Date of airing: November 18, 1995 (FOX Kids)
written by: Stephanie Mathison, Mark Hoffmeier, John Semper
directed by: Bob Richardson
Here I am, not knowing a lot about Blade, because I only watched the first Wesley Snipes film, but did not like it enough to consider watching the other two, let alone the TV series that the basic cable network Spike put up for a season (and I have heard good things about the show). But I believe that might change soon, now that Marvel Studios has been putting their ducks in a row to bring Blade into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as long as the writers strike is not going to mess things up for Disney and Kevin Feige's tight schedule. Even though I could not do much with Blade before, it was an entertaining episode, although I could not shake the feeling that the producers kept Blade as white as possible when it comes to his skin color, so that the studio and FOX as a network would not have to deal with the usual cries from conservative racists watching the show with their always excited kids.
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| Morbius gets chased by a supernatural motorbike. |
Then again, the episode explained his lighter shade of brown by letting him be bi-racial (I have no idea if that is comic-accurate), but every once in a while, I was confused to see a somewhat white Blade even though he is supposed to be black, especially during scenes that were supposedly set during the evening or night hours, with Blade in his superhero battle attire (which looked quite boring, but that is 1990s animated kids' TV for you). Maybe there was an issue in the production department with making him a “fully” black character, and those were potential issues that had me scratching my head for a few seconds here and there, which is disturbing, considering the fun I had while watching these 20 minutes.
However, I was happy that the writers expanded the world of Spider-Man and now included vampires in it. For this series universe, it does not need to make sense, but as long as the characters were dealing with more characters than just the ones from Spider-Man’s catalogue (even if they never return after their initial appearance, like the X-Men), everything stays a little more interesting. I guess vampires were included when Morbius turned into one, but if I had not known the show’s episode titles already, I would have never expected Blade to be part of this world and the series itself. But his character was a bit boring, since he randomly got into various fights in a “shoot first, ask questions later” kind of way (as the Punisher has done before him), randomly decided that he will hunt down and kill his target without getting the backstory first (as the Punisher has done before him), and randomly figured that Spider-Man might be an interesting ally for the following episode, because why not use another pair of hands for hunting down one of your own? Blade and the Punisher were not different from each other at all during their first appearances in the show, making me wonder if the writers just took the characteristics of the Punisher and rewrote him as Blade. Even the battle attire and the super wheels (Blade’s bike was driving up the building’s facade) were quite similar to one another. At least the episode ended with a team-up between the two. A vampire and a spider hunting another vampire. That is something you do not see every day.
Besides all the action stuff, the episode has proven that the writers were indeed interested in creating some soap opera drama. The conflict between Peter, Mary Jane, Felicia, and Terri Lee sounded like it came straight out of a daily soap, which I do not mean in a negative sense at all. I actually loved it because I never imagined that this kind of conflict could have been part of an animated show in the first place, and I would love it even more if there was more of it in SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. MJ is interested in Peter, but she decided to hang out with Harry after seeing Peter run after Felicia. Peter only wants to hang with Felicia, because he knows he can at least “get something” when he is with her, while, for some reason, he does not make a move on MJ, who clearly signaled her horny interests to Peter. If that ain’t elements of a soap opera, then I don’t know what is.
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| After a hard-fought battle, Spider-Man takes a little rest. |
It is a complex love story between multiple characters, and it is also about a lot of misunderstandings. All of a sudden I can see a theme in Peter’s character arc – it was always going to be about a decision between Felicia and MJ for Peter, because neither of the women made it explicitly clear to him that they were interested, hence their walking into the arms of other men. In case other women are reading this and want to make sure they are scoring with Peter: Say out loud what you want, and maybe he will listen.
