What are the best Blade stories?

[ColonelGM]

What are the best Blade stories?
I've only seen the Wesley Snipes movies and Blade in the 90s Spiderman TAS I've never read a Blade comic in my life.
Recommended me some Blade reading material please.

Thanks.

[Panic]

I'm sure you'll get a bunch of people offering you suggestions eventually, but while you wait I'll give you a link to the Blade appreciation thread:
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2018

[Amenra11]

What are the best Blade stories?
I've only seen the Wesley Snipes movies and Blade in the 90s Spiderman TAS I've never read a Blade in my life.
Recommended me some Blade reading material please.

Thanks.

If you're a fan of the movie version of Blade then you may be disappointed by the comic book version.

Wesley Snipes gave Blade a significant power up. Unless something has changed then Blade then basically has no special powers. He can sense magic and he’s immune to vampire bites.

And the art work on his books is always horrible.

[QBall]

One of the best recent books featuring Blade was Captain Britain and MI13.

[SJNeal]

Considering I've never read a Blade comic that I actually liked, I still enjoy the character when he pops up elsewhere. Weird...

[Personamanx]

He's a hard character to really recommend anything of. His initial appearances in "Tomb of Dracula" I find to be generally well regarded, but Pre and Post Snipes Blade are two completely different characters.

He hasn't had much in the way of solo stories, just the occasional mini or even more rare attempt at an ongoing. But those are usually forgotten about fairly quickly. In the last decade he's shown up as a regular in Mighty Avengers, and Captain Britain/MI13 however. Both of those books were generally well liked IIRC, but I wouldn't say that Blade was the primary focus in either.

[Jabare]

What are the best Blade stories?
I've only seen the Wesley Snipes movies and Blade in the 90s Spiderman TAS I've never read a Blade in my life.
Recommended me some Blade reading material please.

Thanks.

My recommendations:


Deadpool: Dracula's Gauntlet - Blade is a secondary character in this story but he really shines and its just such a fun creative story. Marvel at its best.

Blade: Black & White Trade Paper Back - this does a great job (probably the best) of collecting Blade's stories from the 70s.

Nightstalkers- after Tomb of Dracula probably the most iconic Blade run of comic stories.


Honorable mention to Tomb of Dracula - I actually don't recommend this as strongly, I think it is collected in Blade: Black & White, but maybe not entirely. Just to see Blade's real comic origins and help fill in the blanks before Nightstalkers. Not as essential as some make it out to be imo. You can infer enough by context and other things, but if you want check it out.


Other fun Blade stories-

Mighty Avengers Vol. 2 (2013-2014)- Trust me pick up this comic it is a lot of fun.

Captain Britain & The MI:13 - this was decent. Blade joins the cast in issue #5. He's got a few spotlight issues but not really the main focus of this story.

Midnight Suns Unlimited - I don't remember this story as well. I think he has a cool moment against Ghost Rider. Check with Tracks or Snoop Dog about this comic

Tomb of Dracula (2004) Mini- Combines our expectations from the Snipes movies with the actual comic character

Black Panther: Bad Mutha (2006) - Hudlin basically just channels Wesley Snipes for this comic.

Crescent City Blue one-shot this one's okay, but you need to read Tomb of Dracula otherwise it is confusing

The Max series again this one is okay, not great. Better than his 2006 solo series which you should straight up avoid



Blade also has a 1999 comic that is a .......interesting. The art style is very 90s. I'm not gonna recommend it off the bat, but its interesting look up a few images and see if its up your alley. He also appears sporadically in a number of titles over the years. Specifically if you want to see how Marvel makes him more like the Snipes version you need to read this Spider-Man story arc, where he gets bit by Morbius and gets the jaywalker upgrade. Although Marvel may have retconned this based on some text from the 2006 series. Its not that important end fo the day Blade is Blade.

i think Blade's got close to 500 Marvel comic appearances since the 70s, so sometimes its a treat to track down some of his random appearances. For example, he has this awesome appearance in Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man that is a must read even tho it is brief. Mark Millar also wrote an Ultimate comics Blade story. I'm not to big on but might be worth checking out. Avoid the Curse of the Mutants story, avoid at all costs its really bad.

[Tracks]

My recommendations:


Deadpool: Dracula's Gauntlet - Blade is a secondary character in this story but he really shines and its just such a fun creative story. Marvel at its best.

Blade: Black & White Trade Paper Back - this does a great job (probably the best) of collecting Blade's stories from the 70s.

Nightstalkers- after Tomb of Dracula probably the most iconic Blade run of comic stories.


Honorable mention to Tomb of Dracula - I actually don't recommend this as strongly, I think it is collected in Blade: Black & White, but maybe not entirely. Just to see Blade's real comic origins and help fill in the blanks before Nightstalkers. Not as essential as some make it out to be imo. You can infer enough by context and other things, but if you want check it out.


Other fun Blade stories-

Mighty Avengers Vol. 2 (2013-2014)- Trust me pick up this comic it is a lot of fun.

Captain Britain & The MI:13 - this was decent. Blade joins the cast in issue #5. He's got a few spotlight issues but not really the main focus of this story.

Midnight Suns Unlimited - I don't remember this story as well. I think he has a cool moment against Ghost Rider. Check with Tracks or Snoop Dog about this comic

Tomb of Dracula (2004) Mini- Combines our expectations from the Snipes movies with the actual comic character

Black Panther: Bad Mutha (2006) - Hudlin basically just channels Wesley Snipes for this comic.

Crescent City Blue one-shot this one's okay, but you need to read Tomb of Dracula otherwise it is confusing

The Max series again this one is okay, not great. Better than his 2006 solo series which you should straight up avoid



Blade also has a 1999 comic that is a .......interesting. The art style is very 90s. I'm not gonna recommend it off the bat, but its interesting look up a few images and see if its up your alley. He also appears sporadically in a number of titles over the years. Specifically if you want to see how Marvel makes him more like the Snipes version you need to read this Spider-Man story arc, where he gets bit by Morbius and gets the jaywalker upgrade. Although Marvel may have retconned this based on some text from the 2006 series. Its not that important end fo the day Blade is Blade.

i think Blade's got close to 500 Marvel comic appearances since the 70s, so sometimes its a treat to track down some of his random appearances. For example, he has this awesome appearance in Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man that is a must read even tho it is brief. Mark Millar also wrote an Ultimate comics Blade story. I'm not to big on but might be worth checking out. Avoid the Curse of the Mutants story, avoid at all costs its really bad.

Damnation was pretty fun, other than that I think you got them all.

[LifeIsILL]

His 90s series.

He's such a likable character but the movie turned him into a typical militant jerk.

[Jabare]

Damnation was pretty fun, other than that I think you got them all.

ah I forgot about Damnation. How could I forget Damnation?! Thanks for catching that.

I didn't really go into too much detail about his Spider-Man appearances or Gwenpool or his cameos. Your probably more of an expert on those appearances than I am. I was just going of the top of my head.

[Mr MajestiK]

His 90s series.

He's such a likable character but the movie turned him into a typical militant jerk.

Define "typical militant jerk."

[Jabare]

Also lest we gorget, Marvel commissioned Mad House to create 4 Marvel anime shows over 6 years ago (X-Men, Wolverine, Ironman & Blade). I believe the X-men show had the best animation out of the bunch but Blade came in at number 2, and Blade had the best story out of the 4. Warren Elis was the architect for each of these stories and the Blade series was heavily influenced by the movies. Three plot points from the anime are basically lifted from the film, but its done in a fresh way that keeps you waiting for the next episode. As a Blade fan I really enjoyed the anime especially because at the time we didn't really have anything else to satisfy our thirst for Blade.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnXLWHURI1M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzbZes6nU7E