Jonathan Harker: Helsing

Jonathan Harker: Helsing Jonathan Harker owns an English bookshop in Rome. He's not secretly a vampire hunter. He isn't waiting for somebody to hand him a sword so he can discover his destiny. He has books to sell, a shop to keep running, and absolutely no preparation for Liesel Van Helsing bringing three vampire brides through his window. The place gets wrecked. He gives her the journal pages a strange man left for her, tries to answer her questions, and passes out. That's our introduction to the guy who will eventually walk into Dracula's castle with her. I like that Jonathan doesn't become fearless between those two scenes. Liesel offers to pay for rebuilding his shop if he helps her follow the trail. She privately admits she'd pay regardless, but he doesn't know that. He wants his business back, he wants things to make sense again, and he makes it pretty clear that more monsters may send him running in the other direction. Then they meet Mina Murray at the school built over Liesel's childhood home. More vampires arrive, and Jonathan winds up hiding with Mina in a cupboard. When one gets in, he grabs a broom. Mina fights back too, and he ends up driving the broken handle into their attacker. Liesel had already given him a stake. He'd forgotten it in the panic. That detail made the whole thing better for me. He does something brave without suddenly becoming good at any of this. Later, when Liesel wants him to stay outside the castle, he chooses to go in. Saving Mina made him feel worthwhile. He's tired of playing everything safe. There's a woman he'd like to see again, and for once he has a story about himself that isn't just being frightened and staying out of the way. He survives, with Hades helping get him out. We also learn why the bookshop matters so much. It was something his mother wanted. His father wanted him in the family business and disowned him when he went his own way. Jonathan kept the family name on the shop because part of him still hoped his dad would see that he could succeed. Van Helsing vs. Dracula picks up with Jonathan and Mina engaged. They're trying to have a future together when Mina becomes violently ill, bites his mother, and falls under Dracula's influence. Jonathan calls Liesel because he knows this is beyond him. That doesn't make waiting for her answers any easier. There's a much angrier Jonathan in that story. He goes after Renfield with a gun, refuses to leave without Mina, and lashes out at Hades. His fear hasn't gone away. Now it's tangled up with the possibility of losing the person he loves. The courage that helped him before can become recklessness when he's desperate. What I appreciated was where the story leaves him. Mina survives, and the wedding is still happening. Jonathan tells his father that he's marrying her, and that he's not asking permission. After everything he's just been through, he's done allowing himself to be bullied over his own life. The bookshop already showed that he could make a choice his father hated. These stories push him further than that. By the end, he's not holding that choice out and waiting to be told it was good enough. He's made it. They're getting married. Sources: Helsing: The Darkness and the Light #1–4; Van Helsing vs. Dracula #1–5.