Unwillingly sired by the vampire of legend, Vlad Dracula, AKA Dracula, Bessie becomes Hellcow and sets off on a 300-year-long journey of vengeance.
Out for Blood
Three hundred years prior to modern times, Bessie is Hans Ankenbauer’s favorite milking cow. One night, a desperate Dracula—finding the local Swiss village locked up tight—feeds on Bessie. Unable to bear eating her, Hans buries her instead. Three nights pass and Bessie rises as a vampire and begins a vengeance-seeking pursuit of Dracula.
Bloodlust
Bessie’s fangs can drain victims of blood and her cape can turn into leathery wings allowing her to fly. Her vampiric blood-infused milk has various restorative properties to those who drink it, even temporarily halting cancer progression.
She is significantly more intelligent than a normal bovine, able to understand and enact escape and attack plans with those who can understand her. She can turn to mist and has a distinctive laugh: “hahahamooo.” She eventually obtains cybernetic enhancements that allow her to speak and walk on her hind legs.
It seems that she can be contained within a silver cage and steaked through the heart which immobilizes her, until someone pulls it out.
Bad Blood
Bessie’s foremost foe is Dracula, her vampire father, whom she spends lifetimes hunting down. In modern times, and due to her bloodlust, she makes an enemy of Howard the Duck and perishes during a fight. Of course she survives but eventually encounters the dying Dr. Kilgore who uses her blood for its healing properties.
Blood Brethren
Bessie has few allies over her many years of unlife, but finds a kindred spirit in mercenary Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, when they are both captured by the same foe, Dr. Kilgore. They come up with an escape plan and though Bessie perishes along the way, Deadpool’s time-traveling self warns them and the present Deadpool helps restore her.
Blood, Upset, and Tears
Centuries after Bessie became her vampiric-self, in the farms around Cleveland, Ohio, the Hellcow fed on farmer Jubal Brown and four others. Howard the Duck determined that the killer could not be human but was likely a chicken, since he never trusted chickens, and sought to capture the killer, hoping to get a police job. Impersonating a man, Howard strolled Cleveland’s streets at 2 AM. Thinking Howard might be Dracula, Bessie swooped down and butted Howard through an auto parts shop’s window, snapping a wooden post into a sharp stake. Howard grabbed a cross-shaped lug wrench to ward off Bessie. As he put it down to pick up a mallet, Bessie leapt at him, missed, and landed in a tire heap, her fangs imbedded in a whitewall. Using the stake and mallet, Howard destroyed her, but didn’t get a police job for doing it. Bessie was buried by the city in a pauper’s grave, body intact with the stake remaining in it. A fulfilled prophecy involving Eric Brooks, AKA Blade, presumably restored every vampire who ever existed, although Bessie was either not affected, or she was quickly destroyed once again and returned to the same grave.
Terminally ill from cancer, Dr. Kilgore heard about the Hellcow from a gypsy while seeking a means of immortality and followed the bovine’s trail to Cleveland, learning of her destruction at Howard’s hands. He exhumed her body and removed the stake, reviving the Hellcow and capturing her in a silver cage. Kilgore believed drinking Hellcow’s milk would grant him immortality; though it put his cancer in remission, its health benefits proved temporary, and he had to drink a fresh glass frequently. Hoping taking cells from the regenerating mercenary Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool, could grant true immortality, Kilgore trapped and captured Deadpool. Seemingly able to communicate with the cow, Deadpool formed an escape plan. As Kilgore injected himself with Deadpool’s human growth hormone, Hellcow kicked over the table to which Deadpool was confined, allowing the mercenary to free himself. Deadpool released Hellcow as Kilgore mutated into a gigantic, cancerous monster. Although a Deadpool from the future arrived to warn them of something related to the sun, Deadpool and Hellcow ignored him and were overpowered by the rampaging Dr. Kilgore. Hellcow desperately bit and vampirized Deadpool, and they mauled then burned the doctor and flushed his remains down the toilet.
As Deadpool’s healing factor purged the vampirism from his body, he expressed his deep feelings of friendship for the cow, but as they walked outside, Hellcow was incinerated by the sun, leaving only a charred hamburger patty. Recalling his future self’s warning, Deadpool somehow apparently traveled back through time to issue the warning to himself, failing numerous times until he finally decided to simply wait at the building’s exit where he ambushed and staked the bovine, removing the stake after dark, restoring her unlife. Deadpool apologized to Hellcow, but could not explain why his 60 temporally displaced duplicates were eating hamburgers (It is unclear how/if Deadpool actually traveled back in time—presumably diverging multiple realities—or whether his delusional mind just imagined those parts). The angry Hellcow flew away, leaving a lonely Deadpool behind.
Hellcow eventually joined Deadpool and his Deadpool, Inc. crew, where she helped out in a heist, stealing S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons from a Helicarrier. Though she was secretly working for Dmitri Kravinoff, AKA Chameleon, spying on Deadpool and his pal Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man. Hellcow’s betrayal was ultimately revealed and she was defeated by Deadpool, Inc.’s members.
