Blade Epic Collection, Vol. 2: Nightstalkers

Blade Epic Collection

by Marv Wolfman, D.G. Chichester, Howard Mackie

Blade the vampire hunter is one of Marvel's biggest cult favorite characters, and this volume containts some of his most exciting adventures from the 1990s!

Rise of the Midnight Sons! Dracula returns to the realm of the unliving — but Blade, along with fellow vampire-hunter Frank Drake, are determined to make sure his revival is short-lived! Then, as a new era of horror dawns in the Marvel Universe, Blade joins Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze in a looming war with the ancient demon, Lilith! But the Daywalker won’t fight alone — he has a new crew! Blade, Drake and former vampire Hannibal King form the Nightstalkers — and the hours of darkness are no longer safe for the forces of evil! And that includes Baron Strucker’s Hydra and cult leader Shiv! But will the Punisher stand with or against the Nightstalkers?

COLLECTING: Tomb of Dracula (1991) 1-4, Nightstalkers (1992) 1-6, Ghost Rider (1990) 31, material from Midnight Sons Unlimited (1993) 1

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Horror

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 2025

About the author

Marvin A. "Marv" Wolfman is an award-winning American comic book writer. He is best known for lengthy runs on The Tomb of Dracula, creating Blade for Marvel Comics, and The New Teen Titans for DC Comics.

Reviews

[Matt]

This collection didn't have a lot of Blade in it, but it collects the WILD 1991 Tomb of Dracula mini and the start of the silly action-packed Blade team book, Nightstalkers, and that scratched the itch I needed it to as a teen horror fan reading these in the 90s for the first time.

[Robert McCallum]

Overall book was ok but nowhere near top class material

The first Dracula 4 parter was fine, ok story, art etc. nothing really stood out though which was disappointing. Also the characters were pretty unlikeable - frank drake came across as completely insecure/weak, blade was just a one dimensional psycho, Dracula was a bit “rapey” at times for want of a better word - not great.

The night stalkers issues again were ok. What I didn’t like was the writing / speech bubbles by d g Chichester - it actually got a bit confusing at times to follow. Also, the way the text was displayed was confusing, it didn’t flow very well and I found I was reading text out of sequence (which I cannot recall happening previously)

[Mark Rubin]

Disappointed in this! I had skipped most of the Midnight Sons area of the Marvel Universe when I was a kid so thought I’d see what I was missing. Turns out just a lot of meh comics. The Tomb of Dracula stuff at the front of this epic is solid enough. Good horror vibes and creepy stuff. But everything to do with Blade is rough. He’s got no redeeming qualities, and the other two Nightstalkers aren’t interesting either.

There’s a fight on board a hot air balloon against a team of villains, one of whom uses his own intestines as a weapon, and even that nonsense doesn’t come across as fun as it should.

[Doug Duncan]

this book starts strong with the tomb of Dracula mini series, but then fizzles out as it goes on into stories I was not nearly as engaged in. there's not a lot of actual Blade in this book, this really feels like a tomb of Dracula epic in disguise except we haven't actually gotten any of those properly so this is kind of the sequel to a series I haven't read yet. I still enjoyed it though, that original mini series alone was a 5 star but everything after that was pretty meh.

[Bob]

The Tomb of Dracula mini is pretty good, but the Nightstalkers ongoing is pretty bad, obviously I knew it would be stupid 90s comics, but I wanted it to be a funner sort of stupid 90s schlock. Using this as a placeholder for the whole sorry Nightstalkers ongoing. Onto the Blade solo books.

[Aaron Jefferys]

Supernatural and super fun! Pacing can vary, but the artwork and composition throughout make up for any downsides. A visual feast of the macabre, for sure. Fun intro to Blade and the Nightstalkers!