WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Passage, airing Monday nights on Fox.
One of the biggest names fans have called for time and time again to be brought into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Blade. Despite Wesley Snipes' half-vampire hero having been absent from the big screen since 2004, and from television since the Sticky Fingaz-led series arrived and wrapped in 2006, fans have wanted to see the vampire hunter in action once more.
While there have been no plans announced for the daywalker, there's one series out there that actually could have shaped up as the perfect Blade reboot: Fox's new sci-fi drama detailing a rising vampire threat, The Passage.
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This series, based on Justin Cronin's horror novels, focuses on Amy (Saniyya Sidney), a young girl infected by a secret arm of the United States government with a vampire virus after one of their scientists, Dr. Tim Fanning (Jaime McShane), contracted it on a research mission in Bolivia. Fanning has turned into a Dracula-esque overlord, and the new team of scientists, known as Project Noah, aren't just looking to harness regenerative abilities from the villain; they're looking to create an army of super-soldiers. Which is where Amy comes in -- her age and the way the virus doesn't turn her into a monster means her blood is basically the key to creating a controllable army.
Essentially, Amy's unique genetic make-up makes her a daywalker, one with abilities such as telepathy, agility, super-strength and sonic screams not unlike the X-Men's Banshee. She's basically a weapon of mass destruction, which, had Fox been Disney-owned before this series got made, could have made her Fallon Grey, Blade's daughter... who has yet to be properly introduced.
She was supposed to be Marvel's All-New Blade, but the comic was scrapped when Tim Seeley and Logan Faeber, both white males, realized the optics of two white men telling the stories of a young, black female character might be bad optics. The pair backed out of the project in hopes that a more suitable creative team would run with the idea, but the character was never picked back up. Fallon's story surely would have been cool to add to the MCU and breathe a new dynamic into Blade as her dad and mentor, but it wasn't;t meant to be. However, with The Passage, we're seeing how Fallon's origin story might have played out.
It's been hinted she was being monitored by Project Noah for some time, which, when added to the mystery of who her dad is, makes Amy's past perfectly mysterious. This would have easily set her up as the daughter Blade tried to hide away, but who the government kept tabs on. The Passage has hinted vampirism already existed prior to the show's events, which would have easily allowed Blade, hybrids like him and vampires on the whole, to have been operating for years.
More than just some surface similarities, The Passage just feels like a mutant/X-Men side-quest, with Fanning and his army very much like the vampires we read about in Marvel Comics. With the government trying to keep Amy in check, vampires escaping the facility and paving the way for a hunt, and Fanning's virus poised to change the destiny of mankind for the worse, The Passage has all the makings of a killer Blade story. Alas, it isn't meant to be, but it serves as a reminder how badly we all want the daywalker to stake a claim in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Passage airs Mondays on Fox at 9 pm E.T.