Blade The Vampire-Slayer - Black And White!

Of all the myriad characters who popped up in the pages of Tomb of Dracula to confront the Lord of Vampires, Blade always stood out head and shoulders above the rest. Harker and Van Hesling and Drake all were great in their way, but Blade was truly a man with a mission who wasn't playing around. He really intended to stick the suckers and he often did. His roots in blaxploitation are all too obvious and give his appearances an ultra-modern look.  Blade the Vampire Slayer - Black and White treats the reader to some of the hunter's best vintage appearances. 

All the other vampire hunters were already on the stage when Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan gave us Blade in Tomb of Dracula ten. His street-level lingo and his wooden knives set him apart, a cool vampire hunter. One deserving of his own series and who got it eventually in the pages of Vampire Tales. 

In two issues of Vampire Tales Blade runs up against the "Legion of the Damned" in the streets and alleys of London. Blade was orphaned from the moment he was born, his mother a victim of the vampire Deacon Frost. He was raised in a brothel by women who pursued the world's oldest profession. It's this world that comes under attack as the legion seeks to end Blade's threat. Illustrated by the underrated Tony DeZuniga, Blade's world looks fantastic in these two issues. Marv Wolfman is the writer on these two chapters of the saga, so making a seamless part of the larger Dracula epic. 

The cancellation of Vampire Tales forced the feature to find a new home and the remaining chapters find purchase in the third issue of Marvel Preview. An attractive cover by Gray Morrow leads things off. Along with DeZuniga the art inside is handled by Rico Rival who brings his own kinetic energy tothe pages. Blade suffers losses but brings the battle to the vamps. Chris Claremont takes over the scripting chores from Wolfman and he typically gives us one of his patented strong women, a psychic named Kate Frazer. Sadly, her presence while welcomed generally tends to overshadow the title character. I want some Blade when I read a comic of the same name as good as other characters can be. 

"The Legion of Monsters" issue of Marvel Preview features some outstanding Gene Colan artwork in a small tale by Marv Wolfman which has the brutal Blade come up against some vampire children. It poses a problem for his mission. Blade's hesitancy to kill children despite them being hundreds of years old and bloodsuckers, is likely connected to the girl who he thought for a time he killed in the Legion storyline. 

Jump forward to the 90's and the story from Marvel Shadows and Light has some very good artwork by Ladronn. His approach is couched in the classic Kirby style and so is a new to Blade but works overall. The version of Dracula in this story is exceedingly different and I'm not sure what they were thinking with that. 

This single issue of Blade follows on after the series Nightstalkers (part of Marvel's "Midnight Sons" porject) which had teamed Blade up with Hannibal King and Frank Drake. It was a series done in the overwrought 90's style made popular by Image and thankfully this stand-alone issue drawn by Gene Colan near the end of his career is able to avoid most of those weaknesses. That said, it's not Colan at his prime. Blade in this one ends up in New Orleans and sort of teaming with Brother Voodoo to bring down a zombie queen who offers more of a struggle than one might expect. Hannibal King shows up in this story as well. 

The vintage 70's stories are of great interest to me, and this is a nifty volume to get the "Legion of the Damned" saga in one place. The newer stuff leaves me a bit cold, though the craftsmanship is admirable. 

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