Fear the Day walker. Blade Appreciation 2021

[Tracks]

I'm halfway remembering a black/white backup story (semi-Kirby style art) that ended with Blade being trapped and Dracula promising to torture him... I don't recall it ever being addressed.. I guess Blade escaped.. lol..

Yea I think that was like a one-off story that just ended there. Dracula evolved or something to be immune to stakes right?

[Pulp Fiction]

Where do I start with Blade?

[Jabare]

Where do I start with Blade?

So you can start with Tomb of Dracula books if you want to start at the beginning. However, the modern comic Blade is the 1998 Wesley Snipes film version. That movie paints the most concise picture of Blade, even if his comic history is different.


Here are my recommendations for the best Blade stories:


Deadpool: Dracula's Gauntlet - Blade is a secondary character in this story, but he shines, and it's 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 is probably the most iconic Blade run of comic stories.

Avengers By Jason Aaron Vol. 3: War Of The Vampires This should be issues #13 to #17 of the 2018 Avengers book. Blade becomes an Avenger epically. I waffled about putting this on the list, but it will be a bigger deal a few years from now

Honorable mention to Tomb of Dracula - I don't recommend this as strongly. I think all the stories are in Blade: Black & White, but maybe not entirely. These are Blade's comic origins, and they'll 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.


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 the main focus of this story.

Midnight Suns Unlimited - I don't remember this story as well. I think he has a boss 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 channels Wesley Snipes for this comic.

Crescent City Blue one-shot this one's okay, but you need to read Tomb of Dracula, or it might confuse you.

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

Doctor Strange: Damnation (2018) Blade has two or three awesome moments in this story

Spirits of Vengeance (2017) - A good ole Supernatural Team Up with Blade, Ghost Rider, Hellstrom, and Satana

Blade also has a 1999 comic that is.......interesting. The art style is very 90s. I'm not going to recommend it off the bat, but it's interesting. Lookup a few images and see if it's up your alley.

He also appears sporadically in several 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. It's not that important at the end of the day. Blade is Blade.

I think Blade's got close to 500 Marvel comic appearances since the 70s, so sometimes it's a treat to track down some of his random appearances. For example, he has this amazing 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 too big on it, but might be worth checking out. Avoid the Curse of the Mutants story. Avoid it at all costs. It's really bad, really really bad.


Tracks please let me know if I left anything out

[Hypestyle]

Yea I think that was like a one-off story that just ended there. Dracula evolved or something to be immune to stakes right?

pretty much, if memory serves...

[Tracks]

So you can start with Tomb of Dracula books if you want to start at the beginning. However, the modern comic Blade is the 1998 Wesley Snipes film version. That movie paints the most concise picture of Blade, even if his comic history is different.


Here are my recommendations for the best Blade stories:


Deadpool: Dracula's Gauntlet - Blade is a secondary character in this story, but he shines, and it's 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 is probably the most iconic Blade run of comic stories.

Avengers By Jason Aaron Vol. 3: War Of The Vampires This should be issues #13 to #17 of the 2018 Avengers book. Blade becomes an Avenger epically. I waffled about putting this on the list, but it will be a bigger deal a few years from now

Honorable mention to Tomb of Dracula - I don't recommend this as strongly. I think all the stories are in Blade: Black & White, but maybe not entirely. These are Blade's comic origins, and they'll 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.


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 the main focus of this story.

Midnight Suns Unlimited - I don't remember this story as well. I think he has a boss 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 channels Wesley Snipes for this comic.

Crescent City Blue one-shot this one's okay, but you need to read Tomb of Dracula, or it might confuse you.

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

Doctor Strange: Damnation (2018) Blade has two or three awesome moments in this story

Spirits of Vengeance (2017) - A good ole Supernatural Team Up with Blade, Ghost Rider, Hellstrom, and Satana

Blade also has a 1999 comic that is.......interesting. The art style is very 90s. I'm not going to recommend it off the bat, but it's interesting. Lookup a few images and see if it's up your alley.

He also appears sporadically in several 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. It's not that important at the end of the day. Blade is Blade.

I think Blade's got close to 500 Marvel comic appearances since the 70s, so sometimes it's a treat to track down some of his random appearances. For example, he has this amazing 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 too big on it, but might be worth checking out. Avoid the Curse of the Mutants story. Avoid it at all costs. It's really bad, really really bad.


Tracks please let me know if I left anything out

I was just reading through this list and I think its perfect. Great place to start and honestly get the best sense of the character.

Other than that I think there have been a few fun one-shots here and there.

I liked the War of the Realms Strikeforce one-shot

The x-men curse of the mutants one-shot is fun (even if the actual event was kinda mediocre). The Wolverine vs. Blade one-shot had some cool art but was pretty average. All of these are definitely below the list Jabare provided.

[Jabare]

ah how could I forget Wolverine vs Blade?!!

Tracks is right from a story perspective it isn't that special, but from an art perspective



I forgot Tini Howard's Strikeforce and the War of the Realms tie in too. Those are not solo Blade adventures, but they are okay

Wasn't Blade in a Vanguard book a while back too?

[snoopdogg]

The Vanguard arc was in Marvel Comics Presents and in that Blade was the leader of a special ops government team.

Also the first time in a canon book Blade states his age at over 100 years old. Though he stated his age in his MAX series but I heard those MAX books are not canon.

[Pulp Fiction]

Thanks Jabare. Good looking out

[taozen]

The vampire Sherrif storyline is so weird. This is why I say current comics are like R&D for other things where they throw concepts at the wall to see what sticks.

I'm glad he's getting more push and shine, but this also speaks to a disconnect at Marvel comics. After the BP movie, T'Challa got some extra exposure, but he also got more poorly written storylines that he'd avoided in the past.

There was just such a fundamental disconnect between Marvel comics and what Blade had done at the time. They put him in stories and tried two solo series (one isn't canon). I don't know if the writers at the time didn't enjoy those late 90s and early 2000s Marvel movies, but those were transformative for a generation. What Wesley and co. did with the original Blade concept cannot be understated.
I won't even get into how it paved the way for Spider-Man and X-men movies or inspired other films like Van Hellsing and Underworld. That film was a progenitor to the Matrix and helped further that film in design, dress, and cinematography. Not only that, but he flipped the script on Vampire films.
The majority of mainstream vampire films at the time were all kind of in that Bramstroker vampire vain. The vampires were floaty, magical, sometimes romantics. Then Blade changed all that.
The first film introduced several comic and manga tropes that were irregular for Western Hollywood films. Blade had this balance of horror, martial arts, and superhero action, and they wrapped it together in a great story. Heck, they even made a great sequel, which helped inspire Hellboy and others. We won't talk about the third film, which was such a lazy script, and some executives trying to give Ryan Reynolds the franchise, but I digress.

I could write a decent Blade comic. Marvel needs to hire someone in their 30s who has a better sense of the specific genre Blade belongs to/inhabits. A credible writer for a passion for these types of stories.

Berserk (Gutts), Vampire Hunter D, Samurai Jack, The Witcher, Solomon Kane, the Belmonts in Castlevania, Blood Hunters in DnD. These characters have always been incredibly compelling when written well. Each character has a unique flavor. Blade is no different. Just find that tone and make some magic. Marvel could at least make a decent Blade solo. Lord knows they turn out mediocre stories for other heroes on the regular.



Lol. Can you all stop bumping this image on every page and reminding me of this terrible design. My goodness. Please and thank you.

I agree with what you wrote. The fundamental issue has been Blade has been his hunting of just vampires. It would be way more interesting if he hunted other supernatural things that go bump in the night. If you think about it, I am sure there are vampire sorcerers or vampire that have werewolves as minions. I think a Blade book should focus on other aspects of the occult than solely Vampires.

[taozen]

Speaking of Blade stories. Are there ANY great Blade stories anyone would recommend?

[Tracks]

Scroll up aha Jabare just outlined all of them. We should probably have a vote, but in my opinion the single greatest Blade comic story is Tomb of Dracula (2004) 1-4. Just because it combines the traditional comic with the movie influences perfectly and tells a pretty great story that both challenges his character without disrespecting him. The early Tomb of Dracula stuff is foundational, but I don't think they give his character too much nuance until after Dr. Strange breaks him out of the mental hospital.

The best story that Blade is a part of (but maybe not central) is between Captain Britain & MI:13: Vampire State then maybe that Avengers arc. I'm gonna re-read Midnight Sons to see if that changes my mind.

[taozen]

Scroll up aha Jabare just outlined all of them. We should probably have a vote, but in my opinion the single greatest Blade comic story is Tomb of Dracula (2004) 1-4. Just because it combines the traditional comic with the movie influences perfectly and tells a pretty great story that both challenges his character without disrespecting him. The early Tomb of Dracula stuff is foundational, but I don't think they give his character too much nuance until after Dr. Strange breaks him out of the mental hospital.

The best story that Blade is a part of (but maybe not central) is between Captain Britain & MI:13: Vampire State then maybe that Avengers arc. I'm gonna re-read Midnight Sons to see if that changes my mind.

Funny how I just missed that list. Thanks for the recommendation. A list to vote on would be great. Most the Blade stories with him as the protagonist have been meh.

[Jabare]

I agree with what you wrote. The fundamental issue has been Blade has been his hunting of just vampires. It would be way more interesting if he hunted other supernatural things that go bump in the night. If you think about it, I am sure there are vampire sorcerers or vampire that have werewolves as minions. I think a Blade book should focus on other aspects of the occult than solely Vampires.

That's something myself and others have been saying for some time now. Outside of Nightstalkers in the 90s, Blade does have a few adventures in the last decades where he is tackling non-vampire threats. So, I think Marvel is aware of it. People also forget Marvel shelved Blade for a bit and were pushing this other good-natured vampire named Raizo for a second.

He fights against Succubus Queen and other undead creatures in Deadpool the Gauntlet.

He battles these weird chicken creatures and some Cultists trying to resurrect some ancient evil in Mighty Avengers.

He fights Dark Elves in that War of Realms: Strikeforce one-shot. He also fights these body-snatching fae creatures (I forget their names), along with several other heroes, in the short-lived Strikeforce comic.

Funny how I just missed that list. Thanks for the recommendation. A list to vote on would be great. Most the Blade stories with him as the protagonist have been meh.

you should make a thread, I'd vote

[Hypestyle]

ooh. if they could bring back strikeforce with another lineup... centered with Blade, Monica, Dr. Voodoo (her ex?), Luke Cage... I'd be all over that..

[Tracks]

I appreciated Captain Britain and MI:13 because I think that was one of the storylines that solidified Blade as an expert on all types of supernatural creatures. It's pretty regular for him to be depicted, whether through his senses or his experience, as having an intimate knowledge of every type of threat.

One of my pet peeves if when people say Blade only fights vampires. In Mighty Avengers he coached the team on how to fight Shuma Gorath and his main threats there were the Deathwalkers (some wizards). In Spirits of Vengeance, he's called in to help them fight demons from hell. Damnation, he's pulled in to deal with Mephisto. His one-off appearances still tend to deal with vampires, but they've really expanded the threats he deals with.