Marceline the Vampire Queen

This article is about the character. For the episode, see Stakes (miniseries).

Marceline the Vampire Queen
Adventure Time character
Marceline as she appears in the show's intro
First appearance"Evicted!" (2010)
Created byPendleton Ward
Voiced byOlivia Olson
Ava Acres (child, original series)
Audrey Bennett (child, Distant Lands and Fionna and Cake)[1]
Cloris Leachman (old lady)
In-universe information
NicknameMarcy[2][3]
SpeciesVampiric cambion
GenderFemale
TitleThe Vampire Queen
WeaponElectric bass battle-ax
FamilyHunson Abadeer (father)
Elise (mother)
Simon Petrikov (surrogate father)
Significant otherPrincess Bubblegum (girlfriend)
Ash (ex-boyfriend)

Marceline the Vampire Queen (real name: Marceline Abadeer) is a fictional character in the American animated Cartoon Network television series Adventure Time and resulting franchise, created by Pendleton Ward. She is voiced by Olivia Olson in most appearances, by Ava Acres as a child, and by Cloris Leachman as an older woman. Marceline is a fun-loving 1,000-year-old vampire queen, as well as a musician who plays an electric bass that she made from her family's heirloom battle-ax. Ward created the artistic design for Marceline, with small changes and additions added by Phil Rynda, the former lead character and prop designer for Adventure Time.

Marceline makes her debut in the first-season episode "Evicted!" in which she forces Finn and Jake from their home. However, as the series progresses, Marceline becomes a close friend to the two. Several backstory episodes have established that she was born to an human mother named Elise (voiced by Rebecca Sugar) and the demon Hunson Abadeer (voiced by Olivia's real-life father, Martin Olson). Furthermore, when she was a child, the cataclysmic Mushroom War occurred, and soon after, she developed a father-daughter-like bond with Simon Petrikov (voiced by Tom Kenny), who would one day turn into the Ice King.

Marceline has been critically acclaimed and is popular with the Adventure Time fandom. The character was also the focus of the seventh season miniseries Stakes (2015). Early in the show's history, Ward himself stated that Marceline was his favorite character because he did not know everything about her history and backstory, which he felt added a mysterious element to her character. Marceline's relationship with Princess Bubblegum created controversy when the episodes "What Was Missing" and "Sky Witch" implied that they had been in a relationship—a relationship that was confirmed in the series finale "Come Along with Me." The relationship was also the subject of the second episode of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, "Obsidian," which was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids and Family Programming.

  1. ^ Bennett, Audrey (November 19, 2020). "I am SOOOOOO excited to be the voice of Young Marceline the Vampire Queen in ADVENTURE TIME: DISTANT LANDS!!!". Instagram. Retrieved February 13, 2024.
  2. ^ Seibert, Fred (August 10, 2011). "'Memory of a Memory' Storyboard". Scribd. Retrieved March 16, 2013. Note: The writers spell Marceline's nickname "Marcy", as illustrated in this storyboard for "Memory of a Memory".
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference samep was invoked but never defined (see the help page).