Eric Brooks (Earth-26320)

"There's an old saying: Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer."


 * -Blade

Blade is a half-vampire "daywalker" who hunts vampires.

Blade
Eric Brooks is the son of Vanessa Brooks, a nurse who was attacked and bitten by a vampire while in pregnancy. Eric was born while his mother was dying, inheriting some of the vampires' abilities. Young Eric live most of his life on the streets, till the day he's attacked by Abraham Whistler, a vampire hunter who mistakes him for a true vampire but, when understanding the nature of the child, takes him with himself. Eric, who know calls himself Blade, is trained by Whistler to become the most lethal vampire hunter ever.

Blade and Whistler are hunting Deacon Frost, a powerful young vampire, and are destroying his night clubs for vampires. During one of his attacks to a Frost's club, Blade badly wounds Quinn Vas, the most loyal of Frost's minion. Blade is interrupted by the police and doesn't finish him; when, having tracked the vampire to the hospital, Blade finds that he has already bitten the two doctors who was curing him, he sees Karen Jenson, one of the doctors, and, seeing his own mother in her, he can't kill her and takes her with him to the base.

Blade and Whistler decides to use Karen as a bait for Frost and lets her come back home. In here, she's attacked by one of Frost's Familiars, a cop. Blade intervenes and beats him hard, just to follow him again to Pearl's hideout. Blade and Karen kill him, and find out Frost's plans regarding La Magra, the Vampire God. The two are then attacked by Quinn and Mercury, but manage to escape thanks to Whistler's arrival.

Blade is then out to get some serum from one of his allies but, when he comes back to the base, finds out that Karen has been kidnapped by Frost and Whistler has been bitten. Blade can't shoot his mentor and so gives him the gun, letting him committ suicide. Enraged, Blade attacks Frost's mansion, with the new weapon granted by Karen, the EDTA, a blood thinner who proves to be lethal to vampires. In here, Blade finds out that his mother is still alive as a vampire, and that she's become one of Frost's lovers. Shocked, he's easily captured by Frost's men and taken to La Magra temple. In here, he's put in a special sarcophagus, in which is drained of all his blood, which is the key for freeing La Magra. Exhausted, Blade is saved by Karen, who managed to free herself as well. The woman lets Blade bite her for regaining his strength, just in time for a fight with his mother, who he kills.

With all his powers come back, Blade kills the most of Frost's minions, Quinn included. Eventually, Blade confronts Frost, who is now an avatar of La Magra's. With all of his weapons proved to be useless on him, Blade attacks him with EDTA, killing him. Finally, Blade and Karen exit from the temple, Frost's people wiped out, and Karen asks Blade if he wants to be cured, just like she did: the cure would heal Blade's thirst, erasing at the same time his powers. Blade refuses, wanting to continue his battle. He's later seen in Russia, pursuing a vampire: he's following the vampires who transformed Whistler and kidnapped him.

Blade II
After two years of researches, Blade has finally tracked down the vampires who kidnapped Whistler in Prague: he kills them all and frees his old friend, taking him back to the base for curing him. Along with Scud, his new assistant, Blade injects Whistler with the cure and manage to heal him, gaining his mentor. Blade, anyway, doesn't seem to really trust him.

On that very night, Blade is reached by two messengers, who prove to be even skillful fighters. They present themselves as Nyssa Damaskinos and Asad, who ask Blade and his companions to follow them to Eli Damaskinos' place. The three hunters meet the old vampire lord, who, after thanking Blade for killing Deacon Frost, asks for their help: a plague, called the Reaper Virus, is spreading all over Prague, carried by Jared Nomak, the first of the new race. Nomak is biting humans and vampires alike, and the virus is spreading much faster than the normal vampire one. Blade agrees and meets The Bloodpack, an elite vampire squad created for hunting Blade but know forced to be his ally. In order to be feared, if not respected, by the Bloodpack, Blade reacts to Reinhardt's provocations implanting in his head a remote controlled explosive.

The team goes to the House of Pain, a vampires night club. In here, they find a group of Reapers: they soon find out that the new kind of vampires are much more strong than the normal ones and that their weapons are useless against them. Priest is killed, but the other members of the team, thanks to Whistler, manage to capture a Reaper alive. Nyssa, after the Reaper died for hunger, performed an authopsy on him, and discovers that their onlyh weakpoint is sunlight, since their heart in covered with bones. During this time, Blade and Nyssa begins to get along, with Nyssa trying to convince Blade to accept his true nature.

The team finds the enemies' base in Prague's sewers and goes down, with the new weapon developed by Whistler and Scud, sunlight grenades. The hunters are soon attacked by the Reapers. Blade manages to activate the grenades, killing all the Reapers, but is exhausted at the end of a fierceful battle, which have, as only survivors of the Bloodpack, Blade, Reinhardt and Nyssa. The three are taken to Damaskinos' palace, where they discover that Nomak is not a mutant, but a genetic experiment of Damaskinos', and that Reinhardt and Scud were spies. Reinhardt mocks Blade and tells him that the bomb was a fake assembled by Scud, and gives the bomb to the boy; Blade tells them that he knew Scud was a traitor from the beginning, and that the bomb is actually a real one, and makes it explode, killing the mole. Blade is later taken to a lab by Karl Kounen, who wants to kill and dissect him, but Whistler intervenes and save his friend.

Blade goes on rampage and kills all of Damaskinos' men, Reinhardt included, and reaches the roof, wanting to prevent Damaskinos to flee. Once there, he finds out that Nomak was in the building too, and that he already killed Eli and bit Nyssa. Nomak offers Blade and alliance, but he refuses and starts a fight, during which Blade is in great difficulty against the Reaper. Just when he's about to be killed, Blade use a fragment of his shattered sword and impales Nomak, reaching the only point without bone armor of his heart. Blade than takes a dying Nyssa to the roof, wherehe kisses her just a moment before dawn arrives, incinerating her.

Blade and Whistler leaves Prague, but not before Blade kills Rush, a vampire he left alive during Whistler's rescue.

Blade: Trinity
While on hunt, Blade attacks a group of vampires and kills them all. The last one manages to flee, but Blade reaches him and impales him. He soon finds out that he was a Familiar posing as a vampire, with Danica Talos filming the scene from afar. Blade has fallen in a vampires' trap: the world, in fact, unaware of vampires' existence, believes him to be a serial killer, and FBI has now the evidences against him.

Blade and Whistler are tracked down by two FBI agents, Wilson Hale and Ray Cumberland, who attack their base with a SWAT team. Whistler is killed during the battle, and Blade is arrested. He's later interogated by a psychiatrist, Edgar Vance, who's in reality a Familiar of the House of Talos. He declares that Blade is mentally unstable and calls some personal from a criminal asylum, Danica and her minions, to take him. Blade is rescued at the last moment by Hannibal King and Abigail Whistler, two hunters members of the Nightstalkers. He's taken to their base, in which he's informed of Dracula's existence and of Danica's plans to resurrect him. Blade, although being a loner, agrees to fight on the side of the Nightstalkers, guiding them in the battle against Dracula.

With King and Abby, Blade starts a massive hunt, reaching for last Vance's office. In here, they find out that Drake has already killed the psychiatrist and is posing as him. King is wounded and Blade follows Drake on the rooftops, where he receives a formal challenge from him. Having to save a newborn, Blade lets Drake escape, with the promise of a future fight.

Blade is later acknowledged of a bioweapon developed by Sommerfield, one of the Nightstalkers: the Daystar, a special virus which, once fused with Drake's blood, will destroy the vampire race. There's a risk that Blade will be killed too, but he declares to be ready for it. He then goes out on hunt with Abigail, King being incapacitated on bed. The two finds out of vampires' "Final Solution", which is a true apocalypse for human race: many men and women are held captive in a comatoes state and used as infinite blood supplies. Blade kills Martin Vreede, the chief of police who's a Familiar, and destroys the Final Solution storage. When he and Abigail come back to the base, they find out that Drake has killed all the Nightstalkers and kidnapped Hannibal King and Zoe, Sommerfield's little child. After taking the only Daystar sample existing, the two prepare to go to Talos' place to rescue their companions and kill Drake.

Once in the palace, after a brief fight with Jarko Grimwood, Blade reaches Drake and engages a spectacular sword fight with him. The two are perfectly matched, with none of them managing to prevail. Eventually, Drake assumes his true form, the one of a towering demon, who proves to be much superior to Blade. The Daywalker is overpowered and is about to be killed, when Abby tries to shoot the Daystar charged arrow on the vampire. Drake grabs it in midair and lets it fall on the ground. As he's about to impale Blade with his sword, Blade grabs the arrow and stabs him with it, freeing the virus. Exhausted, he lays on the ground beside Drake, who tells him he's not afraid anymore of the future of his race, since Blade can be a true heir for him, and tells him he has a last gift for him. Drake transforms into Blade, allowing the real one to escape while the FBI agents take the wrong body.

Since the Daystar wasn't as lethal as it should be, Blade is continuing is long-lasting battle against vampires.

Powers & Abilities
Blade is an hybrid between humans and vampires: he has got all the powers of the latter's and none of their weaknesses.
 * Superhuman Strength: Blade possesses the strength of a vampire, equivalent to that of 10 men.
 * Superhuman Agility: Blade possesses the agility of a vampire.
 * Healing Factor: Blade's wounds heal overnight. He can possibly regenerate severed limbs, with the exception of his head.
 * Superhuman Senses: Blade possesses heightened senses and can see in the dark.

He also inherited vampires' blood thirst, which force him to be addicted to a special serum. He's incredibly highly skilled in physical combat, and he's trained in many martial arts, armed and unarmed.

Personality
Blade is an emotionless hunter, a complete warrior who doesn't show anything of his thoughts and feelings. Even with dear people, like Abraham Whistler or, in a different way, Nyssa Damaskinos, he doesn't express any emotion. He's always concentrated on his personal crusade, which he lives as a mission, and everything comes after it.

Relationships

 * Vanessa Brooks - Mother.
 * Abraham Whistler - Friend and mentor.
 * Karen Jenson - Ally.
 * Deacon Frost - Enemy.
 * Quinn - Enemy.
 * Scud - Ally.turned Enemy
 * Bloodpack - Ally.
 * Nyssa - Ally, love interest.
 * Eli Damaskinos - Enemy.
 * Jared Nomak - Enemy.
 * Reinhardt - Enemy
 * Nightstalkers - Allies.
 * Drake - Enemy.
 * Krista Starr - Ally
 * Shen - Ally

Behind the scenes

 * LL Cool J, Denzel Washington, and Laurence Fishburne were all considered for the part of Blade.

Trivia

 * Blade's silently-mouthed "What... the... fuck?" is a direct reference to the A Fistful of Yen segment from The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977).
 * Blade's car is a 1968 Dodge Charger with various modifications.
 * In Blade II, when Blade returns to his headquarters early in the movie, Scud remarks, "The Dark Knight Returns!" This is a reference to another comic book character that hunts by night, Batman, who was the subject of a classic comic book miniseries.
 * In Blade II, in the scene where Blade and the Bloodpack are walking towards the House of Pain, you see briefly through Whistler's thermal-scope that Blade is warm-blooded unlike the other vampires.
 * Blade, exhibits a detached personality. He has shown an emotionless attitude and has rarely shown any sympathy for those humans he has sworn to protect. His use of shades, could also be because of this disconnected persona he has built within himself.
 * In the comics, Blade gains his superhuman powers only after being bitten by Morbius the Living Vampire, but in the movie he naturally possesses them.
 * There are two alternative endings for Blade: Trinity: in the first one, since the vampires have been extinguished by the Daystar, Blade is now fighting werewolves; in the second one, the FBI takes Blade's body, but he's not dead and, weaking up in the hospital, he's about to bite a nurse, with Drake's words echoing in his head while he's about to surrender to his vampiristic nature.