Eric Brooks was born in Soho, London, in 1929. His father, Lucas Cross, a member of the secret society the Order of Tyrana, sent his pregnant wife Tara to England before he was taken prisoner in Latveria.
There she took the name Vanessa Brooks and found shelter with brothel owner Madame Vanity, another member of the Order of Tyrana. Experiencing labor complications, Tara was forced to seek a doctor's assistance. The doctor, Deacon Frost, was actually a ravenous vampire and feasted on the woman as she gave birth, passing on a series of enzymes that altered her baby. The enzymes entered the infant's bloodstream, transforming him into a being tainted by a vampire's kiss, but not converted. In other words half-man, half-vampire. Frost was driven away before he could slay the child, but Tara perished, leaving the orphaned Eric Brooks to be raised at Madame Vanity's brothel.
While he was growing up on the street of London, he ran into American veteran Vampire Slayer, Jamal Afari and saved him from being killed by vampires with a grudge against the old man.
Afari soon learned about Eric and his origins' and decided to take him under his wing, becoming his mentor and foster-father and helped him to control his powers. Afari taught Eric everything he knew about hunting, fighting and killing vampires. Determined to avenge his mother's death, Eric fashioned himself into a vampire hunter like Afari while still a teenager and started calling himself Blade, after the sharp weapons with which he used to kill vampires with. Finally, Blade and Afari split up when Jamal willingly took the fall for murder when Blade accidentally killed a man (who was suffering from a deranged illness), which he mistook for being a vampire.
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