Blade was introduced in Tomb of Dracula # 10 in 1973, as a supporting character, who was hunting Dracula and his minions, created by Marv Wolfman. (Marv is the creator of The New Teen Titans, Deathstroke, Black Cat, and Daredevil villain Bullseye.) Blade (Eric Brooks) was born from blood. His mother was bitten by a vampire, and as she died, the doctors saved Blade in a C-section operation, making him half-vampire. He now has the super-strength, super speed, and bloodlust of a vampire, but isn't allergic to sunlight, silver, or garlic. Blade later became a terrible creature, feeding off innocent people and the homeless. He was stopped by Abraham Whistler (or Jamal Afari, as in the comics), a vampire hunter, who taught him to control his thirst, and use his powers for good, to kill evil vampires and other demonic creatures. He has gone on to get his own comic book series, and getting a great supporting cast, including the evil vampire Deacon Frost, and fellow vampire hunter Hannibal King, and appearing in various media, including the 1994 Spider-man animated series. Fast-forward to the 80's, the Superman film franchise was declining, and suddenly, Tim Burton's Batman gave hope for comic book films, as did Freddy Krueger creator Wes Craven's adaptation of Swamp Thing. But when Burton's artistic vision got too dark for most people in the sequel, he was replaced by Joel Schumacher, who I think is a great director, but he turned comic book films into flashy light shows. A few films tried to make comic book movies great (or at least okay) again, like The Crow, The Mask, Timecop, and The Rocketeer, but they (despite those films almost all being critical/commercial successes) couldn't stop the horrible string of shitty movies. Movies like Tank Girl, Spawn, Steel, and Batman and Robin were based off of great comics with good art, and turned them to terrible trash. Other were based off of pulp magazines and were just bland, like The Phantom and The Shadow. Marvel Movies had been terrible so far, since their characters were more larger-than-life than DC Comics, especially in appearance, the only things they had going for them were some good animated shows and an old Hulk TV series, which was cheesy, but had nostalgic value. They had no success with the heinous Howard the Duck film, and Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, which was so bad it's only on expensive bootleg DVDs sold on the internet and at Comic-Con. The TV film Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD was terrible and cheesy. Toy mogul Avi Arad joined on as a producer for Marvel, and decided to go a different route, by starting out their film franchise with a lesser known hero.
Blade:
Okay, an odd choice to kick-start a big movie company: African-American superheroes are usually less popular than most other heroes (not being racist, it's just what usually happens, unfortunately) and lots of gore and an R-rating would limit your audience, especially adolescents and young kids, the target audience for Marvel. But, because of the great acting and action, Blade was a huge success and started the comic book movie boom, and was responsible for causing classic comic book films such as X-Men, and Spider-man. The plot follows Dr. Karen Jenson, who is bitten by a vampire, and is cured by Blade, who is working with Abraham Whistler on stopping the vampire council, and the huge crime empire set up by psychotic, rebel vampire Deacon Frost, and his evil friends. Blade discovers that Frost intends Frost intends to resurrect the ancient vampiric Aztec blood god La Magra, but can Blade stop him in time? Wesley Snipes, who previously starred in comedy Major League, "dramady" White Men Can't Jump, and action films Drop Zone and US Marhsalls (sequel to The Fugitive), gets to show off his martial arts moves. He has amazing skill, and gets to kill numerous vampires with his acid-laced katana sword, silver-bullet filled guns, and garlic spray in amazing fight scenes. He has no emotion most of the time, to invoke fear in his enemies, but shows emotion at some points in the film. He hates "familiars", human servants to vampires, and shows no mercy to them, as they assist in the destruction of humans. N'Bushe Wright is good as Karen Jenson. She's new to the "real" world, the world of vampires and demons. She is basically the audience (the "straight man" role), we (and Karen) don't know the vampire world, so Blade can explain the situation to her and us. Kris Kristofferson plays the old mentor role as Whistler. He invents vampire killing weapons and taught Blade how to hunt the vampires. He is an old soul, and you can tell he's seen a lot in the world. The character interaction is great between Blade and Whistler. They seem to go beyond the teacher-student relationship, and become a father-son team, as Blade never had parents, and Whistler's family was killed by vampires, so they fit each other's needs. Stephen Dorff plays Deacon Frost. Dorff makes you really hate him. He first appears as a rebel, but later shows he's a psychopath, killing those he dislikes or those who fail him. He is selfish, sacrificing dozens to fulfill his needs. Other characters include Donal Logue as Frost's best henchman, Quinn, a vampire who can't seem to die, no matter what Blade does, who is very cocky. Udo Kier (who once played Dracula) is Gitano Dragonetti, a vampire council member and elder, who hates Frost for being disobedient. Finally, Arly Jover plays Mercury, Frost's girlfriend, who is also bat-shit crazy. The special effects are a bit dated, but the action is amazing and the fights are well choreographed. The opening scene in the night club is spectacular, as is the climactic end fight with Frost and his minions. It's a bit dated, but Blade's action and acting is fantastic, and it started the comic movie boom, so it deserves a spot in the top 20 comic book movies ever made. I give it 3.5/5.
Stan Lee had a cameo that was cut from the final film. It was because the character was Marvel, but was not created by Stan Lee (credit for creation goes to Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan). In fact, Stan only has cameos in the films based on his characters.
Next time, I'll be reviewing Blade II, Blade: Trinity and possibly Dark Shadows and Blade The Series.
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