BLADE II

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Monday, March 25, 2002

Now that the wait is over and fans can witness the return of Wesley Snipes as Blade in the spring?s first opening salvo in the comic book film wars (with a certain webhead waiting in the wings to take up the slack once the vampire hunter has done his work), what about the inevitable comic book adaptation? Yes, it?s odd for a comic book character to get translated into live-action film only to be re-adapted back into its original medium, but this is genre entertainment after all. Everything is weird that way. So without further ado, let?s take a look, shall we?

I have a terrible admission to make: I never saw BLADE. "Horrors!" you cry. "How could you have missed one of the biggest vampire films released in the last six years?" My embarrassed reply would be that a) I wasn't much interested in a movie about a half-human, half-vampire vampire hunter-I figured I'd seen a good movie using that concept already in VAMPIRE HUNTER D; and b) I'm not much of a Wesley Snipes fan. But after having read the official comic adaptation of BLADE II, I'm thinking I'll have to see this one-but only if the movie is as good as the comic.

That's going to be a tall order to fill, though-BLADE II is a fairly impressive comic. David S. Goyer's screenplay concerns a new mutation of the virus that creates vampires, a mutation which feeds on both vampires and humans. The Vampire Nation approaches Blade for an uneasy alliance to rid the world of this deadly new menace. Goyer's script is adapted by no less than Steve Gerber, whose most prolific period of writing for Marvel occurred about the same time that Blade was making his first appearance in TOMB OF DRACULA courtesy of Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. (A lesser reviewer might make some silly comment about the irony of a Wolfman writing about a vampire, but I won't.) Gerber brings out the major moments of the plot without dwelling on them and handles the entire project with a surprisingly quiet approach, making the story seem more like a regular issue of an ongoing series than the "special event" that a movie adaptation is generally sold as. Rather than undermining David S. Goyer's script, however, Gerber's subtler approach brings more dramatic punch to a story which is likely to get lost on-screen amidst all the requisite blood and gore.


Italian artist Alberto Ponticelli's work on this book is equally subtle. Most artists adapting such a blood-filled script would probably fill the book with equally blood-soaked images, but not Ponticelli. There's a distinctly European quality to the art that's vastly appealing, making for visuals that are just as subtle and quiet as Gerber's script. When the inevitable battle sequences do occur, the focus is far more on the characters and what's happening to them than on the blood and guts flying everywhere. It's also not the most realistic artistic style, but Ponticelli's almost impressionistic approach makes the horror of the situations far more clear than they would be were we distracted by the horror of the battles themselves. If we want to see a more realistic style, we can simply go see the movie-though the visuals here are probably more interesting. And while I don't often mention lettering in reviews of comics, Paul Tutrone's work here adds to the overall effect that Gerber and Ponticelli are trying to achieve-the use of upper- and lowercase letters, a "softer" font than most comics use, and a sparring use of exclamation points in favor of bold print and jagged underlining, all make even the specific experience of reading this book a more contemplative one.

If there's one real criticism I can level against this book, it's that the whole thing goes by too quickly. Unlike the film, this comic refuses to linger on any one scene, jumping from moment to moment so quickly that many opportunities for greater character development, such as the Bloodpack members' constant fear that Blade is going to betray them at the first opportunity, get glossed over. In this sense, the movie has one power over its audience that a comic doesn't have: the duration of a scene in a movie is chosen by a director and determined by his artistic intentions-at least until the movie comes out on video or DVD and the viewer can fast-forward through it. The duration of a scene in a comic is chosen by the reader and determined by his reading speed. Because of this, BLADE
II seems to whiz by way too quickly, and this is indeed a pity, since it's such a fully absorbing experience. The good news is that to have this experience over and over again, you only have to pay the price of admission once.

BLADE II: THE OFFICIAL COMIC ADAPTATION

Grade: B+

Issue: N/A

Author(s): Steve Gerber, Alberto Ponticelli, Paul Tutrone

Publisher: DC

Price: $1.99