Blade #2 - Marvel Comics

BLADE No. 2, August 2023

Perhaps somewhat disconcertingly reminiscent of the Wachowskis’ “Matrix” franchise more than Stephen Norrington’s 1998 American superhero movie “Blade”, Bryan Hill’s script for “Mother Of Evil” surely still provided its readers with plenty of high-octane set-pieces and gratuitous violence. In fact, the action rarely stops to allow this comic’s audience to catch its breath as the Daywalker repeatedly attempts to foil a series of assassination and abduction attempts on “a high-end supernatural arms dealer” turned hostile ex-girlfriend.

Foremost of these pulse-pounding predicaments is probably a gun-toting helicopter’s endeavour to riddle Tulip with enough lead to sink a steamship whilst the woman is busy bedding the dhampir in her high-rise Japanese apartment. Sporting a serious exchange of bullets between the two warring factions, the fracas does somewhat incongruously show Eric Brook’s favouring a demonically possessed machine gun rather than the titular character’s famous hand-made sword. But despite this ‘mismatch’, the sequence still packs an exhilarating punch – especially once Lord Daido’s armed forces pour in through the front door and blast Blade out through the bedroom’s already shattered glass window through sheer force of firepower.

Rather enjoyably though, this issue isn’t simply about the feisty gunrunner’s perilous plight either, as the American author also pens plenty for Rotha to do during this publication’s second half. True, the mystic cultist does spend much of this book’s storyline tied to a post in the Daywalker’s Minka. However, once she is released the angry ‘sidekick’ soon sets about Daido’s contingent of personal bodyguards with a flurry of well-aimed arrows to the head; “I really hope they were bad people.”

Notably adding some extra “Thok” to the deadly bolts of the vampire’s Cambodian compatriot, as well as some impressive zip to all the gunshots sounding off throughout this comic’s layouts, is Elena Casagrande. The Italian illustrator does a particularly good job of imbuing Blade with all the athleticism a bibliophile would expect from Marv Wolfman’s co-creation, most notably when the anti-hero leaps aboard a soldier-filled rotorcraft and mercilessly guns down the elite, special forces inside at extreme close range within a single, mouth-wateringly good splash page. In addition, the artist does a stellar job of showing the wounds Eric incurs when his body plummets numerous floors to the sidewalk and is then savagely thrown back up into the air by the impact of the hitmen’s getaway car.

The regular cover art to "BLADE" #2 by Elena Casagrande & Jordie Bellaire