Blade is coming to television and renowned comic-book writer Geoff Johns has jumped onboard David Goyer’s Spike TV show to help bring the Daywalker to vivid life...Words: Bryan Cairns

Geoff Johns has become a hero in the comic-book community. Over the past several years, he’s reinvigorated such titles as Hawkman, The Avengers, Flash, New Titans and Green Lantern. Now the former assistant to director Richard Donner is further flexing his creative muscles as writer and consulting producer on Spike TV’s much-anticipated Blade series.

“Blade is a different kind of character,” notes Johns. “Exploring the world of vampires and following a character like Blade through it is always interesting. The best thing comic books do is spandex; nobody else can pull it off as well on a consistent basis but Blade translates easier to the small screen. The character in the comic was never that popular. It wasn’t until the films that he reached a huge audience. I think he’s only had about 12 issues of his own book over the course of his existence. Blade seems more of a character from film and television than comics.”

Nonetheless, based on the Marvel superhero, the original movie introduced the Daywalker, Blade, a half-man, half-vampire hunting down the bloodsucker responsible for his mother’s death. Over two subsequent films, he locked fangs with a new breed of vampire as well as Dracula and the television series expands on that blueprint.

“One of the things [executive producer and writer] David Goyer really wanted to do was open up the world and explore who Blade was and where he came from,” explains Johns. “We’ll be seeing a lot of year one flashbacks and defining where he got his tattoos and sword, his look, what his background is, who his father was, who the people he knew growing up were, and what influenced him to be the way he is. We’re going the approach that David did with Batman Begins, put into the context of Blade stepping back and saying, ‘Okay, this is a big problem. I can’t take them out one at a time. I’ve got to figure a way to really stop these guys.’

The other thing in television is having the space to do it and explore the hierarchy of the vampire nation, what the 12 houses are, what they mean, and what the vampires want.”

Flashback

The series picks up with Blade returning to his city of birth, Detroit, where some vampire activity has caught his attention. Shortly after his arrival, Blade bumps into an unlikely ally.

“There’s a female named Krista Starr whose brother was a familiar and was killed,” reveals Johns. “She had to get into the vampire world because of that. She’s a rough-around-the-edges tough girl who feels like she has something to prove. She was the good girl in her family, the one who succeeded and did well. Her brother never lived up to their expectations and she was always trying to pick him up and defend him. Krista went to Iraq for a couple of years, came back, he was dead, and she feels guilt over that. That sets her on a journey to figure out what happened to him and the two worlds collide.”

In the movies, Whistler, a gifted weapons smith who also created Blade’s serum that kept his vampire nature in check, was killed in the line of duty so the series is introducing a new support system.

“His name is Shen and we’ll get into his back-story as the series goes on, but you’ll find out Blade is going through a lot of these guys and Shen is the newest one,” says Johns. “There is something humbling about knowing you are one of 15 guys Blade has partnered up with over the years. Shen has a sense of humour about it, although he has a dark back-story we will be unveiling. He’s the one guy Blade can’t scare. Blade intimidates everyone else but Shen knows who the guy is.”

Recently, the WB’s Smallville successfully incorporated certain elements of the DC universe and Johns would like to see Blade go down a similar path with Marvel.

“We’ve been talking a lot about certain characters and there are references throughout,” he says. “Again, some of the characters are very obscure so you’d have to hunt for them. Obviously we can’t have Spider-Man but I’d love to see Moon Knight team up with Blade. We’ve talked to Marvel about a few things and it is really up to them more than us. I’d love to see Blade fight Morbius. However, it is all about Morbius being underneath other rights issues.”

Given the graphic subject matter, the Blade trilogy received a strong R rating in the US and an 18 certificate in the UK and the series won’t be shying away from any bloodshed either.

“We’ve toned down the violence and language but Spike is letting us get away with a lot of things,” admits Johns. “If you are watching Blade, it is a horror action TV show. You want to see that gore and Blade kick some ass. Blade is not a guy who knocks somebody out and walks away; he beats the hell out of them. We really want to push that envelope and they’ve been very accommodating with that.”

Dark Side of the Moon

Blade isn’t evil, yet his motivations and questionable tactics will hardly win him a good Samaritan award. “I don’t know if Blade is all about revenge anymore because he killed the guy who killed his mother in the first film,” explains Johns. “There is always going to be a little bit of revenge in there. The anger is never going to go away but he operates a lot on instinct. Right now, we’re playing him at the point in his life where he’s stepping back to figure out what the vampires are doing, how they think, and take them down all at once to end his problem. Blade operates a lot on anger; every once in a while when he kills a vampire he grins. He gets this little sadistic twist out of turning these guys to ash.”

Discussing comic books on the side, Johns obviously has a blast chronicling the adventures of Marvel and DC’s finest and is equally passionate about Blade’s grittier lifestyle.

“It’s really fun!” he says. “You end up in places you don’t normally go. The thing that’s crazy is Blade is a very dark character but the adversaries he’s going up against are even darker and more twisted than he is. It is a different area and I’ve always been a big horror fan. I’ve usually worked in the mainstream spandex clad superhero genre so this is a nice change of pace.”

This interview originally appeared in Dreamwatch issue 144.