Fearless Vampire Hunter

Blade (1998, directed by Stephen Norrington) didn't seem like a landmark film at the time of its release, but time has been kind to it. It remains a shock that this film and this character were the first foundations laid in what has become the Marvel Entertainment empire. Blade never had a comic book of his own prior to the movie. He was a supporting character from the long-forgotten Tomb of Dracula series in the 1970s. And yet was the first Marvel Comics character to become a big screen success after previous attempts--famously Howard the Duck, less famously The Punisher and Captain America--crashed and burned in spectacular fashion. But more than that. Blade ushered in both a cinematic idiom and design aesthetic that would spread like wildfire throughout cinema. The Matrix movies were the immediate inheritors of Blade's fetish-attired action look, but you can see it in the Underworld movies, too, and in the Resident Evil movies, and in countless vampire films and television shows littering the backwash in the film's resulting wake in the myth pool. Pick up any given "urban fantasy" romance novel these days and you'll see an echo of Blade's influence right there on the cover. Guaranteed.

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