstone of Marvel Horror — the kind of character whose very name signals that the stakes, in every sense, could not be higher.