Moon Knight and Dracula’s Meme Clash Becomes Reality in Marvel Rivals

The latter part of Marvel Rivals’ debut season unveiled itself on February 21, introducing two iconic characters from the Fantastic Four—Human Torch and the Thing. Alongside them came a brand new map set in New York City, which cleverly integrates a popular Moon Knight meme into the narrative of this competitive shooter.

When you’re playing as Moon Knight on the Empire of Eternal Night: Central Park map, there’s a chance he’ll quip about Dracula—the primary antagonist from the first season of Marvel Rivals and a central character on this map—labeling him a “bloodsuckin’ nerd” who “owes me big.” As matches progress, Moon Knight might even provoke the vampire with lines like “Time for Dracula to pay up!” or “I know you’re here, Dracula!” While this might suggest a deep-rooted comic rivalry, Moon Knight’s disdain for Dracula actually has its origins in internet humor.

Susana Polo, a senior entertainment writer at Polygon, shed light on this when the Moon Knight TV show was gaining traction. She explained that the character’s portrayal as a Dracula-loathing debt collector isn’t pulled from the comic books. Instead, it started when a fan edited a panel from a 1988 issue of Solo Avengers. This fan-made image showed Moon Knight angrily demanding his “goddamn money” from Dracula, whom he calls a “big fucking nerd,” and was posted to a Facebook group back in 2018. Since then, the meme has become one of the more popular—albeit inaccurate—depictions of Moon Knight on the internet, largely due to its humorous tone and the character’s relatively obscure standing.

Given that Marvel Rivals operates within its own storyline, the remaining developers at NetEase have some leeway in how they weave Marvel’s legendary heroes and villains into these narratives. While sometimes they engage in serious storytelling, as the Moon Knight scenario shows, they also seize opportunities to nod to tongue-in-cheek internet jokes from years past.