Blade the Vampire Hunter Appreciation 2019

[Michael Watkins]

Then again, Logan is white so race wouldn't mean to him what it means to Blade.

I guess what i'm saying is that's it weird that Blade is the only long lived individual who has to carry this specific burden.

[Tracks]

I guess what i'm saying is that's it weird that Blade is the only long lived individual who has to carry this specific burden.

It's only weird if you don't recognize that he's one of the few long lived Black characters. In his earliest stories he was dealing with racism in London, from Dracula hurling epithets at him to the police arresting him due to suspicion influenced by race. I think his variety of experiences would allow him to understand the construct with some more nuance, even if he didn't feel a need to speak on it.

[Rosebunse]

i wonder how different a new live-action version of Blade would be. Snipes has pretty much defined who the character is through his performance. i can't even read the character without hearing his voice/general cadence. maybe he isn't angry at all. all of his interactions with Monica Rambeau, for instance, made him seem more light-hearted. in general, i think he's mostly impatient with other people. he's been around a long time doing what he does. so anyone he interacts with would, comparitively, be an amateur. keep in mind that there are huge gaps in my Blade reading (only the really old stuff and stuff from the 2000s).

I guess what i'm saying is that's it weird that Blade is the only long lived individual who has to carry this specific burden.

How many immortal or very long lived black characters do we have? And unlike many immortal characters in Marvel, Blade has actually lived in normal society. He actually associates with people. It makes no sense he wouldn't have some experience or thought on the manner of race.

It just sort of feels like Blade is like, well, OJ. Not because of the murder aspects, let's not even go there. But I mean in the idea that he "transcends" race to the point where white people don't see his race.

This sounds like a good thing until you think about how it dismisses the black experience and doesn't acknowledge the unique situations and problems black people face.

[Michael Watkins]

It's only weird if you don't recognize that he's one of the few long lived Black characters. In his earliest stories he was dealing with racism in London, from Dracula hurling epithets at him to the police arresting him due to suspicion influenced by race. I think his variety of experiences would allow him to understand the construct with some more nuance, even if he didn't feel a need to speak on it.

What do you expect from him? What kind of story are you looking for? Dracula hurling slurs sounds kind of stupid and forced to me. There should be characters who have to deal with that stuff. I don't know how it helps Blade. Then again, I'm not sure why his dad had to be a white guy.

[Michael Watkins]

How many immortal or very long lived black characters do we have? And unlike many immortal characters in Marvel, Blade has actually lived in normal society. He actually associates with people. It makes no sense he wouldn't have some experience or thought on the manner of race.

It just sort of feels like Blade is like, well, OJ. Not because of the murder aspects, let's not even go there. But I mean in the idea that he "transcends" race to the point where white people don't see his race.

This sounds like a good thing until you think about how it dismisses the black experience and doesn't acknowledge the unique situations and problems black people face.

What you're going to get is some vampire calling Blade out on his obvious prejudice against the undead and how it makes him a hypocrite.

[Rosebunse]

What you're going to get is some vampire calling Blade out on his obvious prejudice against the undead and how it makes him a hypocrite.

The difference being is that vampires are predators who have to feed on people.

You're probably right, though.

[Tracks]

What do you expect from him? What kind of story are you looking for? Dracula hurling slurs sounds kind of stupid and forced to me. There should be characters who have to deal with that stuff. I don't know how it helps Blade. Then again, I'm not sure why his dad had to be a white guy.

You think it was forced that white people in the early 1900s were racist?

[Agent Z]

What do you expect from him? What kind of story are you looking for? Dracula hurling slurs sounds kind of stupid and forced to me. There should be characters who have to deal with that stuff. I don't know how it helps Blade. Then again, I'm not sure why his dad had to be a white guy.

Is that still in continuity? Because I'm pretty sure that was retconned and Blade certainly isn't drawn like a half black, half white man.

[The One and Only]

Blade has butted heads with law enforcement on occasion. In his solo arc in VAMPIRE TALES , which took him back to his old stomping grounds in London. When vampires murdered someone at the house of ill-repute where his mother worked at, and he was raised. The police at the scene gave the workers there a hard time until Blade showed up ,and chased them out. They did give him some grief over the class of people he hung out with. Brooks got into it with the London Chief Inspector over killing a vampire, when the vamp's father made a stink about Blade being let go. Not knowing his son was one of the undead. But the British government, and law enforcement had worked with Quincy Harker and his team of vampire hunters before. So they knew about the undead, and Blade was free to leave. In NIGHTSTALKERS, Blade, Frank Drake, and Hannibal King ran a detective agency as a front for their occult hunting operations. Still doing a case or two involving occult hucksters, con-artists. Which garnered them some positive press. The Boston police didn't give them much trouble, but gave them about as much warmth as they usually did to private detectives as they're known to show those in the private contracting sector.

Last year this music video Dark All Day from the retro synth group, GUNSHIP popped up, and animated portion featured Blade, Buffy, and Seth Gecko acting as the band's bodyguards when the group preformed in the Murder Capital of the World.

[DragonsChi]

Yes....and you said we didn't know what the book was about, when we do and it fits who Blade is.

Also please articulate the difference between being a "hot headed" black man and being an angry black man. Bonus if you can throw in some of the studies you're referencing.

Either way, Blade has already worked as a government sanctioned contract killer in Vanguard.

I said we do not know what will happen in the actual pages of the book. And you still don't.

I'm not going to go in depth for the simple fact that I don't have the time to. It's a big topic and it can be pretty controversial depending. Rather not pose a potential Ban for the sake of it. But here is the basic gist:

Angry Black Man
A male black youth, the Angry Black Man knows that The Man is out to get him, and that the Revolution will soon come and whitey will have his back against the wall. The Angry Black Man sees injustice everywhere and is capable and intelligent but usually financially destitute because the damn Honkies won't hire him to give him an opportunity.

Liberal white people will attempt to befriend him, but he will have none of it, seeing even being friends with white people as a betrayal to his race without realizing the hypocrisy of this logic.

The nature of that is specific to be Black while being a hot-head can be used for anyone.

Hot Head
They are burningly passionate about everything that they do. They give their all in absolutely everything they do, regardless of the task. They do not know how to be half-hearted or lackadaisical about anything they care about. These characters are Hot-Blooded.

Using the power of guts, determination, and badassery they throw themselves headfirst into the worst situations imaginable and come out on top through sheer force of will and often have a strong tendency to do impressive things. Even non hot-blooded characters or the nicest ones can occasionally have their own hot-blooded incidents; this is frequently their Moment of Awesome.

If you actually want the studies I would suggest to start looking under the topic "Cultural studies in America" and go from there.

One mission does not make the whole.

One of the best things about Blade is has the perfect potential to be accessible to everyone and almost fit in every genre if marketed correctly. I mean who doesn't know a kid who at one point was afraid of the monster under their bed, in the closet or in their basement. Blade hunts the things that goes "bump in the night" and that can fit just about anywhere. If had more stories under his belt were it's just the monster hunting and the Super Heroing and if he was more popular he could get away with the stuff that Wolverine does where he is lecturing someone in one comic and then in the other he is doing the thing he is lecturing about.

Right now that is not the case and I'm just hoping Blade wont get stuck in a single role.

[DragonsChi]

remembering isn't always caring, though. Wolverine should be more socially conscious, right? he lived through slavery and the civil rights movement. i'd say that being long lived could make race even less relevant to Blade. he's seen all of humanity's ugliness; enough to write everyone off. he's seen what tribalism leads to. he's also lived abroad and adventured with at least one group composed entirely of black men. i figure that his focus is very me vs them (Blade vs suck heads).

I think your right. The character pretty much said as much in a couple of appearances.

The racism, slavery, and so on is a non-issue for him now. To be honest for his character in particular it shouldn't be the focus. Vamps come in every color and they all die the same way.

Here is one of the times he flat out said race doesn't matter:

[Tracks]

I said we do not know what will happen in the actual pages of the book. And you still don't.

I'm not going to go in depth for the simple fact that I don't have the time to. It's a big topic and it can be pretty controversial depending. Rather not pose a potential Ban for the sake of it. But here is the basic gist:



The nature of that is specific to be Black while being a hot-head can be used for anyone.


If you actually want the studies I would suggest to start looking under the topic "Cultural studies in America" and go from there.

One mission does not make the whole.

One of the best things about Blade is has the perfect potential to be accessible to everyone and almost fit in every genre if marketed correctly. I mean who doesn't know a kid who at one point was afraid of the monster under their bed, in the closet or in their basement. Blade hunts the things that goes "bump in the night" and that can fit just about anywhere. If had more stories under his belt were it's just the monster hunting and the Super Heroing and if he was more popular he could get away with the stuff that Wolverine does where he is lecturing someone in one comic and then in the other he is doing the thing he is lecturing about.

Right now that is not the case and I'm just hoping Blade wont get stuck in a single role.

I asked for the citations because I know they don't exist. Hothead and quick to anger are used interchangeably in the American lexicon and in discussion of racist tropes. You can't just keep making up your points and pretending there's a literature to support them.

Either way though, your point just doesn't make sense.

1. You say you want Blade to be as popular as Black Panther while ignoring that Black Panther regularly kills humans in his books and always has.

2. You're acting as if Blade hasn't already killed humans. In addition to the instances mentioned, Blade killed humans with no qualms when he was on the government covert ops squad "Vanguard" (written by Guggenheim in 2007).

3. Now apparently knowing what a book is about means we don't know what's going to happen so he shouldn't be in the book...if that's your logic, Blade shouldn't be in the main Avengers book either since anything could happen and all of those characters have killed humans.

[Michael Watkins]

Is that still in continuity? Because I'm pretty sure that was retconned and Blade certainly isn't drawn like a half black, half white man.

i thought that it was the most recent stuff; from the chaykin series. if it's been retconned, that is news to me.

[Michael Watkins]

You think it was forced that white people in the early 1900s were racist?

if i were to describe Dracula, "white guy" would be pretty low on the list. he's sort of transcended humanity. can you think of any other instance where Dracula used racial slurs (comics, movies, novels, etc)? because it seems like something that was introduced solely because he was interacting with Blade. that makes it forced, imo. reminds me of Freddy Krueger's "dark meat" comment in Freddy vs Jason. i could totally see Dracula dismissing Blade as a half-breed, though.

[DragonsChi]

I asked for the citations because I know they don't exist. Hothead and quick to anger are used interchangeably in the American lexicon and in discussion of racist tropes. You can't just keep making up your points and pretending there's a literature to support them.

Nah, you simply don't really know what your talking about and using broad strokes to cover. Anyone can be Hotheaded. That's not specific to any race. If you are going to talk in the context of media you or anyone else can not claim "Hotheadedness" to a specific race.

Either way though, your point just doesn't make sense.

1. You say you want Blade to be as popular as Black Panther while ignoring that Black Panther regularly kills humans in his books and always has.

2. You're acting as if Blade hasn't already killed humans. In addition to the instances mentioned, Blade killed humans with no qualms when he was on the government covert ops squad "Vanguard" (written by Guggenheim in 2007).

3. Now apparently knowing what a book is about means we don't know what's going to happen so he shouldn't be in the book...if that's your logic, Blade shouldn't be in the main Avengers book either since anything could happen and all of those characters have killed humans.

Nah, your just having trouble following along, at the current juncture.

1. Black Panther has years of publication where he hasn't killed and out right stated of trying to avoided it. Blade does not. This line of reasoning has been present in pretty much all of my post.

2. Again following along. Once instance doesn't make the whole of a characters narrative and how they can be projected to wider audiences. If Blade garners enough stories where someone can definitively say "This character does not operate like this normally" they have better chances of being able to present to broader audiences.

3. Again a sign that you are unsure of what you are talking about. Ever hear of something called "Tone"? A tone of a book is present and gives the readers a projection of how the story will go and the notes they may hit. For the most part Avengers Tone does not present itself as a story wear Blade would kill anything but monsters without repercussion. Could it happen? Sure. But the likelihood of it is slim. Just by the assembled characters it be foolish not to assume that no one will die in Savage Avengers, let alone a lot of people.