Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Forty-Eight: Partners in Danger, Chapter 7 - The Vampire Queen

The Vampire Queen

First Aired: May 17th, 1997

Synopsis: In a vaguely European country, Blade chases after a female vampire, who manages to escape from him by unclasping her cape when he's holding onto it. In the cape he finds a pendant which causes him to cry out in despair. Back in New York, Morbius, who hasn't drained anyone's plasma since returning to his more humanoid form, is found by the vampire woman, who reveals that her name is Miriam. She found Morbius using a psychic link they have and reads Morbius' mind to find out information about the neogenic recombinator. She steals it from Herbert Landon, but in the process drains plasma from some ESU students, which leads to everyone thinking Morbius is the culprit. Spider-Man and Black Cat go to Blade's mentor, Whistler, and they team up with Terri Lee to go after Morbius, only to find Miriam stealing electronics for the neogenic recombinator. While fighting her Blade bursts in, reveals that she's his mother, and that he won't let them hurt her.

 

Miriam and Blade get away, and the heroes take Morbius, who also burst in during the fight, back to Whistler's. They use a serum on him to repress his urge to drink plasma, and he reveals that he can sense where Miriam is through their psychic link. He's still struggling, but Black Cat says she'll stand by him. At a nightclub, Blade meets with Miriam, who he thinks wants to turn human, but she reveals that she wants the neogenic recombinator to turn humans into vampires. The heroes burst in and save Blade from being turned fully vampiric, and Blade gets a pep talk from Terri which convinces him he does have to fight her. The neogenic recombinator is damaged and Miriam gets away. Blade says he'll go after her, and to his surprise Morbius and Black Cat say they'll go with him. He tells them to do what they want, and they figure he'll get used to them eventually. Spider-Man, for his part, is hurt by Black Cat choosing to leave.

Subplots:

• Spider-Man briefly returns to his apartment and swaps his damaged mask for a normal one, and in his haste, doesn't put his damaged mask away properly. Shortly afterwards, Harry Osborn finds the damaged mask, and works out that Peter must be Spider-Man.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• When the team discuss Morbius, Whistler comments that "Once a vampire, always a vampire." I guess Hannibal King doesn't exist in this continuity.
• When Miriam boasts in true villain style to Blade that "These four will join us!", Blade's comment is a quippy "Not on your afterlife!" I think that pun dealt more damage to her than the attack he was also in the middle of.

Review: This is probably the best Blade episode of the three we've gotten, which is saying something given that Blade's not in it much and he's an anti-villain throughout most of it. Showing this to a stranger, you could probably convince them that Whistler's the main vampire hunter and Blade's his sidekick. It's a pity we don't see more of Blade's perspective in the episode; there'd plenty of dramatic irony to go around with regards to him not realising that his mother's this episode's villain, and him getting a pep talk from Terri Lee is set up as if he's gone through a big character arc and realisation when he really hasn't.

Aside from being a decent Blade episode, it's also probably the best Morbius episode. Morbius refusing to drain plasma immediately makes him a lot more heroic than he has been, and by being able to track Miriam, he's a genuine asset to the team (even if the connection between the two makes no sense). I'm pleased with the status quo shift for him at the end, even more so because it has the balls to shift Black Cat out of the show right when she's been building up to be a major supporting cast member. It's a genuine surprise, and a fairly interesting ending for the two (that is, assuming they don't come back again; I could be wrong).

Still, while there's good bits for the supporting cast members, there is a notable flaw in this episode - it doesn't feel much like a Spider-Man episode, nor is he in it very much. Aside from some worrying about what's in his future with regards to Black Cat, Spidey could easily be taken out of the episode with no real change to the plot. That doesn't make it a terrible episode, but it does leave it feeling like it's in the wrong genre, and I'm not 100% sure why it was decided that this episode should exist and why this is how they chose to write out Black Cat.