Vampires are fearsome, strong creatures. But there is also a superior person. And in this instance, it is Blade, the vigilante who stalks vampires and puts fear into their vicious hearts.
He is an interesting person because he is a part of both the human and vampire worlds. He is unable to fully transform into a vampire thanks to his hybrid physiology. However, when Morbius bit him, he actually struck it rich with vampire superpowers. Instead of becoming a vampire, he ultimately acquired all of its abilities while having all of its initial disadvantages removed.
This new power amp transformed Blade, a man who was already terrifying and intimidating, into the infamous Daywalker. And he will soon work his way up to being a respected M.C.U. member. Let us examine Blade’s parallel but different origin stories from the comics, animated series, and the Blade trilogy before he receives another reset.
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Blade’s Tragic Origin In Spider-Man: The Animated Series
In the Morbius arc of Spider-Man: The Animated Series’ second season, Blade makes an appearance. There is a new menace in New York City as a result of Michael Morbius evolving into a vampire following an incident involving Peter Parker’s altered blood sample and the Neogenic Recombinator. In the meantime, Spider-own Man’s mutation renders him into the monstrous mutant known as the Man-Spider. His love life is also a complete mess at the moment.
The ninth episode of the season, titled “Blade: The Vampire Hunter,” features Blade. Spider-Man struggles with allegations that he is a vampire when Mariah Crawford temporarily cures Peter Parker’s Man-Spider mutation.
He quickly discovers Michael Morbius sipping blood juice from an unidentified individual and tries to assist him. However, Morbius is unconcerned. He begins to like this new way of life and eventually confronts Spider-Man once more. A strange man in a cool suit, however, enters the battle with a grenade that explodes in a strange gas. While Morbius is paralysed, Spider-Man is not.
This man is Blade, who believes both Morbius and Spider-Man to be vampires. He tries to kill Morbius but after Spider-Man stops Blade from killing the vampire, he now stands against the spider as well. He soon launches a special gas made from garlic, a weakness for vampires. He realizes that Spider-Man is not a vampire after all. However, he still attacks Spider-Man and leaves, with Spidey placing a tracer on his bike.
But before he leaves, a split second scene shows us how Blade’s eyes turn red like that of a vampire’s.
Spider-Man gets entangled in a fight against Morbius once again. And once again, Blade arrives to the scene with his laser sword and lust to kill Morbius. However, Spider-Man does not want to let the latter happen. He tells Blade that he wants to cure Morbius as he was the reason why Morbius mutated in the first place. This revelation causes Blade to see Spider-Man as a great threat as well.
Blade soon goes back to his hideout and regroups with Abraham Whistler. However, Spider-Man finds him as he had planted the tracer on his bike and he traps Blade in his webbing. Blade tries to get back at Spidey but the Whistler seems to be more interested in a conversation. He sends Blade off by himself and narrates Blade’s story to Spider-Man.
Blade is revealed to be a vampire hunter, alongside Whistler. While his father was a vampire, his mother Miriam was human. And Blade was their child. But unfortunately, Blade’s mother was turned into a vampire without her consent and she did not want Blade to grow up in such a treacherous world. As a result, she gave him up for adoption. But Blade ran away from the orphanage he was in soon and found out the truth about his lineage. While he lived on the streets, he was found by the Whistler, who took him in and trained him into becoming a vampire hunter.
Meanwhile, at present, Blade is focused on wanting to destroy the Neogenic Recombinator, and Spidey cannot allow that since he wants to fix Morbius. They are at odds with each other once again and Peter steals a garlic grenade to examine it at home.
Peter realizes that the gas contains garlic and some bacteria. He then uses it to develop his web fluid to contain Morbius.
Later, Morbius steals the Neogenic Recombinator from the Empire State University Neogenics lab. However, Blade confronts him soon after and uses artificial sunlight to weaken the vampire. Here, it is revealed that Morbius wants to turn everyone into a vampire using the device, which is the last thing Blade will ever allow. As the two fight, Spider-Man arrives and sides with Blade, and that diffuses the tension between the two. And with Morbius stealing the Recombinator and disappearing again, Spidey and Blade cannot afford to be at odds.
In the next episode known as ‘The Immortal Vampire’, Morbius’ origin story is expanded upon. While Spidey and Blade try to get to Morbius, police officer Terri Lee spots them and follows them to a company called EXG Electronics in her car.
Spidey went to this spot to find a chip that Morbius had taken out from the Recombinator. However, they are put in a situation where they fight Morbius once again and Spidey stops Blade from killing the guy. Ultimately, Morbius finds Terri Lee and tries to fly away with her. But he drops her from above instead and Blade catches her. Spidey chases Morbius while Terri Lee points her gun at Blade, asking him to answer her questions.
He is not intimated by a gun and knocks it out of her hands as he leaves. Later, she tracks him and Spider-Man to a theater. Here, she is introduced to the Whistler who tells her about vampires existing. Terri Lee cannot believe it, which is strange considering she lives in a world where a man can stick to walls and fights off mutants on the daily. Whistler also demonstrates a force field to capture vampires while Blade suffers from a strange bodily pain. He is given a syring to combat it and Terri Lee is curious to learn everything.
Around this time, she learns of Blade’s origin story from Whistler. She even finds a photo of Blade’s mother and learns that Blade has been searching for her ever since she gave him up for adoption. However, being half vampire meant that he could turn into one as well due to a potential bloodlust, which is why he used that syringe to counter such side effects.
Terri and Blade end up developing a romance in this episode as well, but of course, it goes nowhere.
Later into the series, Blade’s mother Miriam returns as a villain.
Blade’s Origin In The Comics
Blade’s comic book popularity has often been dwarfed by the several other characters appearing in Spider-Man’s side of the story. However, the Blade film franchise has twisted this narrative and catapulted Blade into the mainstream.
But as you may already guess, Blade’s origin in the comics is different from what we see in the animated series and the films.
Blade, or rather Eric Brooks’ debut was marked by the tenth issue of the ‘Tomb of Dracula’ in 1973. He was created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan and very much based on Count Dracula for the comics.
He was born on October 24, 1929, in a Soho Brothel located in Great Britain. In the comics, he is around seventy two years old but he has retained his youthful looks by opting for a very niche beauty procedure that requires some vampire DNA.
His mother, Tara Brooks, was a prostitute in a Soho-based brothel. However, he was a problem child since his fetus days and caused several labor complications. Ultimately, a doctor named Deacon Frost was summoned and as luck would have it, this doctor was a vampire.
With blood as his beverage of choice, Deacon Frost took the opportunity to indulge in this delicious drink to the fullest. Blade’s mother became the victim who helped quench his thirst and in the process, she died. However, Frost’s vampiric enzymes made their way into the woman’s body and it turned the baby into a Dhampir – which is the word you use for someone who has been touched by a vampire but not converted into one.
In typical hero fashion, Blade was born as an orphan and had certain superhuman abilities. He could never be turned into a vampire. He could smell out supernatural creatures from far away. He would live way longer than the average human. On the other hand, he developed a sensitivity toward bright lights.
He was raised by the others at the brothel and trained by himself. With his physical amps, he was able to nurture himself into a superior hand-to-hand combatant with exemplary athletic abilities. He could also wield knives and daggers masterfully. However, he did find a mentor later on when he saved an older man who was being attacked by three vampires passing off as bandits.
The man, Jamal Afari, turned out to be a jazz trumpeter and a vampire hunter at the same time. With Blade under his wing now, Afari trained his new mentee in combat as well as music.
He went on to defeat some low-level vampires and joined a street gang called the ‘Bloodshadows’. He also had a girlfriend named Glory. However, Bloodshadows was headed by a powerful vampire named Lamia, who Blade was barely able to defeat. He also lost his girl in the process, the pain of which prompted him to develop an intense hatred toward vampires. Soon after, Afari fell to a vampire named Dracula which meant that Blade was forced to kill his mentor. After pulling this off, he followed Dracula to Europe, trying to slay him across several places.
He later grouped with others in China to kill Dracula. But he failed once again. Especially with Dracula killing off his allies. Ultimately, Blade decided to go on his vampire killing quests alone.
Things changed a bit in Paris where he allied with some vampire hunters to defeat Dracula. He even fought Morbius around this time. However, circumstances resulted in him having to ally with Dracula to defeat another enemy known as Doctor Sun. But that did not mean that Blade had forgiven Dracula so he kept pursuing him to kill him. He also met Hannibal King around this time. Coincidentally, Hannibal King and Blade were connected since the former was turned into a vampire by Deacon Frost. Together, they were able to kill Deacon.
Blade later joined a group called the Nightstalkers, albeit temporarily. Doctor Strange and Hannibal were a part of it as well. Together, they finally defeated Dracula. They also fought Lilith, Hydra, Lilin, and an ancient vampire known as Varnae. But he went solo right after this journey and to his misfortune, Dracula and Deacon Frost had been resurrected. Hannibal King returned to help him take down Frost once again.
Real change took place when Blade went to New York City and met with Spider-Man and the vampire known as Morbius. As he fought Morbius, he was bitten by the vampire. But Blade was resistant to turning into a vampire so instead, he ended up getting all the powers of a vampire with none of the drawbacks. He had acquired superhuman strength but his weakness to sunlight had disappeared, which birthed his iconic name ‘Daywalker’.
He had also gotten entangled with SHIELD and joined other vampire hunters to prevent Dracula from turning himself into a God. He defeated a resurrected Dracula and a Vampire Spider-Man as well. He also destroyed a SHIELD hellicarrier as it had fallen victim to a terrible vampire infestation.
Next, he got involved with Dr. Doom who sent Blade to the past to save Doom’s mother. He took this opportunity to save his own father Lucas Cross from rotting away. What he did not know was that Lucas Cross had set a prophecy in motion that would require Blade to do exactly what he had done.
Things got even more complicated soon. Blade’s contributions to killing vampires were considered to be homicides by the American police. Soon, he became one of America’s most wanted criminals and went on the run. He battled Morbius again, who had become a registered superhero under SHIELD. He was captured and used to bring down the Wolverine. However, he decided to side with Wolverine in the end.
After a few weeks, his father Lucas Cross chained him to a wall and forced him to feed on a young girl, since Cross needed Blade to consume virgin blood. Blade chewed off his own hand instead and fought off everyone in the facility to escape with the girl.
Soon, he traveled to London where he came across the priest Draconis. This man had apparently been training to kill Blade, and he succeeded at it as well. But Blade was soon resurrected, thanks to an amulet he had taken from a vampire thug before. He then called Hannibal Lecter and fought off Draconis. To defeat the enemy, he fed upon him, but this only benefited Lucas Cross who required Blade to feed on virgin blood for his prophecy.
After Blade went back to New York City to interrogate his father and Spider-Man, he learned that his mentor Jamal Afari was alive and on Dracula’s side. However, things with Lucas Cross were not over. Lucas’s prophecy would basically put souls back into the bodies of vampires, and so, he abducted his son once again.
And for this, Blade would have to shatter his amulet and drop a piece of the stake with which he had killed Dracula. However, Blade turned down the act in the end, turning Hannibal furious. Dracula and Jamal Afari crash the party soon enough to fulfill Lucas’ prophecy and ultimately, Blade’s amulet is shattered. He also accidentally drops the vial with the stake fragment that had been used to kill Dracula. However, it only resurrected Hannibal King.
Around this time, everyone realized that Lucas Cross was a puppet of Dracula’s. And the latter wanted to resurrect the vampires, not give them their souls back.
Blade even became a part of the Mighty Avengers following Thanos’ invasion. But he did not stay with the team for long.
He became a part of another group created by Wong when Mephisto locked up Doctor Strange and took over Las Vegas. He fought alongside Moon Knight, Iron Fist, and Elsa Bloodstone during this mission.
He later became a member of the Avengers once again and even ended up as the sheriff of Chernobyl. In another turn of events, Blade woke up in a world where vampires and the Avengers never existed. And somehow he was the only one who remembered his previous world. He found his Avengers teammates and learned that they had never experienced the phenomenons that turned them into superheroes. He did some more research and realized that someone (in this case Mephisto) had changed the past by making sure that Captain America was never revived.
But he was able to revive Cap, get the Avengers, fight off the enemies, and use Mephisto’s artifact to turn things back to normal. And soon, he went back to his life of being a solo superhero who would occasionally team up with others, especially the Avengers.
Blade: Movie Franchise
We have already mentioned Blade having a successful movie franchise before. In fact, some of the younger fans may recognize the character from the movies instead of the cartoon or the comics.
The Blade franchise had Wesley Snipes playing Blade while Stephen Norrington, Guillermo del Toro, and Goyer directed the three Blade films from the trilogy respectively.
The movies came out during a tenure that started from 1998 and went on till 2004. The first Blade film came out not long after the Batman & Robin movie and helped undo some of the damage done to the popularity of superhero movies.
In the movies, Blade was a half-vampire who had all the powers of a vampire and none of the weaknesses. The first movie was a great success. In there, he was a man who seeked vengeance against vampires for causing his mother’s death. He worked alongside the retired vampire hunter known as the Whistler.
Meanwhile, a larger plot soon consumed his motives when the vampire world went into a ruckus with pure-blooded vampires discriminating against humans who had been turned. Soon, he also found out that they were trying to raise the blood God known as La Magra and Blade had to stop it.
The 2002 film known as Blade II began with a mutation that turned vampires into something known as ‘Reapers’. These new vampires were so bloodthirsty that they were consuming humans and vampires, turning the survivors into Reapers as well. With a constant increase of Reapers, the world was running out of humans for the vampires to feed on.
Blade is summoned by a council known as the Shadow Council and allies with a group of vampires known as the Bloodpack. Together, they embark on a journey to stop the Reapers.
The last film from the trilogy, Blade: Trinity, hit the screens in 2004. Here, Blade was framed by the vampires for killing a human, turning him into a criminal in the eyes of the police and the public. Meanwhile, Dracula had been resurrected, which meant that Blade would work alongside Whistler and of course, Hannibal King to defeat the most powerful vampire ever.
Things get more complex when Blade has to release a vampire killing virus that might kill him as well.
Following the end of the Trilogy, a thirteen-episode series was also released in 2006.
What Makes Blade So Powerful?
As someone who has had great success in commercial media, Blade has several tricks up his sleeve. Him being a Dhampir or a human and vampire hybrid makes him immune to vampire bites. He can sense supernatural creatures and he ages really slowly.
He later even gained the strengths of vampires while losing his sensitivity to sunlight. His senses got as sharp as that of a vampire’s as well. This was also accompanied by his superhuman strength, speed, durability, stamina, and agility.
Blade also had the ability to heal way faster than normal, just like vampires. However, this worked mainly on mild and moderate injuries such as slashes.
He could also ingest metaphysical ailments and contaminants. He can also transform into a monstrous state when necessary and revert back to human. The transformed state gives him an amp that helped manifest wing-like appendages which allow him to fly.
Barring his superpowers, Blade is also an expert when it comes to martial arts and wielding weapons. His marksmanship and swordsmanship are formidable as well.
Everything We Know So Far About The Upcoming Blade Movie
Blade is going to get his shine in the M.C.U. soon with Mahershala Ali from the Oscar-winning film Moonlight playing his part. This was revealed back in 2019 when Kevin Feige announced that a solo Blade film was being developed with Ali playing the role of the vampire hunter.
The team is said to comprise of Bassam Tariq as the director while the script has been written by Stacy Osei-Kuffour (who you might recognize as the scriptwriter from Watchmen).
It could come out in the fall of 2023, considering the schedule they are following but there is no official date yet.
Meanwhile, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange is said to be a part of the cast as well while Oscar Isaac will potentially play Moon Knight from the Midnight Sons. Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierre are said to be joining the party as well.
When it comes to the story for the film, we have nothing to go by yet. He will probably get a slightly altered origin story and it may or may not tie up to the post-credits scene in Eternals.
In that scene, Dane Whitman referred to the Ebony Blade (a sword that increases the wielder’s bloodlust and makes them grow stronger with each kill as it grows stronger itself) while Mahershala Ali’s voice made a cameo. Such a premise is said to be perfect for the vampire hunter to shine with his hybrid physiology and prolonged lifespan.
Even though several theories are up in the air now, it is not possible to deduce where the story may go, barring some of the more obvious ones such as an introduction to the character itself. Morbius being added to Sony’s Spider-Man franchise did more harm than good. Hopefully, Blade won’t go down that path.
And with that, today’s video comes to an end. What did you think of Blade? Did you enjoy this video? If