SNOWMAN

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Extradimensional/alternate reality (Earth-26320) vampire

Occupation: Agent of the Vampire Nation

Group Membership: Bloodpack (Asad, Chupa, Nyssa Damaskinos, Lighthammer, Priest, Dieter Reinhardt, Verlaine)

Affiliations: Blade (Eric Brooks), Eli Damaskinos, "Scud," Vampire Nation, Abraham Whistler

Enemies: Jared Nomak, Reapers

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
   possibly Eli Damaskinos' base, Caliban Industries complex, Prague, Czechoslovakia

First Appearance: Blade II movie (New Line Cinema, March 22nd 2002)

Powers/Abilities: Snowman was a vampire, possessing heightened dexterity, speed, agility, strength and stamina, and able to regenerate from any non-fatal wound given sufficient time and blood. He was vulnerable to sunlight, silver and garlic, and needed to feed off blood every so often to sustain himself; how often and how much was unrevealed, but given his highly disciplined personality, it seems fair to assume he had more control over his hunger than the average vampire. He was (literally) cold-blooded like his fellow vampires, showing up blue on infra-red sniper scopes. He was also an exceptional martial artist and swordsman, and carried a katana (long Japanese sword) and wakazashi (shorter Japanese sword). He wore body armor over his chest and back to protect his only truly vulnerable organ, his heart, but initially eschewed armor elsewhere, unlike his fellow Bloodpack members; however, he switched to full body sun-proof armor for entering the Reaper infested underground, since the team intended to use ultraviolet bombs which would flash fry any exposed vampire flesh.  He may be mute, as he generally communicates in sign language (see comments).

Height: 5'8"
Weight: 165 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black

 History:
(Blade II movie (fb) - BTS) - A vampire, Snowman was an accomplished martial artist and swordsman. Because of his specialist skills he was recruited by the Vampire Nation into the Bloodpack, a specialist unit intended to hunt down and slay Blade, the daywalker (dhampir/half-vampire) vampire slayer the bloodsuckers considered their most dangerous enemy. He spent two years training alongside his fellow recruits in preparation for going after their target, but priorities changed when a new threat arose. Reapers were a new kind of vampire, faster, stronger and far harder to kill than their fellow undead, but far more animalistic and bloodthirsty; worse, they fed on other vampires, with the reaper taint taking only minutes to turn its victims, rapidly increasing their numbers. Seeing them as a more pressing threat than Blade, vampire overlord Eli Damaskinos struck an uneasy alliance with the vampire slayer, teaming Blade up with the Bloodpack to hunt down and eliminate both the reapers, and their "patient zero" leader, Jared Nomak (secretly Damaskinos' son). 

(Blade II movie) - The Bloodpack met Blade and his associates Whistler and Scud at Blade's current base in Prague. Upon being introduced by the team leader, Asad, Snowman signed "good to meet you" to Blade (see comments). When one of the team, the arrogant Reinhardt, decided to try and aggravate Blade, the vampire hunter told him to take his chance, and pulled something out of his jacket, causing the rest of the pack, including Snowman, to ready their weapons, suspecting Blade might be about to break the truce and slay Reinhardt. However, upon seeing that it was a silver stake and that Blade had placed the sharp end over his own heart, team second-in-command Nyssa waved the rest of the team to stand down. Reinhardt took the offer and tried to shove the stake into Blade's chest, but the slayer easily avoided the blow, got Reinhardt in a headlock, and stuck a small explosive device to the back of his head. Having established his dominance over the Bloodpack, Blade made it clear that they were to obey his orders, and asked if there were any questions. Clearly evaluating Blade, Snowman moved his resheathed sword from its ready stance to resting casually on his shoulder.

   Suspecting Nomak would target somewhere that vampires congregated in large numbers, the group headed over to the House of Pain, a vampire nightclub; before they headed in, Whistler handed out some of the anti-vampire weapons he had created for Blade over the years, but while others in the team accepted these weapons, Snowman chose to stick to his trusted and familiar swords. While Whistler and Scud stayed outside, Blade and the Bloodpack headed in. Inside the club the group split up, with some moving to search the back rooms while Snowman and others remained in the main room amidst the revelers. In short order the Reapers attacked, and as the others in his team began shooting the bystander vampires began to flee from the club. Walking calmly through the panicking patrons, Snowman sensed someone behind him and turned to face a Reaper. He knocked it to the floor with a flying kick, then as it rose up again waved for it to come at him. When it lunged forward he swung his still sheathed sword at it, and when the Reaper grabbed at the blade, Snowman used it's attempt to disarm him to unsheathe his weapon, and launched into a series of rapid swings that might have been lethal had the Reaper not been incredibly fast and managed to dodge each one. They continued their lethal dance around the room, until Snowman appeared to leave an opening; instantly moving in to take him, the Reaper was caught off guard as Snowman spun round so his back was facing the creature and threw himself backwards, ramming his reversed sword and back into the Reaper so that it smashed against a wall as his sword sliced into its stomach. Pinned to the wall, the creature surprised Snowman by literally ripping itself free, pushing itself up the wall so that Snowman's blade sliced through its intestines and crotch; seemingly unbothered by this injury, the Reaper continued racing backwards up the wall and out of sight.

   With sunrise imminent, the Reapers withdrew, and the Bloodpack regrouped to the nightclub's main ballroom, where Snowman stood watching as others in the team tended Bloodpack member Priest, who had been bitten and infected by one of the Reapers. To try and spare him turning, Priest's friend Chupa shot him with silver bullets, but the change was already too far along, and Priest survived as the transformation into a Reaper rapidly progressed. Annoyed by Priest's incessant screams, Reinhardt shouted for someone to put Priest out of his misery, so Snowman drew his sword and threw it to Reinhardt, who used it to slice the top of Priest's skull off. When even this didn't kill him, Blade shot a hole in the ceiling, letting in sunlight that fried Priest to ashes in seconds. Moments later Whistler joined them, and revealed he had found a Reaper with its arm trapped in a sewer covering, spurring the team to realize that the Reapers were using the sewers to hide in during the daylight hours. The team took the captive back to Blade's base so Nyssa could autopsy it, and Blade informed them that they would rest and resume their hunt at sunrise the next day, since daylight was one of the few weaknesses Reapers retained from their former vampire status. While they were waiting, Scud and Whistler created some ultraviolet flash grenades for the Bloodpack to use, while the Bloodpack prepared their own weapons for the fight to come. As the hour to go hunting approached, they donned full body sun-proof armor, leaving only their heads exposed, and discussed their plan of attack: Once in the sewers they would lure the Reapers to them using pheromones harvested from their dead captive, then hold them back with gunfire long enough to deploy the UV grenades, and finally, once enough of the Reapers were drawn into the trap, to finish them off with a final, much larger UV bomb that would flood the area with lethal simulated sunlight

   At sunrise the team entered the sewers and then split into three man teams to start luring in the Reapers, with Snowman joining fellow Bloodpack members Verlaine and Lighthammer. As the headed in, Verlaine hung back and got temporarily separated from her partners, leaving Snowman alone with Lighthammer. Unfortunately Lighthammer had also been bitten back in the nightclub, though less severely than Priest, resulting in a slower turn into a Reaper; having been hiding this from his fellows, he completed his turn while Snowman was taking point,...

(Blade II movie - BTS) - and attacked Snowman, catching him off guard and apparently killing him.

(Blade II movie) - Moments later Verlaine caught up with the pair to see Lighthammer drinking from Snowman's corpse. 

Comments: Created by David S. Goyer.

   Snowman was portrayed by Donnie Yen.

   The script of Blade II identifies Snowman as an albino (hence his codename), and has him being mute, hence his sign language; however, when Donnie Yen was cast, in part because of his martial arts skills (he did most of the movie's fight choreography as well as playing Snowman), the former aspect of the character was dropped, and it is possible that Snowman also stopped being mute, and communicates using sign language either as an affectation or because he doesn't speak English. I asked a friend who knows sign language if they could translate what Snowman signed to Blade when they were introduced, and was told
   "It's not true ASL or BSL, seems more like a bastardized version of good to meet you. There are the "Chinese" versions of sign language. Chest bump is normally "me," chin brush I would say is meet and the finger point is a generalized sign for you even if it's not the correct one for that particular sign language, a bit like slang."
   Of course, since Yen is Chinese and the character (based on his swords) might be Japanese, it's feasible that he's using Chinese or Japanese Sign Language (if anyone reading this can confirm or refute this, please do let us know) or what is intended to be either an archaic version (reflecting his vampiric age and immortality) or uniquely vampiric sign language.

   Snowman was likely a Pureblood vampire (e.g. born into the species, rather than being a turned human), since other members of the Bloodpack were openly racist and hostile towards non-Purebloods.

   Snowman appears in the comic adaptation of the movie too, but has an even smaller role in that than he did in the movie, barely appearing.

   It's not completely certain that Snowman was dead when we see Lighthammer snacking on him, but since he wasn't moving or making any noise, it seems likely. Even if he wasn't dead, he would definitely be infected by the Reaper virus, and would almost certainly have been reduced to ash whether dead or alive when the tunnels were flooded by the UV bomb a few minutes later. And, even if he survived that, the movie had established that Reaper metabolism ran so fast that they had to feed every few hours or their own bodies would begin eating themselves. So no matter how you look at it, Snowman was toast. A shame, because for a character with so little screentime and no dialogue whatsoever, he still proved much more interesting than the rest of the Bloodpack, and deserved better.

   This profile was completed 09/18/2021, but its publication was delayed as it was intended for the Appendix 20th anniversary's celebratory event.

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Snowman has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Blade II movie publicity shots (main, upper body close-up, flying kick, posing with sword drawn while wearing full body sun-proof armor)
Blade II screengrab (death)
Blade II: Official Comic Adaption, p20, pan1 (comic version of Snowman)

Appearances:
Blade II movie (New Line Cinema, March 22nd 2002) - David S. Goyer (writer), Guillermo del Toro (director)
Blade II movie adaptation (May 2002) - Steve Gerber (writer), Alberto Ponticelli (art), Mike Marts (editor)

First Posted: 09/21/2021
Last updated: 09/19/2021

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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