Dracula

Vlad the Impaler lived and fought in the 15th century. His exploits became legendary, and as legends, became ambiguous and shadowed with time. From German accounts, he was a bloodthirsty monster. From Russian accounts, his actions were the product of necessity. Regardless, he did not receive the name Tepes, the Impaler, for nothing. He killed thousands of people by forcing wooden stakes through their bodies. His Turkish enemies were not the only recipients of this punishment. Thieves, adulterous women – anyone who met his ire were staked, or otherwise tortured and killed.
He was the son of Vlad Dracul, a Wallachian prince, who, himself, earned his name through his membership in the Order of the Dragon and his battles against the Turks. The name can be translated as both 'Devil' and 'Dragon', most likely referencing his membership in said order. His son, then, took the name Dracula, meaning 'son of the dragon'.

The character Dracula's connection to Vlad the Impaler is less than many people think. Stoker basically pulled the name out of a book because he liked the sound of it. The debate's still out on how much more he knew about the fellow. Once the connection was made, however, the two became linked in people's imaginations. A 15th century warlord and national hero of Romania became, to us, an undead Transylvanian count.

For the purposes of this comic, the connection is assumed. Dracula is Vlad the Impaler. How he died, whether by enemy hand, or at the hand of his own soldiers, how he passed on to the state of undeath, and how he survived decapitation and display of his head on a stake by the Turks is unknown. Perhaps he doesn't know, as well. He is an old warrior who's purpose has become obsolete with the passage of time. His land is free and his enemies are dead. It's no longer his time and place, and so he's decided to come into the modern world of Victorian London.

He is driven by motivations we cannot understand. He tells Jonathan that “you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter.” He traps the young solicitor in his castle, and proceeds to what can only be described as toying with his prey. In the old stories, Vlad would condemn a man for the slightest infraction of hospitality and honesty, and, indeed, Jonathan does not heed every word of his host.

Dracula has turned three women into vampires, and keeps them in his castle. They're dependent on him for food, which he supplies for them, in the form of the babies of nearby peasants. These three aren't, apparently, company enough for him, for he practically clings to Jonathan, talking to him incessantly. How much of this is genuine loneliness, and how much is subtle cruelty, can't be seen. His thoughts are his own.

He had to be a wolf. I really couldn't think of making him anything else. Though he does have ties to, and can control, other sorts of animals (some of which show up in the species of his three brides, and will appear later on in the comic), his principal connection is to these predators. Symbolically, wolves represent the untamed and dangerous wild, that which is not under humanity's control, and the vampire represents that which is dangerous and wild within ourselves. They are both outsiders, both hunted and feared. Even though we know today that they're not dangerous or evil animals, the old archetype remains, and, in stories, is very similar to the role Dracula fills. He's the Big Bad Wolf going after Little Red Riding Hood. You know how it goes.