Blade #4 - Marvel Comics

BLADE No. 4, December 2023

Arguably using Stephen Strange’s guest star appearance as an opportunity to bring any new readers to this ongoing series bang up to speed with the storyline’s past events and characters, this comic’s “high-speed heist” certainly promises plenty of sense-shattering shenanigans. But whilst the vast majority of the twenty-page periodical does focus upon a bullet train whose “chassis is made of adamantium” and which “rarely slows below 180 miles per hour”, its perplexing plot may well prove just a little too bemusing for many a perusing bibliophile to properly enjoy.

Foremost of these oddities in "Mother Of Evil" is probably the absence of the Master of the Mystic Arts himself, who despite conjuring up a portal to allow Blade access “into the armoured fortress of a weapons collector”, doesn’t actually then fight alongside the vampire. Instead, the Sorcerer Supreme simply informs the titular character from a notable distance that Adana will “destroy reality as we know it” if not stopped, and then later adds that the only “sword of unknown power” which can apparently kill her will prove equally as dangerous to the Daywalker if he succeeds in appropriating it.

Similarly as disappointing though has to be the much-anticipated confrontation between Eric Brooks and Hamilton Achilles, which ends with the powerful, master criminal somewhat ridiculously tearing his own head in half as a sacrifice to Adana. Considering that the thick-set blood-drinker clearly doesn’t want this comic’s titular character to steal Lucifer’s infamous hand-weapon, this suicidal behaviour is debatably an incredibly peculiar move, and one that sadly smacks of contrivance so as to simply propel Blade into the lengthy narrative’s final instalment suitably well-armed; “That weapon has the will of the Lightbringer. It will change you…”

Sadly, such a confounding scenario also seemingly appears to have detrimentally affected the book’s illustration team, with both Valentina Pinta and Elena Casagrande pencilling a series of surprisingly stagnant layouts featuring wooden figures and lack-lustre action scenes. Indeed, Achilles’ aforementioned death may well strike many within this publication’s audience as appearing like something out of a cartoony Japanese anime show, with the wide-eyed vampire’s inexplicable self-immolation being difficult to visualise without repeated visits to the panel apparently depicting it.

The regular cover art to "BLADE" #4 by Elena Casagrande & Jordie Bellaire