Why Blade’s New Partner is a Better Sidekick Than His Daughter

While on the hunt, Blade has picked up a new partner who will help Marvel's most famous vampire hunter grow as a hero in a way Bloodline couldn't.

The Daywalker may be best known for his solo adventures, but despite being a lone wolf, this son of the bat is no stranger to fighting alongside partners. Recent developments have, however, blessed Blade with a number of potential partners, chief of which his daughter, Bloodline. Despite her blood connection to the Daywalker, vampire powers and her own mission to put down the things that haunt the night, there is another potential partner out there that would suit Blade far better.

After the eponymous Daywalker, in Blade 2023 #1 (by Bryan Edward Hill, Elena Casagrande, Jordie Bellaire, Cory Petit and Wilson Moss), finds himself manipulated into killing the only person capable of slaying the eldritch terror known as the Adana, he ends up joining forces with Rotha, a young woman from the very mystic cult who had trained the Adana’s would be killer. Despite a shared purpose, Blade treats his newfound compatriot with the terse disinterest he typically displays when in the orbit of those beyond his own personal sphere, demonstrating that whether he finds himself outpowered or outgunned, this vampire hunter thinks of himself as a Daywalker that walks alone.

Rotha Isn’t Your Average Buffy Style Vampire Slayer

While Blade’s daughter, Bloodline, certainly breathes a breath of fresh air into the stuffy old school world of vampire hunting, much like the famous Buffy, in whose footsteps she most certainly treads, Bloodline occupies a totally different world to that of her father. Vampire powers or not. She is a modern girl. She has friends, classes and crushes. The concerns of the second world are remote and vie against the “normal” life she attempts to lead. Blade, by contrast, lives no such normal life. Blade is Blade. He may have a foot in the mortal world, but that just means the rest of him is looking in from the outside. In this way, Rotha presents a far more synergistic compatriot than the Daywalker’s daughter.

Rotha is a thematic counterpoint to Bloodline. She is first and foremost a normal human woman. Despite her humanity, she has less of a foot in the wider mortal world than the Daywalker. Raised by a mysterious mystic cult in the mountains of Cambodia, Rotha is an outsider to her own kind. This places her as a thematic counterpoint to Bloodline who is, despite her vampiric heritage, an insider of the human world.

Working alongside Rotha as opposed to Bloodline takes Blade out of his comfort zone. Instead of being the outsider looking in, Blade is here the insider. Though inhuman, he is the one with the knowledge and experience of the human world. This generates an interesting dynamic between the characters and allows for their conflicting attitudes to jump off the page.

Rotha Brings A Historical Flare To Blade’s Mission

Despite being, chronologically, an old man, Blade has for many years displayed a relentlessly modern presentation; slick suits and slicker weapons. Since his debut film, Blade, the Daywalker has become almost synonymous with a certain kind of gothic futurism that has been aped by many, including the likes of the Underworld franchise. So in much the same way that the young Rotha forces Blade out of his societal comfort zone, her air of antiquity does the same for the comic itself.

Though Blade is no stranger to facing ancient evils, he is famous for it in fact, teaming up with Rotha will serve to raise the stakes while providing a sense of thematic deviation from his usual approach. An excellent example of this comes in the form of his attempts to rescue his comrade and sometime lover, Tulip, from the clutches of the monstrous Lord Daido, in Blade #2 (2023) (By Bryan Hill, Elena Casagrande, Roberto Poggi, Jordie Bellaire and VC’s Joe Sabino). Despite having tied Rotha to a post, reasoning that his world is out of her league of “Mountain cults. Bows and arrows”, Blade releases the woman to act as his backup.

This combination of Blade’s explosive approach and Rotha’s silent stealthy bowmanship combines the best of both in a way that Bloodline and her father’s partnership struggled to match. Bloodline and her father’s team-up was akin to adding Blade to Blade, whereas adding blade to bow makes for a far more exciting combination.

Blade Has A Lot To Learn From Teaching

Another reason Rotha makes a better partner for the Blade is the potential that she has to teach him. Though Blade is the older and wiser of the pair, and certainly the one with more experience, he stands to learn more about himself from teaching her about the ways of the world than he does from simply training Bloodline in the use of weapons and her vampiric powers.

As an outsider forced onto the inside, Blade attempting to wrestle with his understanding of the real world and distill his experience into lessons the younger woman can understand will in essence unravel the meaning of his own adventures. This will of course also stand to benefit the others in his life, namely, Bloodline herself. So while Rotha certainly makes a particularly good partner for Blade, it is also the case that she is a better partner for him too as the issue related to Bloodline herself. As their unique dispositions, the nature of their quests as well as their upbringings means their journey is one that is likely to make Blade a better father figure for Bloodline in the long run.

Though Blade and Rotha’s journeys are still in their early days so far, they have already set off on a path that will teach both much about themselves and each other. By flipping the scripts and placing them both in strange worlds, their attempts to save the world from the Adana will uncover facets of themselves that neither Blade or Rotha knew they had, and they will both be better for it.