Blade (character)

• 1. Introduction

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  Blade, the vampire hunter of Marvel Comics, made his debut in The Tomb of Dracula #10, with a cover date of July 1973. He was only a supporting character there, created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan. Shortly afterward he became one of Marvel's most prominent supernatural heroes, fighting alongside the Avengers, the Nightstalkers and the Midnight Sons. His life is odd even by comic-book standards. It began with a vampire attacking his mother during his birth. For years the comics and the films told different versions of what he actually is. Eventually the question of who owned him reached a courtroom. How did this character arrive so fully formed? What exactly is he? And why has he spent decades hunting Dracula, and who stood beside him?

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• 2. A Character in One Second

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  Marv Wolfman made himself a promise after a story at DC went unpublished. While working there with a partner, he had written a Black superhero for a different version of the Teen Titans. The story was finished and drawn, yet it never saw print. Wolfman resolved that his next new character would be Black, because he felt Black characters were hardly represented in comics.

  Wolfman grew up in New York City and attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan. Students there came from every part of the city, so a Black hero did not strike him as strange. Then came the Dracula assignment. He was thinking about nothing in particular when the character arrived in a single second. In his words, "I knew exactly who he was and what he looked like, and I knew everything about him."

  Gene Colan supplied the look. He recalled in 2003 that Wolfman told him Blade was a Black man, and the two talked about making him very heroic looking. The bandolier of blades was Wolfman's idea. Colan dressed him, adding the leather jacket. For the face he used a composite of Black actors, among them the NFL star turned actor Jim Brown. The first Blade wore 1970s-style Afro hair and carried knives with teak blades. He appeared in issues #10-21, and then frequently until issue #61 in 1977.

  By 2009 Wolfman had mixed feelings about his own work. He said Blade would have eclipsed the other characters if he had allowed it, so he pulled him back and let Rachel, Frank and Quincy shine. He also disliked the dialogue, which he called cliche "Marvel Black" dialogue. He took Blade out of the book for what he thought was almost a year, and played him straighter on his return. Growing into a better writer, he said, took time.

  In 1997, as the first Blade film approached release, Wolfman sued Marvel Characters Inc. over ownership of every character he had created for Marvel, Blade and Deacon Frost included. His argument rested on what is called the Siegel exception. Comics made before 1978 without an express agreement are presumed to be work made for hire. The exception says work not created at the commissioning party's instance and expense cannot count as such. Federal district court judge Roderick McKelvie ruled for Marvel on the 6th of November 2000. He wrote that Wolfman had "not provided the court with sufficient evidence to show that he developed Blade and Deacon Frost prior to the publication" of The Tomb of Dracula.

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• 3. Born in Soho

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  Eric Cross Brooks was born in a brothel in the Soho neighborhood of London on the 24th of October 1929. His mother was Tara Vanessa Cross-Brooks, an heiress sheltered by Madame Vanity, an agent of the Order of Tyrana. When Tara suffered severe complications in labor, Vanity sent for a doctor. The man who arrived was the vampire Deacon Frost, who fed on Tara and killed her.

  The attack passed certain vampire enzymes to the baby as he was born. Eric became half-vampire, and no vampire's bite could turn him. Blade has speculated that the enzymes also gave him his hatred of vampires, though he may be exaggerating. The brothel's sex workers drove Frost away once they understood what he had done.

  His father, Lucas Cross, was falsely imprisoned in his native Latveria, so Eric grew up in the brothel believing his mother had worked there. At the age of nine he was walking home from school when he saw an old man attacked by three vampires. Eric helped the man, Jamal Afari, distract them, and Afari killed all three with a silver sword. Afari posed as a jazz musician and became a father figure. He taught Eric music, and he trained him to fight vampires.

  The boy grew into an Olympic-level athlete and a formidable hand-to-hand fighter. His skill with knives and daggers earned him the nickname "Blade" among fellow hunters and among the vampires who learned to fear him. Easy victories made him cocky. He joined a gang of young hunters called the Bloodshadows, led by Cyrus Cutter. Blade disapproved of Cutter's leadership, and the quarrel ended with Blade killing Cutter in a knife fight. Cutter's girlfriend, Glory Anah, became Blade's first lover.

  Blade then led the group in London, where for months they hunted vampires, demons and warlocks. They finally met a far older and stronger vampire named Lamia. Blade staked her, but the other Bloodshadows were slain, and Glory was bitten and became a vampire. The tragedy made Blade more focused and determined. Glory refused to kill him, yet she warned that if he ever came looking for her, she would.

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• 4. The Dracula Feud

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  Jamal Afari later fell prey to Dracula, and that began the long feud between Blade and the vampire lord. When Afari rose as a vampire, Blade killed his mentor out of mercy. He then tracked Dracula through Europe, Asia and Asia Minor, staking him many times without ever destroying him for good.

  In China, Blade joined the vampire hunters led by Ogun Strong, a group that included Azu, Orji and Musenda. Together they staked Dracula once more. Dracula survived and killed every hunter except Blade and Musenda, who eventually retired. Orji had impressed Blade by fighting vampires with wooden daggers, and Blade adopted them as his preferred weapons. Grieving, he went back to hunting alone.

  In Paris he finally found Dracula again, and there he met the hunter Quincy Harker, son of Jonathan Harker. Harker's band included Rachel van Helsing, great-granddaughter of Abraham Van Helsing, along with Taj Nital and Frank Drake, the last mortal descendant of Dracula. Blade's mercurial temperament made the relationship strained but steady. He allied with them several times and always parted ways in the end.

  After one unsuccessful battle with Dracula, Blade discovered that he was immune to the vampire's curse that had felled other hunters. With that knowledge he left Harker and went after Deacon Frost on his own. His search took him to Boston, where he allied with Dracula against Doctor Sun. Along the way he also fought Morbius the Living Vampire and the Legion of the Damned, who tried and failed to frame him for murder.

  Then he met Hannibal King, a private detective whom Frost had turned into a vampire. Blade distrusted King at first, but they teamed up to hunt Frost. Blade's evil doppelgänger absorbed the real Blade into its body. King recruited Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan, who exorcised Blade from the double and helped King kill it. Frost had built an army of vampiric doppelgängers, one for each of his victims. With King's help, Blade struck Frost down and avenged his mother, and the two men became lasting friends.

  Dracula survived another confrontation, this time against Blade, Rachel van Helsing and Harold H. Harold. When Blade heard that his old friend Musenda had died, he traveled to China and saved Musenda's wife from being turned into a vampire.

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• 5. Daywalker Body and Arsenal

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  In his earliest comics, Blade had no superhuman strength at all. The enzyme in his blood made him immune to ordinary vampire bites, and in some stories to vampire hypnosis. Beyond that he relied on skill and determination. Everything changed when Morbius, the scientifically created vampire, bit him in New York while Blade was teamed with Spider-Man. Blade's enzymes reacted with Morbius's unusual form of vampirism, and Blade became something resembling a dhampir, a half-vampire. The change gave him vampire strengths while removing the weaknesses of a true vampire, above all the vulnerability to sunlight. His prey began calling him the Daywalker.

  He now has superhuman strength, stamina, speed and agility, along with heightened senses. His healing factor attacks foreign substances such as chemicals and viruses, so he cannot be disabled from the inside. He ages very slowly, though he is not immortal, and he can sense supernatural activity. Jamal Afari's training gave him deep knowledge of vampire lore. He has mastered styles including boxing, capoeira, escrima, Jeet Kune Do, hapkido, jujutsu, Shotokan karate, kung-fu and ninjutsu. He is also a skilled swordsman, marksman and street fighter, and he is adept with throwing knives.

  His early arsenal was simple. He carried teakwood daggers to impale opponents, and a variety of mahogany stakes. Later comics added long swords, katanas, guns, flamethrowers and weapons built around ultraviolet light and silver. He relies mainly on a double-edged sword carried on his back. He improvises well, too, making stakes from snapped brooms. When he lost his hand, he fashioned a replacement from duct tape and a pointed stick. S.H.I.E.L.D. later built him a machine-gun-like hand that responds to muscle twitches and fires three kinds of ammunition. It includes a grappling hook that Blade calls his "favorite feature". He also carried EMP grenades.

  The movie version swings a stylized double-edged sword with an acid-etched titanium blade. A security feature releases blades into the wielder's hand after a set time, unless someone presses a hidden switch in the hilt. He also throws glaives, which return like boomerangs, and uses silver stakes and firearms. Other gadgets include throwable canisters of an anticoagulant that is explosively lethal to vampires, and injector spikes that extend from the back of his hand.

  In Marvel Anime, his swordsmanship draws on Yagyu Shinkage-ryu. It lets him send waves of force or invisible wind blades across a distance. His three Yagyu techniques are named "The First Blade: Residual Moon", "The Second Blade: Phantom Moon" and "The Third Blade: Chaotic Moon". The first leaves a solid after-image as a decoy. The second is a high-speed spin that sets his strike ablaze. The third sends shadow blades around the opponent.

  In the story "Dracula's Gauntlet", surrounded by monsters with Deadpool, Blade threatens to turn into a bat and leave Deadpool to die. He may have all the vampire powers, but he is conflicted about using the ones that make him seem less human.

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• 6. Allies and Crises

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  Doctor Strange became a steady ally to Blade, Hannibal King and Frank Drake. With Strange the three fought Dracula and the Darkholders. They also helped cast the Montesi Formula, which for a time destroyed every vampire on Earth. The three then founded a private detective agency, Borderline Investigations, Inc., to face supernatural threats. Blade also rescued his close friend Safron Caulder from the Darkholders.

  The agency folded after Drake left and Blade was committed to a psychiatric hospital following a fight with a temporarily resurrected Dracula. Strange arranged his release so the trio could reform the business as the Nightstalkers. Lilith, the Mother of All Demons, hired them to kill the second Ghost Rider and John Blaze, who had no infernal powers. They fought Meatmarket, and then joined Ghost Rider, Blaze, Morbius, Strange and the Darkhold Redeemers against Lilith and her Lilin. They also fought HYDRA's DOA.

  When the Montesi Formula weakened and vampires returned, Blade staked a former ally, the now-vampiric Taj Nital. He survived a battle with Varnae, the first Lord of Vampires, in which Drake and King appeared to die.

  The Civil War storyline of 2006-2007 split Marvel's heroes over the Superhuman Registration Act. Blade registered and began cooperating with S.H.I.E.L.D., which gave him the gun hand. He completed a prophecy he thought would restore souls to all living vampires. Instead it brought back every vampire that had ever been killed. He then led the Vanguard, a squad of superhuman black-ops agents secretly funded by the U.S. government, so secret that even the President did not know. There he received a cybernetic hand. After the squad's cover was blown, he returned to the United Kingdom and joined MI-13. He staked a new teammate, the vampire hero Spitfire. After they were forced to work together, he tried to apologize for trying to kill her, and she kissed him before he could finish.

  During "Curse of the Mutants", Blade went to San Francisco to help the X-Men capture a vampire specimen for the X-Club. He confirmed Dracula's death and said Dracula's son Xarus had united the vampire sects as the new Lord of Vampires. When Cyclops proposed resurrecting Dracula, Blade objected: "You don't dig up Hitler to get rid of Saddam Hussein". Dracula was resurrected anyway. Blade tried to kill the newly vampiric Jubilee, but Wolverine refused to let her be staked, and Blade withdrew.

  Later adventures ranged widely. During "Secret Empire", a Darkforce dome trapped him in Manhattan, where the local vampires emerged to feed. He kept busy staking every one of them. He once confronted Gwenpool, who had been hired to kill him without knowing it, and gave her his cellphone number and the name "Pink Slayer". After "War of the Realms", he became sheriff of "Vampire Nation", a safe haven for vampires overseen by Dracula.

  In "Blood Hunt" of 2024, Blade visited Miles Morales in Brooklyn with a plan against the vampire invasion. He asked the Avengers to bring his truck to the Impossible City. Out of it came members of the Bloodcoven, ultra-vampires who drink superhuman blood, and they compromised the city. Blade then told Doctor Strange and Clea that the Structure was behind it all, and that he was its leader. He prepared to attack Strange. The story later revealed that Varnae had possessed him.

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• 7. Solo Pages

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  Blade's first solo story was an 11-page tale in the black-and-white horror magazine Vampire Tales #8, dated December 1974, by Wolfman and Tony DeZuniga. Months earlier he had left Dracula's own book to fight Morbius in Adventure into Fear #24, written by Steve Gerber and penciled by P. Craig Russell. The Vampire Tales feature continued in issue #9 in February 1975, with Chris Claremont co-scripting alongside Wolfman. The story concluded in a 56-page tale in Marvel Preview #3, from September 1975, written by Claremont and drawn in two chapters each by DeZuniga and Rico Rival. It had been announced for Vampire Tales #12, but that magazine was cancelled first.

  The 1990s brought him back. Ghost Rider #28, from August 1992, launched the Midnight Sons imprint, and Blade co-starred in the 18-issue series Nightstalkers. He also appeared in solo stories in Midnight Sons Unlimited #2 and #7. After Nightstalkers ended, he got his first color series, Blade the Vampire Hunter, which ran ten issues from July 1994 to April 1995. Ian Edginton wrote it, with the last two issues by Terry Kavanagh, and Doug Wheatley penciled.

  After a 12-page inventory story in 1997, two one-shots followed in 1998. Colan returned to pencil Blade: Crescent City Blues, written by Christopher Golden. Marc Andreyko and Bart Sears made Blade: Sins of the Father. Marvel announced a six-issue miniseries, "Blade: Blood Allies", by Don McGregor and Brian Hagen, but only three issues appeared, from November 1998 to January 1999. Bart Sears then wrote a six-issue miniseries, Blade: Vampire Hunter, which ran from December 1999 to May 2000.

  Blade vol. 2, by Christopher Hinz and Steve Pugh, ran six issues from Marvel MAX in 2002. Blade vol. 3, by Marc Guggenheim and Howard Chaykin, ran 12 issues from September 2006 to August 2007. Its final two pages were drawn by Colan, the character's co-creator. Some Blade comics came as bonuses. One by Bart Sears and Bill Sienkiewicz was bundled with Wizard: The Comic Magazine #2000. Another, Blade: Nightstalking, was a 22-page story by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Amanda Conner, packed with the Blade: Trinity Deluxe Edition DVD.

  In 2015 Marvel announced a new series by Tim Seeley and Logan Faerber, focused on his daughter Fallon Grey. That title was abandoned in favor of Bloodline: Daughter of Blade, which follows his and Safron Caulder's daughter Brielle, called Bri.

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• 8. Screen Blade

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  Wesley Snipes took the role in a trilogy from New Line Cinema, beginning with Blade in 1998. Blade II followed in 2002, and Blade: Trinity in 2004. The first film played the character as stoic and rewrote his nature. Instead of a human immune to vampirism, he became a dhampir with vampire powers and a bloodthirst, held in check by a special serum. The film was financially successful. Snipes's performance is widely credited with revitalizing the superhero film genre. The comics later adopted the dhampir origin, after it appeared in Spider-Man: The Animated Series and in the films.

  The film Blade comes from Detroit, Michigan, and has all of a vampire's strengths but none of the weaknesses except the thirst. In the first film his body develops a resistance to the serum. By the second film, Dr. Karen Jenson is said to have improved it. Abraham Whistler says he found Blade as a teenager feeding on homeless people. When badly injured, Blade drinks blood to heal faster. He is immune to silver, garlic and sunlight, ages like a human, and can heal fully overnight. He speaks Czech, Russian and some of the vampire language.

  The television series Blade: The Series, from 2006, starred the rapper Sticky Fingaz. This version was born Eric Brooks in Detroit, and raised by his father Robert Brooks until he was 12, when his vampiric nature became more apparent. In the series, his saliva still produces the enzyme that turns humans into vampires. Other versions appear in animation. In Marvel Anime: Blade, he had to kill his vampire-converted mother in self-defense, and was trained by Noah van Helsing and Tanba Yagyo. Terry Crews voiced him in Ultimate Spider-Man and in Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. In an animated Marvel Zombies, he takes up the mantle of Moon Knight.

  He has also been a playable character in many games, including Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Marvel Contest of Champions, Marvel's Midnight Suns, voiced by Michael Jai White, and Marvel Rivals. He is a purchasable outfit in Fortnite Battle Royale. Critics have been kind. IGN ranked him the 63rd greatest comic character, calling him the most iconic hero to come out of the monster-themed era. In 2015 he ranked 4th on a list of Marvel's monster characters. In 2022, CBR.com put him first on its list of the ten most important Marvel vampires. UGO Networks praised him as "the most obscure Marvel character to ever get a film deal...and television deal, too!"

  The film rights had reverted to Marvel Studios by August 2012, and a script for a new film was ready by May 2013. By July 2015, Snipes and Marvel had discussed his return. A crossover with the Underworld film series was also discussed, but Marvel Studios rejected it because it wanted to introduce Blade into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Mahershala Ali was cast in July 2019. The script then passed through many hands. Stacy Amma Osei-Kuffour was hired to write it in February 2021. Bassam Tariq was confirmed as director in September 2021 and left a year later, when Beau DeMayo joined to rewrite. Yann Demange was hired to direct in November 2022, with Michael Starrbury doing a page-one rewrite. Nic Pizzolatto rewrote in April 2023 and Michael Green in November 2023. Filming was planned for Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta after the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike. Snipes himself returned in Deadpool & Wolverine in 2024. The standalone film still has no release date. Ali's only appearance so far is an uncredited vocal cameo in a post-credits scene of Eternals, from 2021.

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