"Renaissance Fools! Once I Remove This Accursed Brick From My Mouth, I, Dracula, Lord of the Undead, Will Laugh to Scorn Your Ineptitude!"

Archaeologists working in Italy recently uncovered the remains of a particular type of vampire called a "shroud-eater." Shroud-eaters were vampires who, for some reason, ate holes in their burial shrouds and could cast powerful magic spells. Hopeful yet backwards 16th century vampire slayers buried the poor woman with a brick shoved into her mouth, thus providing still more irrefutable proof people once believed vampires to be not only a menace, but also as dimwitted as themselves.

After all, how difficult would it be for one of the undead to pull a simple brick from her mouth? If the brick goes in, the brick must also come out. Especially if it's in the mouth of someone who can rise from the grave and cast magic spells. That thought never occurred to vampire slayers in the 1500s.

Many traditional defenses against vampires play on this notion the undead are idiots. For example, one way you can defeat a vampire is by scattering poppy seeds around its grave. The arithmomaniacal bloodsucker will be so distracted counting them all, it will never notice the impending sunrise until it's too late. Poof! Apparently, if you can't find poppy seeds, you can just use millet. Another method is to bury the potential vampire (suicide, criminal, anti-social what have you) at a crossroads. This will confuse the vampire and it won't know which way to go until dawn. Again, POOF!

But if comics have taught me anything, it's that some vampires are too highly cerebral to fall victim to bricks in the mouth, or poppy seed counting, or geographic confusion. That's why the best way to defeat your genius-level vampire is to shoot it with an "arrow of white thorn wood:"

Rachel van Helsing. She knew vampires were too smart to fall for any of those dumb Renaissance tricks. Vampires require a more direct, violent approach. You can also defeat a vampire by jabbing it with a silver spoke from your explosives-laden wheelchair, and if that fails, simply by stabbing it with a silver knife then blowing yourself and it to smithereens.