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Why did Blade have such a big impact on the show?


Wouldn't you think he would be a one-shot character? That he would just make one guest appearence and then leave but instead he has a big rivalry with Morbius(yes, I know it was cannon in the comics), had that whole plot about his mother, is the reason morbius and Black Cat left, and it's like everytime he showed up it was more about him, Morbius, and vampires in general. With how much we saw of him and Morbius together we might as well had a Blade cartoon spin-off.....That would be kick ass!

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As someone who was a teen in the 90s allow me to explain this one for you. In 1994 pop culture had it's first big vampire trend of the last twenty years. You're familiar with the Twilight vampire trend of 2006 to 2013 (and now slowly dying away). But in 1994 there was a different vampire trend. It started in 1992 or so with the Gary Oldman Dracula movie and then came Interview with the vampire (film) and Memnoch The Devil, which Anne Rice claimed would be her last Vampire Chronicle. The Canadian TV show Forever Knight was also very popular at that point. The Scifi Channel even got in it and turned it's October into "Season of the Undead." Dark Shadows (60s version) was being shown in rerun and got a 90s remake.

In short, vampires were in style. Emo vampires who hated what they were but gave in to their hungers anyway. Vampires that could be romantic and predatory. Both Morbius and Blade were used to satiate this trend.

Honestly, I didn't mind. At the time I liked both characters enough that the show kept me amused. They even had a "Vampire Wars" line of Spider-man action figures.


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This thread is weird to me because I haven't seen a single episode with blade in it and I thought I was pretty familiar with it.

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I'm surprised you missed it. The Vampire story arc was one of the longest on-going stories of the series, if not the longest. It even spawned a line of Spider-man toys called "vampire wars".

Blade was in four episodes. Morbius (in vampire form) was in eight. Technically seven but he had a brief appearance in the Secret war episode 2.

Blade first appears in the episode Blade The Vampire Hunter in season 2. It was during the Morbius Story Arc (episode 4 of that storyline). He was there to destroy Morbius but Spider man wants to save Morbius. The two eventually team up. He's also in the episode after that, The Immortal Vampire.

When Morbius returns in the episode The Awakening Blade is in Europe looking for a particularly elusive vampire (which gets revealed to be Blade's own mother). The episode after that, The Vampire Queen, has Blade and Morbius team up to stop Miriam from turning the world into vampires.

After that Black Cat and Morbius join Blade to fight supernatural threats.

Blade's episodes = Blade The Vampire Hunter and The Immortal vampire (two episodes of Season 2). The Awakening and The Vampire Queen (two episodes of season 4). And a brief part in The Secret War Episode 2 (Season 5).

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Here. I wrote this summary out for a friend who isn't into Spider-man but wanted to know about the vampire storyline.

Morbius episodes of the 1990s Spiderman

Moribus:

Spider-man is a collage student named Peter Parker who gained spider-like powers after being bitten by a radio active spider. He used his powers to become a professional wrestler. When he was cheated out of his pay he ignored it when the wrestling company was robbed rather than stop the thief. Later that night that thief shot and killed Peter's uncle Ben (husband of Aunt May, the two who raised Peter Parker). From then on Peter decides to use his powers to protect the innocent. "With great power comes even greater responsibility."

Spiderman has been suffering from a mutation disease that has his body fluctuating between ordinary human and spider-creature. His friend Dr. Marya Crawford may have anantidote.

At Empire state University Peter Parker (Spiderman's alter ego) locker is robbed by Michael Morbius, his competition for the job of Dr. Curt Connor's research assistant. (Trivia: Curt Connors later turns into a character called The Lizard, because he lost his arm years before and tries to grow it back with neogenics, using lizard DNA).

Morbius is the lover of the wealthy and spoilt Felicia Hardy, Peter Parker's ex-girlfriend. In a previous episode, on a night Peter was supposed to go on a date with her he stood her up (Spiderman issues) and a thief tries running off with her purse but Michael Morbius was there to snatch back the purse only to be knocked on his butt and the two end up a couple.

Peter Parker ends up with the girlfriend he was always meant to have, Mary Jane.

Morbius is desperate for the job as it will bring him a step closer to finding a cure for a plague that the people in his home village are suffering from (Note: In the actual comic books Morbius was born with this disease and was very near death when he became desperate and experimented on himself).

Morbius takes a sample of blood from Peter Parker's locker unaware that it has Spiderman's mutation disease addled blood. He attempts to analyze the blood, realizing that whatever is in it could give someone tremendous power. To try to figure out it's secrets he exposes the blood to the neogenic recombinator (a radiation device). One of Morbius's pet vampire bats that he has been studying gets loose and starts to drink the blood, and getting in the path of the radiation beam. Morbius tries to swat the bat away, exposing himself to the radiation and the bat bites his hand. This volatile combination turns him into a literal vampire.

After a feeding frenzy Spiderman confronts Morbius, learning from Morbius's own audio-journal what happened to him. At dawn Morbius falls unconscious / comatose and falls off the roof where he and Spiderman had been fighting. Spiderman eases him to the ground gently with a bit of webbing and while in his coma sleep Morbius mutters "Spiderman... No... Don't... Don't hurt me..."

This leads people to believe Spiderman did something to Morbius. Morbius is taken to a hospital but at dusk he escapes out a window.

Felicia believes Spiderman abducted Morbius, who everyone thinks is still in a coma.

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Enter The Punisher:

Spider-man / Peter Parker has taken Marya Cawford's serum without properly testing it first. It accelerates his mutation condition, causing him to become more spider-like. He sprouts two extra rows of arms.

Morbius, meanwhile, has been preying on people all over the city, glutting himself on "Plasma" (blood).

Thanks to a smear campaign by J. Jonah Jamison (The head of the newspaper The Daily Bugle and Peter Parker's boss) people mistakenly think Spiderman is somehow accountable for the vampire-like attacks all over the city.

Frank Castle AKA The Punisher turns up. The Punisher is a vigilante whose family was killed years ago so he murders criminals (They gloss this over in the cartoon but it's still pretty apparent).

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Duel of the Hunters:

Marya Crawford calls her lover, Sergei Kravinoff AKA Kraven The Hunter, to help her, because she's figured out that Spiderman is mutating into a man-spider and she needs to give him the antidote to save his life.

Sergei had been seriously ill and cured with a formula that gave him heightened, cat-like senses but also drove him mad. But Marya and Spiderman had been able to restore his sanity so now Sergei seeks to repay that debt.

The Punisher is also after Spiderman.

Meanwhile Morbius is trying to find a cure for his new vampirism. He goes to Debra for help. Debra is a former lover and science colleague. When Debra is spooked in her laboratory she bumps into the university football star, Flash Thompson. Flash is a bully who used to pick on Peter Parker yet idolizes Spider-man as a hero and does not believe the negative rumors about him. Debra talks the jock into coming into the lab with her and he finds nothing wrong however later she's attacked by Morbius (Whose hungry again) and Flash comes to her rescue. Flash gets fed on but survives. Flash and Debra end up becoming lovers as the series progresses.

The Punisher and Kraven fight, one wanting to kill Spiderman, the other wanting to save him. Eventually Marya talks them into working together and she is able to stabilize Spider-man's mutation condition, reverting him back to semi-normalcy. (Well, normal for him. He gets a permanent cure for the mutation disorder later which completely stabilizes him as Spiderman).

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Blade: The Vampire Hunter.

Blade is a Dhampir whose mother had a vampire lover and was turned into a vampire against her will shortly before giving birth to a half-human baby (It's unclear if the vampire is actually the father).

Blade runs away from a New Orleans Orphanage and is found by Whistler (a semi-retired vampire hunter) who trains him as his apprentice.

By now Morbius claims he likes what he is (having realized he's immortal) and will use the device that turned him into a vampire in order to recreate the experiment and then turn the whole world into vampires (obviously not yet aware of the more traditional way to do it...)

Blade wants to destroy Morbius and Spdierman tries to stop him, wanting to save Morbius instead. At first the two fight but then eventually agree to work together.

Blade develops a romantic relationship with Lt. Terri Lee (trivia, she's voiced by the actress who played the female troll in 10th Kingdom).

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The Immortal vampire:

Morbius kidnaps Peter Parker's Aunt May (Spiderman's only living family. She does not know that Peter is Spider-man.) in order to force him to give him another sample of the strange blood. Once he has it he abducts his lover, Felicia Hardy and intends to make her a vampire like himself. Blade, Terri Lee and Spiderman are hot on his trail.

Morbius is about to turn Felicia into a vampire but she tells him it's not what she wants, that she cannot bear to live a life that preys on innocent people. There isn't enough time to shut off the machine so Morbius leaps in the way of the neogenic beam, taking another dose of radiation which renders him more bat-like. As he transforms he cries out that he will love her always before flying off into the night.

Spiderman breaks it to Felicia that Morbius's DNA is completely merged with a bat's. He will never be human again.

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The Awakening:

Two years have past since Morbius flew off into the night. Debra has not given up the search for Morbius, who she believes has gone into a bat-like hibernation. Debra still has feelings for Morbius from when they used to date even though he had broken it to her long ago that his heart belonged to Felicia. Flash Thompson (Now Debra's boyfriend) gets jealous of her obsession with finding Morbius, especially since Morbius almost killed him.

By now all of New York knows about Morbius and his vampirism. Most don't know supernatural vampires exist but they know about Morbius.

By the time Awakening Happens Peter Parker is not living with his Aunt May anymore. He's sharing an apartment
with his friend Harry Osborn, whose father was the villain The Green Goblin and knew Peter's secret that he's Spiderman. Harry eventually figures it out too but then convinces himself that it was a delusion (as mental illness runs in his family).

Herbert Landon (a Mutant hater who ended up becoming a two-face style mutant, himself) is funding Debra's campaign to find and save Morbius. In reality he and King Pin (the crime boss) want Morbius so they can gain immortality for themselves.

Debra and her team find Morbius in his man-bat state and transport him back to New York. He is still very much asleep. That night however a villain called The Shocker with Herbert Landon show up to retrieve Morbius.

Flash Thompson apologizes to Debra for being so hard on her, and says that if Morbius means so much to her he'll stay by her side. This is something I didn't like because earlier Flash asks her "Is Michael Morbius more important to you than me?" and she knows Morbius almost killed him. Instead she responds with "I can't answer that." Yet it's Flash who apologizes to her!

When Debra and Flash catch Landon and Shocker trying to steal / abduct Morbius, who is helplessly asleep, it's Flash who rushes to the vampire's rescue for Debra's sake. During the struggle Morbius is hit with one of shocker's energy bolts which wakes him up. Morbius escapes out of there.

Felicia Hardy (Morbius's girlfriend) has become a super hero called Black Cat. It turns out that her father was Hardeski (a thief) who as a boy saw the Captain America formula and memorized it. As a result SHIELD (the Marvel MIB) made him disappear and appear to have died, whisking him away to a SHIELD prison to protect the knowledge he had. The King Pin kidnaps Hardeski from SHIELD and forces him to reveal the formula for creating soldiers like Captain America. To make sure Hardeski gave him the right formula they test it on his own daughter, creating The Black Cat.

A criminal and business man named Norman Osborn (who had the persona of Green Goblin) and father of Spider-man's best friend, Harry, found out that Peter Parker was Spider-man and confronted him on a bridge, which lead to Mary Jane (Peter Parker's girlfriend and future wife) falling off. Her body was not recovered (This is the first time Mary Jane "dies" In the show though they never call it death).

Peter Parker being on the grief rebound and Black Cat's last boyfriend being a vampire... The two end up lovers, neither knowing the other's secret identity (they learn each other's secret in the comics).

Felicia is about to leave town on a business trip when she finally learns the news that Morbius has been found. She rushes to Whistler (Blade's mentor) for help.

Black Cat confronts Bat-Morbius in the park where he nearly gives into his hunger for the first time since waking. She reveals who she is to him and Morbius begs her to "help him find peace" (help him die, obviously).

She goes to Whistler to ask for a particular weapon that will "put Morbius to sleep forever." (Don't you just love their aversion to calling it death?)

She meets Morbius at the newly reconstructed university clock tower (one of Morbius's old lairs) and just before she can think to use the device to "end his suffering" Morbius is abducted by Herbert Landon.

In a secret lab (under a coffin shop of all places) Landon and King Pin are trying to analyze Morbius's genetic structure. Somehow doing this via a brief radiation exposure reverts him to his more basic vampiric (not man-bat) state. Strangely when Morbius was man-bat he could speak but when Spiderman was man-spider he could not. Anyway, now he's back to his usual vampire self.

Morbius seems semi-complacent until Black Cat and Spider-man show up. When King Pin starts to physically crush Black Cat Morbius freaks out and breaks loose of the chamber where he's being held. He moved toward King Pin to kill him but King Pin escapes out a passage that seals behind him, promising under his breath to Morbius "We shall meet again."

Felicia is about to use the device that will kill Morbius, and he stands there with his head bowed, but she can't bring herself to do it. Morbius flees.

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The Vampire Queen:

Blade is in Europe tracking a powerful and high profile female vampire only to discover that the vampire he is after is his own mother.

Morbius is wandering the streets of New York, starving, and homeless. In an alley an old man asks him if he's okay and Morbius drives him away rather than feed from him. Miriam (Blade's mother) turns up. She introduces herself to Morbius. Morbius asks her how she found him and she explains that once he became a vampire he developed a psychic link with other vampires.

She tells Morbius that she wants to know his method for scientifically creating vampires. Apparently it's faster than the traditional way and lacks some of the usual limitations (I.e. no need for homeland soil which is a thing in the Marvel universe, and no aversion to symbols of faith).

When she starts prying into Morbius's mind he panics and flees from her but it's too late she already has the information.

Miriam has been feeding on people in the city and naturally Morbius gets the blame. Spider-man and Black Cat search for him but find Miriam instead. When Miriam is about to bite Felicia that's when Morbius shows up, swooping in to her rescue. Morbius, who is starving, and very close to dawn, faints.

Felicia gets Morbius to Whistler's base of operation behind a horror movie theatre. Whistler reluctantly provides Morbius with the same serum he has been giving Blade to keep Blade's own hunger in check. Morbius does not think he can survive on the serum for the rest of his life (which is kind of indefinite at this point...) Felicia vows to stay with him, giving him strength.

Ironically while Morbius rests right there Whistler is telling both Black Cat and Spiderman that he needs their help to explain to Blade that he cannot save his mother. Once a vampire always a vampire. Morbius was laying RIGHT there).

Morbius explains to the heroes that Miriam plans to use the neogenic recombinator to populate the world with vampires (Though how it can be done without the key ingredient of Spiderman's unstable, mutating blood is beyond me. Perhaps she uses her own instead). Morbius offers to find her for them as he can sense her presence via telepathic link.

At a night club Blade tries to talk Miriam into letting him help her but she loves being a vampire and wants him to become a full vampire like herself. She has also tested her new process of making more vampires on two people.

Morbius, Spiderman, Black Cat, and Whistler turn up at the club and fight Miriam. Several vampires are made with the machine but apparently the process is unstable and they are easily reverted back to human. Miriam escapes.

Blade decides to go after her, himself. Morbius and Black Cat swoop out of the sky and Morbius explains that he wants to join him, to give some purpose in his eternal life. Blade tells them to do as they like and drives off. Morbius more or less announces that they will stalk Blade until he views them as friends. His exact words are "We will follow him. Perhaps, if we are lucky, he may eventually consider us friends."

The two go off after Blade.

Spiderman is left lonely and confused unsure of where Black Cat has gone and oblivious to the fact that she was Felicia all along. He even says that he's glad Felicia wasn't around for that, that seeing Morbius was probably something she could never have handled.

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Secret Wars Part 2:

Vampire Queen is pretty much Morbius's last major appearance however he turns up at the beginning of Secret War part 2. In this episode it's revealed that yes, he and Blade are working together to fight evil vampires. Black Cat is with them.

After a skirmish with Miriam and her minion Black Cat is abducted by teleportation to Join Spiderman in a secret War where they and a team of super villains have been paired off against each other by the powerful supernatural beings Madam Web and The Beyonder. Madam Web and The Beyonder want to know who would win in a true war between good and evil.

At first Black Cat is upset that she was abducted while Blade and Morbius could be in trouble and might need her but eventually she calms down and joins Spiderman's small hero army.

At the end of the episode she's flirting and making out with Spiderman again (kissing him).

And we cut back to Blade and Morbius. Both are worried about Black Cat but Morbius says "She and I have a spiritual bond. I have a feeling she is in good hands and will be returned safely to us." He is right. This is Morbius's last appearance in the show.


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