Darth Strelok
With the recent advent of X-Men 97, I thought it might be interesting to approach the subject of the X-Men and their themes in an avenue I thought might inspire others to revisit earlier Classics. (I've been on a bit of an X-Men rediscovery)
I wish to talk about the X-Men films and more recent cartoons, and their similarity to the Blade Trilogy with Wesley Snipes. There are spoilers for everything in the movies I discuss but these have been out a while.
The Blade Trilogy itself can be hit and miss. The first two were instant classics, and Blade was one of the earliest road maps for how to practically adapt a Marvel Comics character to the big screen in a way that would be entertaining and engaging for audiences too often let down by prior attempts at adapting superheroes to Cinema. The third is a love it or hate it (I feel that the third has its qualities). I'm not going to comment so much on their quality however, as I want to focus on underlying themes. But if you ever get curious about what direction the MCU could have taken but didn't, check the first two out. Marvel Films like Blade and the Thomas Jane version of The Punisher and Ray Stevenson's version of the Punisher sprinted so the MCU could fly.
Now to my point.
What if I told you all the Blade Films were stealth X-Men films?
What's my evidence? We'll have to go to Blade 1 for the first portion.
BLADE 1
Still a great, entertaining film after all these years, Blade contains perhaps the single version of Cyclops that is the closest to the concept presented in the comics that were available at the time.
And that adaptation is represented by the Films version of Blade himself.
Many have forgotten that Comics Blade didn't look or act anything like the one presented in the film before this film premiered. It was a pragmatic choice, as there are some elements that just flat out would not have translated well. This version of Blade proved so influential that he would go on to influence every single version of Blade that ever came afterward. To this day, no one has found a template greater than the one Wesley Snipes created. The look was Iconic. It's still Iconic. Wesley Snipes take on Blade is as much an important milestone depiction of a Superhero on screen as Michael Keaton's take on Batman, Christopher Reeves take on Superman, and Tobey Maguire's take on Spiderman. Or, to keep on topic, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine.
He also remains the best stealth adaptation of Scott Summers.
Both are master strategists who spent their childhoods as outcasts, mentored by figures with leg issues. Whistler, his mentor in the series is a Charles Xavier without the upper class charm (Though Whistler nonetheless possesses a sort of surly charisma that makes his interactions with people entertaining), or the sophistication, or the wealth, with his sole focus not on bridging the gap between superhumans and Humans , save to drive a stake into the chest of the former, but his real goal is to keep Blade's human and superhuman sides from being at total war. Like Charles Xavier, Whistler is teaching a mutated human to control his gifts and harness them to protect a world that would hate and fear him just like they would the ones he fights. And throughout the trilogy, Blade ironically proves himself to be the exact sort of person you would want to lead the X-Men, a man who never let's the power corrupt him through sheer, unbending self discipline, not unlike what Cyclops needs to avoid opening his eyes by accident, and by being a master tactician, just like Cyclops. As for the ongoing similarities, like Cyclops, Blade is an aloof stoic, a loner who stays laser (See what I did there?) focused on the objective and can seem distant even to those close to him. The two characters also show overwhelming support and faith to their mentor figures (And unlike Scott, Blade's trust in his mentor is never let down or subverted).
The Blade Trilogy silently asks the question: What if almost all Mutants really were as bad as Humanity perceives Mutants in the X-Men Comics/Films/Cartoons? It's just that Vampirism takes the place of Mutation, and the Mutation is transmissible. Vampires presented in the Blade series are pretty much the way some of the most evil, despicable, outright psychopathic anti mutant characters in Marvel such as Guyrich, or Stryker think mutants are at their core: Inhuman monsters selfishly lording their power over the weak and defenseless, and intent on enslaving or destroying those they view as genetic inferiors. Humans view Magneto in the comics the same way you would view Blade's main antagonist Deacon Frost if you met him. It frames the whole issue of Mutant-Human Relations in a way no X-Men film ever would with the unflinching brutality of a hidden world of super powered humans crashing into people who have no means to defend themselves against those with enhanced speed, strength, stamina and regenerative capabilities. Just imagine trying to fight an Army of Wolverines, each as Bloodthirsty as the vampires portrayed in this film are.
Also are the parallels Frost, who functions almost like a version of Sabertooth, has with multiple other X-Men villains in the films and Cartoons...
Take, for instance, that scene in the Park via YouTube and listen to Deacon Frost as he chats with Blade. It's very interesting to come back to these films in light of the arguments we have seen between Xavier and Magneto with a recent highlight being their debate while Magneto's asteroid hovers over Xavier's Mansion. Because the conversation Blade has with Deacon Frost in the middle of the park in Blade 1 while Frost is holding a child hostage is essentially that entire debate, decades earlier in Cinemas everywhere, stripped of its normal pomp and flair and boiled down to its core: Two Superhumans, debating the merits and future of the race that gave birth to both of them. Just change some of the wording and the means, and he is pretty much the Vampire Version of Magneto. He wants the ascendancy of his species over humans, and he doesn't care how he does it. Like Magneto, he views humans at best as slaves. Worse, if not slaves, he considers them sustenance. He's Magneto without the tragic backstory or the flowery philosophy and fancy words to disguise what he seeks. He just wants Dominance for the sake of it and in some ways, is much more honest about his desire for power and desire to inflict suffering than any version of Magneto yet put to screen. He's all in on the idea being a vampire is better than being Human.
Just run a side by side comparison between Magneto's words with Xavier after he shuts down the Earth's EMP field and Frost's short exchange with Blade in that park before callously attempting to toss a young child to her death in the street and later his plan to resurrect La Magra, the Blood God to turn any human he comes across instantly to a vampire. Is there any true distinction between their methods if the end result is the same for humanity?
Of special consideration on Frost's plan, it's actually similar to the plan Bastion executes in creating the Prime Sentinels in both the Comics and the 97 cartoon... turning a ton of people superhuman against their will, and Frost's actual transformation at the end of Blade 1 gives him regenerative abilities akin to the Future Sentinel Nimrod, leading to Blade/Cyclops having to use strategy and trickery to defeat him over using raw power The specifics of his plot, using an ancient machine to enhance himself with the powers of the other Vampires/Mutants, is not dissimilar from the scheme Apocalypse would later use in X-Men: Evolution which involved using Rogue. In fact, Frost's scheme could even be interpreted in light of what came before and after as the Cliff's notes version of En Sabah Nur's origin, that of a unique "first" Mutant enhancing himself with strange technology to become a global threat. Where does the technology that rips out the souls of those vampires come from? How is it a machine thousands of years old is built specifically to use Blade's Daywalker blood? You never see anything like it ever again in the series. More on all that later. The female lead in that film essentially functions as Moira McTaggart, and she kills the other female lead, who wears white normally...in retrospect, was the female vampire lead in Blade 1 that setting's answer to Emma Frost? She went down like a punk, sure but Emma Frost was a villain when she first appeared...and she also wore white.
They were showing us an X-Men film and we didn't even realize it. Speaking of which, in Blade 1, the Vampires (Mutants) even had their own version of The Hellfire Club, in the form of those Vampire elders who badmouth Deacon for not being a pure blood vampire. It could be argued that the Lead Vampire whose fangs Frost rips out with pliers later in the film serves as this films equivalent to Sebastian Shaw. In a dark twist on Xavier's dream of Mutant/Human coexistence, The Vampires do more or less maintain a grisly equilibrium with human societies in secret, because interestingly, even they seem to know they would lose to Humanity in a straight up fight, or win the war, but destroy too much of their food source in the process. It's not clear, in fact, who is really in charge of who at this point. Presumably, no sane Vampire (for a given definition of sane among vampires wants to give Humanity a reason to start listening to whoever their setting's equivalent of Bolivar Trask is. Frost just wants to take the plunge even though by Vampire standards, he already lives like a king.
BTW, just why does Deacon Frost enjoy such prestige? Such high rank? It's implied that Udo Kier's character (the one whose fangs get ripped out later by Frost) is Frost's "father" (The one who turned Frost into a Vampire) and since he sits on the Council, Frost is untouchable.
But think? Why is that? Why is Kier's character sitting on that Council? He's outplayed, directly disobeyed and eventually murdered by Frost. Just look at how he screams at Frost in that scene in the Vampire Archives in Blade 1: It just drips with undertones of "Frustrated Dad trying to communicate with Rebellious Son".
Part of his irritation certainly does have to do with Deacon's disobedience. But the rest of the irritation may stem from the fact that the only reason he enjoys such high rank is because of Frost himself. Why? Because Frost's strain of vampirism created the Daywalker Gene. He's as much a mutant among his own kind as Blade is, in the sense the gene may be dormant in him.
Being the one who sired the one who carries a dormant Daywalker Gene must have got him noticed. Maybe he wasn't exactly a nobody before Frost, but he gives off the energy of someone definitely not used to making the hard decisions. Perhaps some of his rise to power was based off advice Frost gave him. That's why the Vampire council is so lenient with him at the beginning, despite badmouthing him to his face that he wasn't a pure blood...Frost is the Vampire equivalent of a National Treasure. They can't afford to kill him. At least not until they figure out how to turn on his Dormant Daywalker Gene if they can't catch Blade, a vampire with an active Daywalker Gene. Frost knows he can't be touched. He's the back up plan, which makes what power and influence he enjoys more a gilded cage than true power and authority. So he listens to the lecture, basically goes 'LOLWUTEVS' and goes right back to doing it. Heck, he may have been given deliberate high level access to the Vampire Archives by them just to keep him distracted...they never dreamed he might be actually smart and ambitious enough to succeed in translating it.
Even Kier's Vampire Elder death scene with Frost has interesting undertones to it, as the way Frost talks to him can be taken 1 of two ways. The first being that he is mocking him for being such a tool and not being able to do a thing to stop Frost from taking over or any of his other schemes in the process, or 2, which is the same for the most part as the former reasoning, save some of Frost's dialogue seems to imply that their relationship didn't used to be quite so toxic, and that if Kier's character had openly supported him instead of biting the hand that may have silently helped in his own rise to power, he might not be about to be left to explode from sunlight exposure. There might have still been a place for him, even if it wasn't the station he was used to. The Vampire Council doesn't even offer that much protest when he takes over. There's actually a resignation to them when shown the fangs Frost ripped from his Sire's mouth. They had been expecting him to take over literally any day at that point.
But wait! The X-Men references only get stronger from here! The plot of Blade 1 is essentially that of X-Men: First Class. Blade's real name, like Magneto, is Erik (Whether it's spelled the same is just splitting hairs) and they are both searching for the person that created them/killed their mother. They find them, but the villain himself tanks everything they can throw, gets them both on their knees in their first face to face encounter with the aid of a nearby female henchmen wearing white, both Blade and Magneto nearly die afterward before being given outside assistance and the villain dies from a final injury to the head in both cases. For Deacon, it's that Syringe of Anti Vampire Juice getting kicked into and being lodged into his skull. For Shaw, it's a coin being passed through the skull. Blade and Magneto even get witty one liners before inflicting this very specific form of killing injury, and they are equally facing a nemesis at their respective strongest. Except Blade is like a Magneto who never turns on Humanity.
Oh, and did I mention that like Cyclops, Blade has a pair of killer shades he doesn't like to go anywhere or fight without? He also pulls off a ranged attack with his sword to free that pack of syringes in the end to kill Frost, not unlike how Cyclops would have pulled off a similar stunt with his optic blasts. Oh! OHHHHH, and you will love this next comparison between Frost and Magneto:
Frost is defeated at a crucial moment because he misinterprets Blade's strategy. HE thinks that blue stuff in Blade's syringes is actually the serum that Blade uses in place of feeding on Blood like other vampires. It causes Frost to leave himself completely open to attack from the front, thinking Blade will use the syringes on himself instead of Frost. He gets a chest full of syringes for his trouble that depowers him.
In X-Men, The Last Stand, Magneto is defeated because he misinterprets Wolverine's strategy: HE thinks Wolverine is just doing his typical pointless attempt to kill Magneto by using himself as a projectile. It causes him to leave himself open to attack from behind...and what happens?
He gets a chest full of syringes that depowers him.
The Last Stand reveals that, in fact, it is Magneto who never learns. Wolverine (Who in another comparison to Blade, uses edged weapons and in their respective final battles, are up against opponents they are completely unable to affect without outside assistance) uses the strategy he uses in The Last Stand all the way back in X-Men 1. Remember the statue of liberty battle? In both that battle and this one, Magneto is defeated because he is so focused on stopping Wolverine that he leaves himself open to attack from behind.
In Days of Future Past, "Past" Magneto is defeated because he misinterprets DOFP Richard Nixon's strategy. HE thinks DOFP Nixon is going to come out himself to try and negotiate for his life and the life's of the others in the presidential bunker. It causes him to completely open himself to attack from the front just like Deacon Frost when he turns his head due to a momentary distraction from a Sentinel filled with metal that has targeted him (for added irony, he put the metal in himself)...and Nixon turns out to be Mystique, who shoots him in the neck and temporarily depowers him while he's busy trying to stop something filled with metal like in X-Men 1 and X-Men 3 and kicks his helmet off, causing Xavier to make him fly off.
Don't think DOFP Nixon had anything to do with that plan? Admittedly, I found this idea implausible at first, and hesitated to include my theory in this article.
But stop, for a moment, and think about it. He didn't have to let Mystique impersonate him. As a matter of fact, when she was discovered in the bunker, she was immediately pinned down by Secret Service Agents. They had her dead to rights. Even though she broke free when Magneto ripped the bunker out, there was no way an attempted Assassin in the bunker is talking their way into or out of anything. Even if she had killed Trask immediately after getting Stryker's gun, she was not walking away from that place alive. The only way she was walking out was if she cut a deal with someone. The only person with the authority to cut a deal at that moment was DOFP Nixon, who definitely would have been grasping at nearly any straw possible to walk away from that day alive.
The Conclusion: The impersonation plan was either DOFP Nixon's, Mystique's, or some combination thereof.
DOFP Nixon was desperate. Literally surrounded on all sides by a stadium. He had read the file on Magneto. He knew if push came to shove that Magneto would wipe the floor with him, Sentinels or no Sentinels. He knew Magneto was here for him, and would want to face him personally, in front of the world.
And what just happened to him? A literal freaking shapeshifter has fallen into his mercy. A shapeshifter he must have known that Magneto tried to kill only days prior. Tell me the light bulb wouldn't go off in your head in that situation to go full "Enemy Mine". And there is no way he didn't know about Trask's attempt to sell the Mutant Detection technology to the country's enemies given how quickly Trask was imprisoned afterward. Why do you think Trask was still alive when Magneto ripped the bunker out of the white house? Because Trask's life was part of the deal DOFP Nixon cut with her in the few seconds he had before Magneto tore the bunker open. And either everyone in the bunker remains unharmed by her or no one walks out alive. Notice how calm everyone else, Nixon included in the bunker was when she came out disguised as Nixon, making only a few half hearted attempts to stop her? They were in on it. They had to play along. Even Trask himself. Because if he gave away DOFP Nixon/Mystique's plan, he'd be facing execution instead of jail. Besides, if DOFP Nixon wasn't in on it, and hadn't come up with some last second plan, he would have had to stop her if she was impersonating him without his blessing, if only to avert the admittedly paranoid risk she would order a nuclear strike on National TV disguised as him, or say something on National TV that would diminish the standing of the U.S. or undermine it's interests at such a crucial, world changing moment.
DOFP Nixon and Mystique, like Wolverine, like Blade himself, came up with a plan at the last moment that took advantage of their opponent's vanity, involving something or someone that was blue in color.
What would he have said to her to convince her? It must have been short. Remember, when Magneto ripped the bunker out, she had just broken free and taken Stryker's gun. He had to have made that deal at the literal last few seconds. Something along the lines of "Take my place and try and kill Magneto. If you live, I'll give you a pardon, and end the Sentinels but you better run fast afterwards and hide."
If he was spying on Trask somehow, (let's face it why wouldn't he spy on Trask?) then he knew Mystique tried to kill Trask. He knew Mystique was there for Trask. He might be willing to honor a bargain if he and everyone in the bunker walked away alive. Mystique's back was literally to the wall also. Think about it from her perspective: Why would Magneto take the risk the Sentinel program could still happen somehow and wipe out Mutant kind by letting her live, even if he did love her? Even if Trask was dead or imprisoned, and the Sentinel program was shut down? Besides, if she had shot Trask right then in the bunker, she would have likely died soon after. Notice how she only points the gun at Trask...and visibly hesitates before Charles freezes them? It paints her decisions at the end of that battle in a different light...she doesn't spare Trask so much because she believes what she's being told about the future and how she still has the chance to change it for the better (At least, it's not totally that reason), but because she was literally weighing the consequences of breaking the unseen emergency deal I think she cut with DOFP Nixon and decided changing the future for the better is nice and all, but discretion (and not ripping up your get out of jail free card) really is the better part of valor. As further evidence she cut a deal with Nixon, she doesn't seem to be wanted by the general authorities in the sequel and even later on is a member of the X-Men in public...suggesting the Pardon stuck.)
Interesting how in all listed scenarios, the defeat of the villain involves something or someone colored Blue, but in X-Men 1's case it was the lack of something/someone with a blue coloring that led to the villain's defeat. If, in X-Men 1, Mystique hadn't been taken out at the last moment using an unexpected frontal attack to the chest just like Blade did with Deacon Frost earlier by Wolverine, she would have screwed up Cyclops attempt to shoot Magneto with his beams. They would have been too busy fighting her to stop Magneto's machine. Sabertooth was basically a tool in that final battle. (Though I must add that what directly defeats Magneto is a red energy beam)
BLADE 2
Even more of a classic than the first one, Blade 2 was directed by the same guy who went to go on and make Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (Which borrowed plot elements, as well as actors from Blade 2).
Blade 2 is where Blade/Cyclops finally gets to lead his own team of Vampires/Mutants. Blade 2, in fact, could easily be called Realistic X-Men. Except most of the X-Men are evil AF, and have no plot armor beyond a certain point. It's the kind of story made of pure awesome.
Don't think it's a Stealth X-Men film? I'll prove it.
Let's start with it's plot elements.
You know the super ancient vampire, Eli Damaskinos, who assembles the team for Blade to lead into battle? He's basically this film's version of Mister Sinister. He has Sinister's motivation: To genetically engineer a Master Race that he will be sole lord and master over, and like the previous film with it's answer to Magneto (Deacon Frost/La Magra) he is obsessed with acquiring/replicating the genetics of one of the single most powerful mutants out there (And Blade is, for all intents and purposes, a mutant even by the standards of the other 'Mutants' in this setting). So the Mister Sinister Expy ropes Blade/Cyclops into leading his team to stop the artificial mutants created by him in secret.
Here's more evidence. Ron Perlman, playing the character Reinhardt, is this film's equivalent of Wolverine in his constant, bitter back and forth between him and Blade/Cyclops (and the rivalry between them and how it ends is arguably a much more grounded take on how the feud would play out between Cyclops and Wolverine in real life--those two would absolutely hate each other and it would end with one of them dead eventually, screw what the rest of the team thinks). You know how in that sewer system scene in Blade 2 when they are all getting chased by that army of Orlocks? Reinhardt uses pistols with these weird knife/axe blade attachments and he uses them at close range very much how Wolverine uses his claws. He's constantly a snide jerk with one liners like 90's Wolverine, except there is no heart of gold underneath all that jerk, though there might be something of a tragic backstory if the last few moments he's speaking before Blade kills him are any indication. Reinhardt/Wolverine even attempts to kill Blade/Cyclops in a very Wolverine like manner, a frontal stab to the chest.
The female lead in that film, Nyssa? She's the equivalent of Madelyn Pryor/ The Goblin Queen (Heck, the vampire enemies even look a little bit like goblins) and this is all some weird take on the Age of Apocalypse storyline almost. (Bonus evidence: Damaskinos has a corporation called Caliban whose building serves as his headquarters in the film). But while Reinhardt is an evil take on Wolverine in terms of personality/combat style, The central antagonist, Nomak, is an evil take on Wolverine's powers/twisting by a 'Weapon X' type program. Both of Blade's encounters with Nomak, as well as his experience with Reinhardt in spirit, are really great representations of how fights/squabbles between Wolverine and Cyclops play out (save that in ends in death for both fighting Blade).
There's even a theme of resurrection in this film and X-Men series. In this case, it's the Blade film's answer to Charles Xavier who comes back from the dead (He, Nyssa, and Jean Grey die, in a very broad sense, to stop anyone from being hurt by them.)
Blade loses his Jean Grey Expy to a mutation that will turn her into a threat to all humanity. Logan loses Jean in the Last Stand due to her mutation having already turned her into a threat to all humanity. Nyssa dies turning to ash and flames, not unlike how Jean dies in some versions of the Continuity. Both are essentially killed by the one who loves them. Blade carries her to outside to burn her from sunlight exposure. Wolverine stabs Jean with his claws to end her suffering. Blade isn't even left with a corpse at the end. All his "X-Men" are dead.
Blade, like Logan, like Cyclops, is alone.
BLADE 3
This film had a very troubled production. It wasn't all it could have been. The special effects were not as good. The fights were not as good. Patton Oswalt was in it.
That being said...
What if I told you Blade: Trinity was a Logan film years before the Logan film was actually made?
What's my evidence? Let's start with the scenario.
Blade 3 shows a Blade at an undefined time in the future, no closer to destroying all vampires than he was when he started. Most of his major allies are dead. Only Whistler around to keep him company, and both are starting to slip up and make mistakes, relying on younger, cocky vampire hunters with less than stellar credentials occasionally. Blade is silent. More silent than he's ever been. His war, waged out of pure hatred, is clearly taking its toll on him emotionally, even if he never expresses it. He faces the same problem Hellboy in Hellboy 2 faces...when all the other aberrations are dead, locked up, whatever, there will still be one left--himself. But there is not even anything resembling a sign of success for Blade. It's clear his experience in Blade 2 had a lasting effect on him. He was tempted. Does he even kill vampires for any reason other than stubbornness now. His kills in this film on vampires have this energy of him trying to convince himself he believes in what he is doing. He's in a depression, and he hides it by continually being on a Vampire killing spree growing more empty and brutal by the day.
Thematically, he has become what Kilmer's Batman cautioned O'Donnell's Robin against turning into in Batman Forever. To borrow from Kilmer's monologue in the Batcave to illustrate my point: Blade made the kill, but his pain didn't die with Deacon Frost, it grew. So he ran off into the night to find another Deacon Frost, and another, and another. Until one terrible morning he woke up and realized revenge has become his whole life. And he doesn't know why.
The Vampires are still in control, and they are going to win unless something changes soon. Even Whistler seems to subtly believe they are going to lose. It's almost like he's just helping Blade at this point because Blade needs what little structure and order Whistler provides to remain functional. It also adds a darker context to the manner in which Whistler dies preventing his own capture. The explosion he triggered killed him and everyone around him, but if Blade had been just a tad closer with no chance of getting away, you gotta wonder if that explosion wouldn't have been meant for Blade as much as was for him and all the information he possessed. After all, if it's all for nothing, wouldn't you at least want to make sure the Vampires didn't get Blade's Daywalker Gene? But Whistler, even at the end, held onto Hope. He hoped Blade would find a way to win, even if he had nothing left, even if he didn't even have Whistler. It puts his death in a different light: against all reason, he defied his own scorched earth protocol at the last moment to make sure Blade could get clear, even though Logic said letting them take Blade alive could fully doom Humanity itself if there really was no escape for either of them. His act of hope against cynical reason allows Blade to destroy all Vampires later on.
Further evidence of this films resemblance to Logan: Blade/Wolverine lose their respective mentors in an incredibly violent and tragic way, and are forced into taking care of a daughter. In Wolverine's case, it's X-23/Laura. And in Blade's case, it's Abigail Whistler.
Dracula himself in Blade 3 is a dark parallel to Logan in his titular film. Dracula is purposeless.
His dreams are dead like Logan's are. His kills are as without purpose or goal as most of Blade's kills are. He is drawn out of retirement (to his annoyance, like Logan) by a younger vampire/mutant essentially on the run from a Vampire/Mutant Hunter. For reasons of his own he chooses to fight Blade...
The parallels only deepen from there. Like in Logan, Dracula/Wolverine is hiding in the desert in retirement, and is lured from that retirement into fighting a younger, faster opponent with his exact same powers and skill set. Blade/X-24 almost mindlessly kills when on assignment, and the only reason he doesn't trounce Dracula/Wolverine is because the former has literal centuries of experience to give him an edge and keep him in the fight. But his battle against Blade pushes him to his limit in the first round, in a similar manner to X-24's first fight with Logan on that family farm.
At the end of Logan, Wolverine injects himself with a Serum that allows him to temporarily fight at something resembling his former prime. It unfortunately wears off by the time X-24 is released, but the resemblance to the death of Dracula in Blade 3 is incredibly strong. Dracula's "mutant serum" is going to his fully inhuman appearance and dominating Blade at close range. But if you pay attention closely to that fight, even in that form Dracula was starting to show signs of exhaustion--slamming Blade into the freaking floor was a desperation move from a weakening "Final Form" Dracula, and even in his full final form, he seems to struggle to lift his sword against Blade, and has to wind up, like he wants to make absolutely sure he will kill Blade on the first strike (Implying he was going to go for a decapitation which speaks volumes of how dire the situation actually was for Dracula--he wasn't even sure impaling Blade through the chest would work, as Blade had powered through everything else that had been thrown at him. Only a decapitation could ensure Blade would die, much how decapitation is said to be one of the only true ways to kill Wolverine.
Interestingly, Blade in the third film and in Blade 2 greatly resemble X-24 from Logan in another sense--only super heavy impacts were capable of momentarily stunning or disabling these characters in straight fights. Blade had to be slammed into an elevator door to open up a chance for Nomak to attack him, while X-24 had to be rammed with a truck and impaled in Round 1 to stop him, and then in the finale, having a truck dropped on him to momentarily slow him down.
Wolverine and Dracula die via impalement, having been dealt a fatal blow from their younger, faster opponent. A special projectile is used to finally kill one of the combatants, fired by a female character in both cases. Dracula (At least, in the theatrical cut of Blade 3) and Logan die next to their successors, and they both die trying to do something nice for their successors (Again, going by theatrical cut of Blade 3). Logan dies trying to give young Mutants a future free from deadly hunters, and this description could also sort of apply to Dracula in a backhanded sense. Though he fought Blade for personal reasons, he was technically doing the exact same thing Wolverine was... fighting to give younger members of his species who were being hunted down violently a future free from a particularly deadly organization of Mutant Hunters who had resorted to a subtle form of biological warfare (This vampire killing virus in Blade 3 is a direct parallel to the Mutant killing legacy virus in X-Men Comics) to achieve victory and used an enforcer with powers similar to him to hunt down Mutants not as skilled or able to defend themselves as he and his generation of mutants were. For bonus points, X-24 and Dracula make the same fatal mistake Magneto did in X-Men 1 and 3: being so focused on one opponent it opened them up to attack from another direction by another fighter.
Specifically though, Dracula dies while helping his own killer, Blade, evade the authorities by taking his form. He dies trying to give his successor a chance to be free, the way Logan does for Laura. Curiously, they have a smile on their faces before they die. Dracula was simply done with it all and wanted it to end deep down, the way Logan did.
Nomak, oddly, dies in a position similar to Logan at the end of Blade 2. He was the Vampire Version of Weapon X, and he was also fatally impaled by the prime example of what his creators wanted him to be, a living weapon: The ultimate Vampire/Mutant. He was even more done with it all than Dracula or Logan was...Nomak may have had a moment of clarity and chosen to finish the job on himself as much to spare anyone else the potential to become like him in spite of his previous actions as it was to end the agony he was always in since his transformation. If interpreted in this light, he dies giving his "successor" an admittedly backhanded chance at a future, thus sort of being like the earliest "Dry Run" for the ending of Logan.
Dracula also has echoes of one other X-Men villain: Apocalypse. The film version, at least.
They are the first of their respective species. They are found buried in their respective tombs before self reviving. Dracula, in terms of personality, is much closer to early comic book Apocalypse than Oscar Isacc's version. Similar to Apocalypse, he has three to four underlings at any given time. It was a group of four who found Dracula in Blade 3. The secondary antagonists even have (weak) parallels to the Four Horsemen:
Famine: This would be Danica. Her strategies seem to revolve around depriving enemies of allies or resources: Her scheme is the one that deals the most severe damage to Blade on a personal level, resulting in the death of Whistler and the destruction of nearly all of Blade's personal resources. Special mention must be given to the personal threat she delivers to Hannibal King (Which causes him to go silent for the only time in the movie and offer no retort immediately after due to the sheer horror of the threat she makes to him, which involves starvation
War: Jarko Grimwood fits this comparison definitely. He's the most physically powerful character after Blade and Dracula, and at least matches their level of aggression at times.
Pestilence: I'm tempted to say Danica's Brother, Asher, is this, but on reflection, it's actually the character Edgar Vance. Vance is well connected, and those connections allow him influence akin to a disease spreading in a body
Who was Death, in this ongoing comparison? That would be Hannibal King. Think, his first act in the film is him killing somebody.
At the end of Blade 3, all the vampires are dead after killing Dracula with the virus.
But it also means that with all the vampires dead, that means there are no more need for vampire hunters. Blade is free from his struggle. So, Blade The Vampire Hunter does die at the end of Blade 3, in a spiritual sense. But does that mean Eric Brooks now lives? The film ends with that question unresolved. What does he do after getting what he wanted? Where can someone go when their life's ambition has finally been achieved? Will he find something to live for? Can he ever live among normal people, have a "normal" life? Hannibal King even asks him this at one point but Blade notably doesn't answer. Does Blade refuse to answer simply because King irritates him in the extreme, or because he genuinely doesn't know the answer to King's question? Does he even want to know the answer to King's question?
Could Eric Brooks, someday, just be a simple nobody you wouldn't notice on the street? Or is he doomed, even after success, to die in the Shadows far from the civilizations he sacrificed his youth, much of his sanity, and on some level, his very soul to defend and protect? The movie, appropriately, leaves all that unanswered. All that you know is, whatever Blade's life was while he was destroying vampires, that part of his life is over and done. Whatever comes after that life will be his problem, and his alone, to figure out. Perhaps he just fades into the annals of urban legends, eventually forgotten. But he is in the same position Dracula was in once. Being the first. Can he bear the idea of being the last at the same time, unlike Dracula, who clearly couldn't? Either way, it's more of a happy ending than what Logan got. At least, the potential for a happy ending.
And...that's about it, I guess. If you stuck with this essay, thanks for your patience! I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on what I have mused in the comments below. Thanks for taking time out of your day!
I wish to talk about the X-Men films and more recent cartoons, and their similarity to the Blade Trilogy with Wesley Snipes. There are spoilers for everything in the movies I discuss but these have been out a while.
The Blade Trilogy itself can be hit and miss. The first two were instant classics, and Blade was one of the earliest road maps for how to practically adapt a Marvel Comics character to the big screen in a way that would be entertaining and engaging for audiences too often let down by prior attempts at adapting superheroes to Cinema. The third is a love it or hate it (I feel that the third has its qualities). I'm not going to comment so much on their quality however, as I want to focus on underlying themes. But if you ever get curious about what direction the MCU could have taken but didn't, check the first two out. Marvel Films like Blade and the Thomas Jane version of The Punisher and Ray Stevenson's version of the Punisher sprinted so the MCU could fly.
Now to my point.
What if I told you all the Blade Films were stealth X-Men films?
What's my evidence? We'll have to go to Blade 1 for the first portion.
BLADE 1
Still a great, entertaining film after all these years, Blade contains perhaps the single version of Cyclops that is the closest to the concept presented in the comics that were available at the time.
And that adaptation is represented by the Films version of Blade himself.
Many have forgotten that Comics Blade didn't look or act anything like the one presented in the film before this film premiered. It was a pragmatic choice, as there are some elements that just flat out would not have translated well. This version of Blade proved so influential that he would go on to influence every single version of Blade that ever came afterward. To this day, no one has found a template greater than the one Wesley Snipes created. The look was Iconic. It's still Iconic. Wesley Snipes take on Blade is as much an important milestone depiction of a Superhero on screen as Michael Keaton's take on Batman, Christopher Reeves take on Superman, and Tobey Maguire's take on Spiderman. Or, to keep on topic, Hugh Jackman's Wolverine.
He also remains the best stealth adaptation of Scott Summers.
Both are master strategists who spent their childhoods as outcasts, mentored by figures with leg issues. Whistler, his mentor in the series is a Charles Xavier without the upper class charm (Though Whistler nonetheless possesses a sort of surly charisma that makes his interactions with people entertaining), or the sophistication, or the wealth, with his sole focus not on bridging the gap between superhumans and Humans , save to drive a stake into the chest of the former, but his real goal is to keep Blade's human and superhuman sides from being at total war. Like Charles Xavier, Whistler is teaching a mutated human to control his gifts and harness them to protect a world that would hate and fear him just like they would the ones he fights. And throughout the trilogy, Blade ironically proves himself to be the exact sort of person you would want to lead the X-Men, a man who never let's the power corrupt him through sheer, unbending self discipline, not unlike what Cyclops needs to avoid opening his eyes by accident, and by being a master tactician, just like Cyclops. As for the ongoing similarities, like Cyclops, Blade is an aloof stoic, a loner who stays laser (See what I did there?) focused on the objective and can seem distant even to those close to him. The two characters also show overwhelming support and faith to their mentor figures (And unlike Scott, Blade's trust in his mentor is never let down or subverted).
The Blade Trilogy silently asks the question: What if almost all Mutants really were as bad as Humanity perceives Mutants in the X-Men Comics/Films/Cartoons? It's just that Vampirism takes the place of Mutation, and the Mutation is transmissible. Vampires presented in the Blade series are pretty much the way some of the most evil, despicable, outright psychopathic anti mutant characters in Marvel such as Guyrich, or Stryker think mutants are at their core: Inhuman monsters selfishly lording their power over the weak and defenseless, and intent on enslaving or destroying those they view as genetic inferiors. Humans view Magneto in the comics the same way you would view Blade's main antagonist Deacon Frost if you met him. It frames the whole issue of Mutant-Human Relations in a way no X-Men film ever would with the unflinching brutality of a hidden world of super powered humans crashing into people who have no means to defend themselves against those with enhanced speed, strength, stamina and regenerative capabilities. Just imagine trying to fight an Army of Wolverines, each as Bloodthirsty as the vampires portrayed in this film are.
Also are the parallels Frost, who functions almost like a version of Sabertooth, has with multiple other X-Men villains in the films and Cartoons...
Take, for instance, that scene in the Park via YouTube and listen to Deacon Frost as he chats with Blade. It's very interesting to come back to these films in light of the arguments we have seen between Xavier and Magneto with a recent highlight being their debate while Magneto's asteroid hovers over Xavier's Mansion. Because the conversation Blade has with Deacon Frost in the middle of the park in Blade 1 while Frost is holding a child hostage is essentially that entire debate, decades earlier in Cinemas everywhere, stripped of its normal pomp and flair and boiled down to its core: Two Superhumans, debating the merits and future of the race that gave birth to both of them. Just change some of the wording and the means, and he is pretty much the Vampire Version of Magneto. He wants the ascendancy of his species over humans, and he doesn't care how he does it. Like Magneto, he views humans at best as slaves. Worse, if not slaves, he considers them sustenance. He's Magneto without the tragic backstory or the flowery philosophy and fancy words to disguise what he seeks. He just wants Dominance for the sake of it and in some ways, is much more honest about his desire for power and desire to inflict suffering than any version of Magneto yet put to screen. He's all in on the idea being a vampire is better than being Human.
Just run a side by side comparison between Magneto's words with Xavier after he shuts down the Earth's EMP field and Frost's short exchange with Blade in that park before callously attempting to toss a young child to her death in the street and later his plan to resurrect La Magra, the Blood God to turn any human he comes across instantly to a vampire. Is there any true distinction between their methods if the end result is the same for humanity?
Of special consideration on Frost's plan, it's actually similar to the plan Bastion executes in creating the Prime Sentinels in both the Comics and the 97 cartoon... turning a ton of people superhuman against their will, and Frost's actual transformation at the end of Blade 1 gives him regenerative abilities akin to the Future Sentinel Nimrod, leading to Blade/Cyclops having to use strategy and trickery to defeat him over using raw power The specifics of his plot, using an ancient machine to enhance himself with the powers of the other Vampires/Mutants, is not dissimilar from the scheme Apocalypse would later use in X-Men: Evolution which involved using Rogue. In fact, Frost's scheme could even be interpreted in light of what came before and after as the Cliff's notes version of En Sabah Nur's origin, that of a unique "first" Mutant enhancing himself with strange technology to become a global threat. Where does the technology that rips out the souls of those vampires come from? How is it a machine thousands of years old is built specifically to use Blade's Daywalker blood? You never see anything like it ever again in the series. More on all that later. The female lead in that film essentially functions as Moira McTaggart, and she kills the other female lead, who wears white normally...in retrospect, was the female vampire lead in Blade 1 that setting's answer to Emma Frost? She went down like a punk, sure but Emma Frost was a villain when she first appeared...and she also wore white.
They were showing us an X-Men film and we didn't even realize it. Speaking of which, in Blade 1, the Vampires (Mutants) even had their own version of The Hellfire Club, in the form of those Vampire elders who badmouth Deacon for not being a pure blood vampire. It could be argued that the Lead Vampire whose fangs Frost rips out with pliers later in the film serves as this films equivalent to Sebastian Shaw. In a dark twist on Xavier's dream of Mutant/Human coexistence, The Vampires do more or less maintain a grisly equilibrium with human societies in secret, because interestingly, even they seem to know they would lose to Humanity in a straight up fight, or win the war, but destroy too much of their food source in the process. It's not clear, in fact, who is really in charge of who at this point. Presumably, no sane Vampire (for a given definition of sane among vampires wants to give Humanity a reason to start listening to whoever their setting's equivalent of Bolivar Trask is. Frost just wants to take the plunge even though by Vampire standards, he already lives like a king.
BTW, just why does Deacon Frost enjoy such prestige? Such high rank? It's implied that Udo Kier's character (the one whose fangs get ripped out later by Frost) is Frost's "father" (The one who turned Frost into a Vampire) and since he sits on the Council, Frost is untouchable.
But think? Why is that? Why is Kier's character sitting on that Council? He's outplayed, directly disobeyed and eventually murdered by Frost. Just look at how he screams at Frost in that scene in the Vampire Archives in Blade 1: It just drips with undertones of "Frustrated Dad trying to communicate with Rebellious Son".
Part of his irritation certainly does have to do with Deacon's disobedience. But the rest of the irritation may stem from the fact that the only reason he enjoys such high rank is because of Frost himself. Why? Because Frost's strain of vampirism created the Daywalker Gene. He's as much a mutant among his own kind as Blade is, in the sense the gene may be dormant in him.
Being the one who sired the one who carries a dormant Daywalker Gene must have got him noticed. Maybe he wasn't exactly a nobody before Frost, but he gives off the energy of someone definitely not used to making the hard decisions. Perhaps some of his rise to power was based off advice Frost gave him. That's why the Vampire council is so lenient with him at the beginning, despite badmouthing him to his face that he wasn't a pure blood...Frost is the Vampire equivalent of a National Treasure. They can't afford to kill him. At least not until they figure out how to turn on his Dormant Daywalker Gene if they can't catch Blade, a vampire with an active Daywalker Gene. Frost knows he can't be touched. He's the back up plan, which makes what power and influence he enjoys more a gilded cage than true power and authority. So he listens to the lecture, basically goes 'LOLWUTEVS' and goes right back to doing it. Heck, he may have been given deliberate high level access to the Vampire Archives by them just to keep him distracted...they never dreamed he might be actually smart and ambitious enough to succeed in translating it.
Even Kier's Vampire Elder death scene with Frost has interesting undertones to it, as the way Frost talks to him can be taken 1 of two ways. The first being that he is mocking him for being such a tool and not being able to do a thing to stop Frost from taking over or any of his other schemes in the process, or 2, which is the same for the most part as the former reasoning, save some of Frost's dialogue seems to imply that their relationship didn't used to be quite so toxic, and that if Kier's character had openly supported him instead of biting the hand that may have silently helped in his own rise to power, he might not be about to be left to explode from sunlight exposure. There might have still been a place for him, even if it wasn't the station he was used to. The Vampire Council doesn't even offer that much protest when he takes over. There's actually a resignation to them when shown the fangs Frost ripped from his Sire's mouth. They had been expecting him to take over literally any day at that point.
But wait! The X-Men references only get stronger from here! The plot of Blade 1 is essentially that of X-Men: First Class. Blade's real name, like Magneto, is Erik (Whether it's spelled the same is just splitting hairs) and they are both searching for the person that created them/killed their mother. They find them, but the villain himself tanks everything they can throw, gets them both on their knees in their first face to face encounter with the aid of a nearby female henchmen wearing white, both Blade and Magneto nearly die afterward before being given outside assistance and the villain dies from a final injury to the head in both cases. For Deacon, it's that Syringe of Anti Vampire Juice getting kicked into and being lodged into his skull. For Shaw, it's a coin being passed through the skull. Blade and Magneto even get witty one liners before inflicting this very specific form of killing injury, and they are equally facing a nemesis at their respective strongest. Except Blade is like a Magneto who never turns on Humanity.
Oh, and did I mention that like Cyclops, Blade has a pair of killer shades he doesn't like to go anywhere or fight without? He also pulls off a ranged attack with his sword to free that pack of syringes in the end to kill Frost, not unlike how Cyclops would have pulled off a similar stunt with his optic blasts. Oh! OHHHHH, and you will love this next comparison between Frost and Magneto:
Frost is defeated at a crucial moment because he misinterprets Blade's strategy. HE thinks that blue stuff in Blade's syringes is actually the serum that Blade uses in place of feeding on Blood like other vampires. It causes Frost to leave himself completely open to attack from the front, thinking Blade will use the syringes on himself instead of Frost. He gets a chest full of syringes for his trouble that depowers him.
In X-Men, The Last Stand, Magneto is defeated because he misinterprets Wolverine's strategy: HE thinks Wolverine is just doing his typical pointless attempt to kill Magneto by using himself as a projectile. It causes him to leave himself open to attack from behind...and what happens?
He gets a chest full of syringes that depowers him.
The Last Stand reveals that, in fact, it is Magneto who never learns. Wolverine (Who in another comparison to Blade, uses edged weapons and in their respective final battles, are up against opponents they are completely unable to affect without outside assistance) uses the strategy he uses in The Last Stand all the way back in X-Men 1. Remember the statue of liberty battle? In both that battle and this one, Magneto is defeated because he is so focused on stopping Wolverine that he leaves himself open to attack from behind.
In Days of Future Past, "Past" Magneto is defeated because he misinterprets DOFP Richard Nixon's strategy. HE thinks DOFP Nixon is going to come out himself to try and negotiate for his life and the life's of the others in the presidential bunker. It causes him to completely open himself to attack from the front just like Deacon Frost when he turns his head due to a momentary distraction from a Sentinel filled with metal that has targeted him (for added irony, he put the metal in himself)...and Nixon turns out to be Mystique, who shoots him in the neck and temporarily depowers him while he's busy trying to stop something filled with metal like in X-Men 1 and X-Men 3 and kicks his helmet off, causing Xavier to make him fly off.
Don't think DOFP Nixon had anything to do with that plan? Admittedly, I found this idea implausible at first, and hesitated to include my theory in this article.
But stop, for a moment, and think about it. He didn't have to let Mystique impersonate him. As a matter of fact, when she was discovered in the bunker, she was immediately pinned down by Secret Service Agents. They had her dead to rights. Even though she broke free when Magneto ripped the bunker out, there was no way an attempted Assassin in the bunker is talking their way into or out of anything. Even if she had killed Trask immediately after getting Stryker's gun, she was not walking away from that place alive. The only way she was walking out was if she cut a deal with someone. The only person with the authority to cut a deal at that moment was DOFP Nixon, who definitely would have been grasping at nearly any straw possible to walk away from that day alive.
The Conclusion: The impersonation plan was either DOFP Nixon's, Mystique's, or some combination thereof.
DOFP Nixon was desperate. Literally surrounded on all sides by a stadium. He had read the file on Magneto. He knew if push came to shove that Magneto would wipe the floor with him, Sentinels or no Sentinels. He knew Magneto was here for him, and would want to face him personally, in front of the world.
And what just happened to him? A literal freaking shapeshifter has fallen into his mercy. A shapeshifter he must have known that Magneto tried to kill only days prior. Tell me the light bulb wouldn't go off in your head in that situation to go full "Enemy Mine". And there is no way he didn't know about Trask's attempt to sell the Mutant Detection technology to the country's enemies given how quickly Trask was imprisoned afterward. Why do you think Trask was still alive when Magneto ripped the bunker out of the white house? Because Trask's life was part of the deal DOFP Nixon cut with her in the few seconds he had before Magneto tore the bunker open. And either everyone in the bunker remains unharmed by her or no one walks out alive. Notice how calm everyone else, Nixon included in the bunker was when she came out disguised as Nixon, making only a few half hearted attempts to stop her? They were in on it. They had to play along. Even Trask himself. Because if he gave away DOFP Nixon/Mystique's plan, he'd be facing execution instead of jail. Besides, if DOFP Nixon wasn't in on it, and hadn't come up with some last second plan, he would have had to stop her if she was impersonating him without his blessing, if only to avert the admittedly paranoid risk she would order a nuclear strike on National TV disguised as him, or say something on National TV that would diminish the standing of the U.S. or undermine it's interests at such a crucial, world changing moment.
DOFP Nixon and Mystique, like Wolverine, like Blade himself, came up with a plan at the last moment that took advantage of their opponent's vanity, involving something or someone that was blue in color.
What would he have said to her to convince her? It must have been short. Remember, when Magneto ripped the bunker out, she had just broken free and taken Stryker's gun. He had to have made that deal at the literal last few seconds. Something along the lines of "Take my place and try and kill Magneto. If you live, I'll give you a pardon, and end the Sentinels but you better run fast afterwards and hide."
If he was spying on Trask somehow, (let's face it why wouldn't he spy on Trask?) then he knew Mystique tried to kill Trask. He knew Mystique was there for Trask. He might be willing to honor a bargain if he and everyone in the bunker walked away alive. Mystique's back was literally to the wall also. Think about it from her perspective: Why would Magneto take the risk the Sentinel program could still happen somehow and wipe out Mutant kind by letting her live, even if he did love her? Even if Trask was dead or imprisoned, and the Sentinel program was shut down? Besides, if she had shot Trask right then in the bunker, she would have likely died soon after. Notice how she only points the gun at Trask...and visibly hesitates before Charles freezes them? It paints her decisions at the end of that battle in a different light...she doesn't spare Trask so much because she believes what she's being told about the future and how she still has the chance to change it for the better (At least, it's not totally that reason), but because she was literally weighing the consequences of breaking the unseen emergency deal I think she cut with DOFP Nixon and decided changing the future for the better is nice and all, but discretion (and not ripping up your get out of jail free card) really is the better part of valor. As further evidence she cut a deal with Nixon, she doesn't seem to be wanted by the general authorities in the sequel and even later on is a member of the X-Men in public...suggesting the Pardon stuck.)
Interesting how in all listed scenarios, the defeat of the villain involves something or someone colored Blue, but in X-Men 1's case it was the lack of something/someone with a blue coloring that led to the villain's defeat. If, in X-Men 1, Mystique hadn't been taken out at the last moment using an unexpected frontal attack to the chest just like Blade did with Deacon Frost earlier by Wolverine, she would have screwed up Cyclops attempt to shoot Magneto with his beams. They would have been too busy fighting her to stop Magneto's machine. Sabertooth was basically a tool in that final battle. (Though I must add that what directly defeats Magneto is a red energy beam)
BLADE 2
Even more of a classic than the first one, Blade 2 was directed by the same guy who went to go on and make Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (Which borrowed plot elements, as well as actors from Blade 2).
Blade 2 is where Blade/Cyclops finally gets to lead his own team of Vampires/Mutants. Blade 2, in fact, could easily be called Realistic X-Men. Except most of the X-Men are evil AF, and have no plot armor beyond a certain point. It's the kind of story made of pure awesome.
Don't think it's a Stealth X-Men film? I'll prove it.
Let's start with it's plot elements.
You know the super ancient vampire, Eli Damaskinos, who assembles the team for Blade to lead into battle? He's basically this film's version of Mister Sinister. He has Sinister's motivation: To genetically engineer a Master Race that he will be sole lord and master over, and like the previous film with it's answer to Magneto (Deacon Frost/La Magra) he is obsessed with acquiring/replicating the genetics of one of the single most powerful mutants out there (And Blade is, for all intents and purposes, a mutant even by the standards of the other 'Mutants' in this setting). So the Mister Sinister Expy ropes Blade/Cyclops into leading his team to stop the artificial mutants created by him in secret.
Here's more evidence. Ron Perlman, playing the character Reinhardt, is this film's equivalent of Wolverine in his constant, bitter back and forth between him and Blade/Cyclops (and the rivalry between them and how it ends is arguably a much more grounded take on how the feud would play out between Cyclops and Wolverine in real life--those two would absolutely hate each other and it would end with one of them dead eventually, screw what the rest of the team thinks). You know how in that sewer system scene in Blade 2 when they are all getting chased by that army of Orlocks? Reinhardt uses pistols with these weird knife/axe blade attachments and he uses them at close range very much how Wolverine uses his claws. He's constantly a snide jerk with one liners like 90's Wolverine, except there is no heart of gold underneath all that jerk, though there might be something of a tragic backstory if the last few moments he's speaking before Blade kills him are any indication. Reinhardt/Wolverine even attempts to kill Blade/Cyclops in a very Wolverine like manner, a frontal stab to the chest.
The female lead in that film, Nyssa? She's the equivalent of Madelyn Pryor/ The Goblin Queen (Heck, the vampire enemies even look a little bit like goblins) and this is all some weird take on the Age of Apocalypse storyline almost. (Bonus evidence: Damaskinos has a corporation called Caliban whose building serves as his headquarters in the film). But while Reinhardt is an evil take on Wolverine in terms of personality/combat style, The central antagonist, Nomak, is an evil take on Wolverine's powers/twisting by a 'Weapon X' type program. Both of Blade's encounters with Nomak, as well as his experience with Reinhardt in spirit, are really great representations of how fights/squabbles between Wolverine and Cyclops play out (save that in ends in death for both fighting Blade).
There's even a theme of resurrection in this film and X-Men series. In this case, it's the Blade film's answer to Charles Xavier who comes back from the dead (He, Nyssa, and Jean Grey die, in a very broad sense, to stop anyone from being hurt by them.)
Blade loses his Jean Grey Expy to a mutation that will turn her into a threat to all humanity. Logan loses Jean in the Last Stand due to her mutation having already turned her into a threat to all humanity. Nyssa dies turning to ash and flames, not unlike how Jean dies in some versions of the Continuity. Both are essentially killed by the one who loves them. Blade carries her to outside to burn her from sunlight exposure. Wolverine stabs Jean with his claws to end her suffering. Blade isn't even left with a corpse at the end. All his "X-Men" are dead.
Blade, like Logan, like Cyclops, is alone.
BLADE 3
This film had a very troubled production. It wasn't all it could have been. The special effects were not as good. The fights were not as good. Patton Oswalt was in it.
That being said...
What if I told you Blade: Trinity was a Logan film years before the Logan film was actually made?
What's my evidence? Let's start with the scenario.
Blade 3 shows a Blade at an undefined time in the future, no closer to destroying all vampires than he was when he started. Most of his major allies are dead. Only Whistler around to keep him company, and both are starting to slip up and make mistakes, relying on younger, cocky vampire hunters with less than stellar credentials occasionally. Blade is silent. More silent than he's ever been. His war, waged out of pure hatred, is clearly taking its toll on him emotionally, even if he never expresses it. He faces the same problem Hellboy in Hellboy 2 faces...when all the other aberrations are dead, locked up, whatever, there will still be one left--himself. But there is not even anything resembling a sign of success for Blade. It's clear his experience in Blade 2 had a lasting effect on him. He was tempted. Does he even kill vampires for any reason other than stubbornness now. His kills in this film on vampires have this energy of him trying to convince himself he believes in what he is doing. He's in a depression, and he hides it by continually being on a Vampire killing spree growing more empty and brutal by the day.
Thematically, he has become what Kilmer's Batman cautioned O'Donnell's Robin against turning into in Batman Forever. To borrow from Kilmer's monologue in the Batcave to illustrate my point: Blade made the kill, but his pain didn't die with Deacon Frost, it grew. So he ran off into the night to find another Deacon Frost, and another, and another. Until one terrible morning he woke up and realized revenge has become his whole life. And he doesn't know why.
The Vampires are still in control, and they are going to win unless something changes soon. Even Whistler seems to subtly believe they are going to lose. It's almost like he's just helping Blade at this point because Blade needs what little structure and order Whistler provides to remain functional. It also adds a darker context to the manner in which Whistler dies preventing his own capture. The explosion he triggered killed him and everyone around him, but if Blade had been just a tad closer with no chance of getting away, you gotta wonder if that explosion wouldn't have been meant for Blade as much as was for him and all the information he possessed. After all, if it's all for nothing, wouldn't you at least want to make sure the Vampires didn't get Blade's Daywalker Gene? But Whistler, even at the end, held onto Hope. He hoped Blade would find a way to win, even if he had nothing left, even if he didn't even have Whistler. It puts his death in a different light: against all reason, he defied his own scorched earth protocol at the last moment to make sure Blade could get clear, even though Logic said letting them take Blade alive could fully doom Humanity itself if there really was no escape for either of them. His act of hope against cynical reason allows Blade to destroy all Vampires later on.
Further evidence of this films resemblance to Logan: Blade/Wolverine lose their respective mentors in an incredibly violent and tragic way, and are forced into taking care of a daughter. In Wolverine's case, it's X-23/Laura. And in Blade's case, it's Abigail Whistler.
Dracula himself in Blade 3 is a dark parallel to Logan in his titular film. Dracula is purposeless.
His dreams are dead like Logan's are. His kills are as without purpose or goal as most of Blade's kills are. He is drawn out of retirement (to his annoyance, like Logan) by a younger vampire/mutant essentially on the run from a Vampire/Mutant Hunter. For reasons of his own he chooses to fight Blade...
The parallels only deepen from there. Like in Logan, Dracula/Wolverine is hiding in the desert in retirement, and is lured from that retirement into fighting a younger, faster opponent with his exact same powers and skill set. Blade/X-24 almost mindlessly kills when on assignment, and the only reason he doesn't trounce Dracula/Wolverine is because the former has literal centuries of experience to give him an edge and keep him in the fight. But his battle against Blade pushes him to his limit in the first round, in a similar manner to X-24's first fight with Logan on that family farm.
At the end of Logan, Wolverine injects himself with a Serum that allows him to temporarily fight at something resembling his former prime. It unfortunately wears off by the time X-24 is released, but the resemblance to the death of Dracula in Blade 3 is incredibly strong. Dracula's "mutant serum" is going to his fully inhuman appearance and dominating Blade at close range. But if you pay attention closely to that fight, even in that form Dracula was starting to show signs of exhaustion--slamming Blade into the freaking floor was a desperation move from a weakening "Final Form" Dracula, and even in his full final form, he seems to struggle to lift his sword against Blade, and has to wind up, like he wants to make absolutely sure he will kill Blade on the first strike (Implying he was going to go for a decapitation which speaks volumes of how dire the situation actually was for Dracula--he wasn't even sure impaling Blade through the chest would work, as Blade had powered through everything else that had been thrown at him. Only a decapitation could ensure Blade would die, much how decapitation is said to be one of the only true ways to kill Wolverine.
Interestingly, Blade in the third film and in Blade 2 greatly resemble X-24 from Logan in another sense--only super heavy impacts were capable of momentarily stunning or disabling these characters in straight fights. Blade had to be slammed into an elevator door to open up a chance for Nomak to attack him, while X-24 had to be rammed with a truck and impaled in Round 1 to stop him, and then in the finale, having a truck dropped on him to momentarily slow him down.
Wolverine and Dracula die via impalement, having been dealt a fatal blow from their younger, faster opponent. A special projectile is used to finally kill one of the combatants, fired by a female character in both cases. Dracula (At least, in the theatrical cut of Blade 3) and Logan die next to their successors, and they both die trying to do something nice for their successors (Again, going by theatrical cut of Blade 3). Logan dies trying to give young Mutants a future free from deadly hunters, and this description could also sort of apply to Dracula in a backhanded sense. Though he fought Blade for personal reasons, he was technically doing the exact same thing Wolverine was... fighting to give younger members of his species who were being hunted down violently a future free from a particularly deadly organization of Mutant Hunters who had resorted to a subtle form of biological warfare (This vampire killing virus in Blade 3 is a direct parallel to the Mutant killing legacy virus in X-Men Comics) to achieve victory and used an enforcer with powers similar to him to hunt down Mutants not as skilled or able to defend themselves as he and his generation of mutants were. For bonus points, X-24 and Dracula make the same fatal mistake Magneto did in X-Men 1 and 3: being so focused on one opponent it opened them up to attack from another direction by another fighter.
Specifically though, Dracula dies while helping his own killer, Blade, evade the authorities by taking his form. He dies trying to give his successor a chance to be free, the way Logan does for Laura. Curiously, they have a smile on their faces before they die. Dracula was simply done with it all and wanted it to end deep down, the way Logan did.
Nomak, oddly, dies in a position similar to Logan at the end of Blade 2. He was the Vampire Version of Weapon X, and he was also fatally impaled by the prime example of what his creators wanted him to be, a living weapon: The ultimate Vampire/Mutant. He was even more done with it all than Dracula or Logan was...Nomak may have had a moment of clarity and chosen to finish the job on himself as much to spare anyone else the potential to become like him in spite of his previous actions as it was to end the agony he was always in since his transformation. If interpreted in this light, he dies giving his "successor" an admittedly backhanded chance at a future, thus sort of being like the earliest "Dry Run" for the ending of Logan.
Dracula also has echoes of one other X-Men villain: Apocalypse. The film version, at least.
They are the first of their respective species. They are found buried in their respective tombs before self reviving. Dracula, in terms of personality, is much closer to early comic book Apocalypse than Oscar Isacc's version. Similar to Apocalypse, he has three to four underlings at any given time. It was a group of four who found Dracula in Blade 3. The secondary antagonists even have (weak) parallels to the Four Horsemen:
Famine: This would be Danica. Her strategies seem to revolve around depriving enemies of allies or resources: Her scheme is the one that deals the most severe damage to Blade on a personal level, resulting in the death of Whistler and the destruction of nearly all of Blade's personal resources. Special mention must be given to the personal threat she delivers to Hannibal King (Which causes him to go silent for the only time in the movie and offer no retort immediately after due to the sheer horror of the threat she makes to him, which involves starvation
War: Jarko Grimwood fits this comparison definitely. He's the most physically powerful character after Blade and Dracula, and at least matches their level of aggression at times.
Pestilence: I'm tempted to say Danica's Brother, Asher, is this, but on reflection, it's actually the character Edgar Vance. Vance is well connected, and those connections allow him influence akin to a disease spreading in a body
Who was Death, in this ongoing comparison? That would be Hannibal King. Think, his first act in the film is him killing somebody.
At the end of Blade 3, all the vampires are dead after killing Dracula with the virus.
But it also means that with all the vampires dead, that means there are no more need for vampire hunters. Blade is free from his struggle. So, Blade The Vampire Hunter does die at the end of Blade 3, in a spiritual sense. But does that mean Eric Brooks now lives? The film ends with that question unresolved. What does he do after getting what he wanted? Where can someone go when their life's ambition has finally been achieved? Will he find something to live for? Can he ever live among normal people, have a "normal" life? Hannibal King even asks him this at one point but Blade notably doesn't answer. Does Blade refuse to answer simply because King irritates him in the extreme, or because he genuinely doesn't know the answer to King's question? Does he even want to know the answer to King's question?
Could Eric Brooks, someday, just be a simple nobody you wouldn't notice on the street? Or is he doomed, even after success, to die in the Shadows far from the civilizations he sacrificed his youth, much of his sanity, and on some level, his very soul to defend and protect? The movie, appropriately, leaves all that unanswered. All that you know is, whatever Blade's life was while he was destroying vampires, that part of his life is over and done. Whatever comes after that life will be his problem, and his alone, to figure out. Perhaps he just fades into the annals of urban legends, eventually forgotten. But he is in the same position Dracula was in once. Being the first. Can he bear the idea of being the last at the same time, unlike Dracula, who clearly couldn't? Either way, it's more of a happy ending than what Logan got. At least, the potential for a happy ending.
And...that's about it, I guess. If you stuck with this essay, thanks for your patience! I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on what I have mused in the comments below. Thanks for taking time out of your day!