Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Twenty-Two: Neogenic Nightmare, Chapter 9 - Blade, the Vampire Hunter

Blade, the Vampire Hunter

First Aired: February 3rd, 1996

Synopsis: Although Spider-Man's cured of being Man-Spider, he notes that he could transform back, and heads to Doctor Connors' lab. On the way he runs into Morbius who he fights, but shortly into their fight a mysterious man, Blade, appears and tries fighting both of them. He loses interest in Spider-Man upon realising that he's not a vampire, and when Morbius escapes he leaves, although not before Spider-Man gets a tracer on him. Spider-Man continues to Connors' lab where he receives a dose of radiation from the neogenic recombinator, and Connors says that he has to get a treatment every twenty-four hours or he'll turn into Man-Spider again. After leaving, Spider-Man gets blamed by the public for the recent cases of people being found drained of plasma, which is actually Morbius' handiwork. He runs into Morbius again and the two fight, only to be interrupted by Blade again. The two escape again, and Spider-Man tracks down Blade using the tracer from earlier.

Spider-Man finds Blade's hideout, and is told by Blade's mentor, Whistler, that Blade is a half-vampire who hunts vampires. Blade is annoyed because Spider-Man's been saving Morbius from him, which Spider-Man explains is because he might be able to return him to normal using the neogenic recombinator which gave him his powers in the first place. Blade is disgusted, thinking that the neogenic recombinator might make more vampires. Later, Peter Parker is called by Mary Jane, as the police are questioning people related to victims of the plasma drain. The police accuse Peter of benefiting a lot from Morbius' disappearance, and want to know how to contact Spider-Man. Shortly  afterwards, Blade runs into Morbius again. Morbius tosses Blade down a chimney, but Spider-Man shows up and saves him. Morbius gets away with the neogenic recombinator, which he intends to use to create new vampires - and which Spider-Man needs to avoid mutating. He reluctantly agrees to team up with Blade.

Subplots:

• After Peter's been chewed out by the police officer, Felicia Hardy asks him for comfort since Morbius has been missing. Mary Jane sees them together, and spitefully asks Harry Osborn out to dinner.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Once again, a newspaper article we briefly see is written by Ned Leeds.
• Blade spends most of this episode riding around on a motorbike, and we see that the numberplate is BLD-20. I have no idea whether this is a reference to any specific issue he's appeared in, but nice for him, I guess.
• When Whistler gives Blade's origin, he says that he's the son of a vampire man who fell in love with a human woman. I'm not what you'd call the greatest Blade expert, but I'm fairly sure that in the comics their relationship was, uh, a bit more one-sided than that.
• Apparently, Blade being included in this episode is what helped get him his own movie, two years later. The fact that this episode includes Whistler, who was created for the film, leads a lot of credence to this. Pretty neat!

Review: Boy, where do I start with this one? I don't think that Blade's been as watered-down as the Punisher was, but it's hard to deny that there's been some damage done. I have no idea whether he ever rode around New York rooftops on a motorbike in the comics, something which I could totally picture, but it doesn't dissuade from the feeling that it's been included for the sake of toys, nor does his sword being changed to some sort of lightsaber. While I realise that the episode wouldn't be very entertaining if he killed Morbius in the first five minutes, it's also hard to feel that he knows what he's doing when Morbius, who's been a vampire for maybe a week tops, is able to constantly evade and hold his own in a fight. Between all of the above, and Blade being a jerk to Spider-Man and not even considering his side of the argument, it's hard to feel very invested in the character.


Outside of Blade's not-very-great introduction (fingers crossed he's better next episode), there's not a lot to talk about here. Most of the episode is just fighting, and I'm still very much over Morbius as an antagonist. I do like that the episode manages to deal with some of the conflict of the past few episodes neatly, such as Peter's disappearance while he was Man-Spider being explained as him trying to track down Spider-Man. I'm a bit more mixed on Spider-Man having a chance of turning back into Man-Spider - while I like him being in danger, it feels kind of contrived, and I feel like we've dealt with that plot and it should be put aside now.

But, yeah, overall, there's not really a lot to say here. With a bit of luck Morbius will be turned back to normal next episode and Blade will learn that it doesn't always pay to be a jerk, but we'll have to wait and see how it turns out.