Anyone agree that Blade should go back to how he was prior to Snipes synergy?

[The True Detective]

I'm mostly indifferent to Blade outside of liking his 1st movie as a kid and thinking he looked cool but I don't get this argument that he needs powers. There are tons of heroes without powers in comics and it's not like his powers are that standout, strong or intergal to his character AFAIK. Not wanting to take away Spider-Man, Hulk or Wolverine's powers I get because those are iconic and ingrained into their characters, what even are Blade's powers anyway? Generic low tier physical stats? A slightly stronger Captain America? If anything wouldn't him being a normal human make him more unique instead of guy with low level super strength #34567.

[dkrook]

I'm mostly indifferent to Blade outside of liking his 1st movie as a kid and thinking he looked cool but I don't get this argument that he needs powers. There are tons of heroes without powers in comics and it's not like his powers are that standout, strong or intergal to his character AFAIK. Not wanting to take away Spider-Man, Hulk or Wolverine's powers I get because those are iconic and ingrained into their characters, what even are Blade's powers anyway? Generic low tier physical stats? A slightly stronger Captain America? If anything wouldn't him being a normal human make him more unique instead of guy with low level super strength #34567.

Sounds like you've not really read the character, and further more please explain how you as a baseline human would handle a bloodthirsty creature that's strong enough to flip cars, yet can move well beyond your field of vision, good level of regenerative, invulnerability talent? Now add that you may have to fight more than one at a time, cause ya know they're not going to just sit there and wait their turn. You and any other regular human would nothing more than a grease stain in milliseconds.

[Nomads1]

Personally, I prefer his original Tomb of Dracula look to anything that's come after and think they're leaning WAY too hard into the Snipes version now. And while that original look was definitely a 70s thing, it can certainly be updated to reflect today's fashions. Look at this image from Greg Smallwood's rejected Midnight Sons pitch:

Attachment 122031

That's a good redesign. I like it.

Peace

[Alan2099]

People are kind of of confused here, since Blade aas not that widely known, but his movie design was a derivation and evolution of how he looked like in the 90s before the movie, when was part of the Night stalkers, bombed around with Dr. STRANGE and the Darkhold redeemer and got in blood feud with morbius tried to kill spiderman and commit mystical genocide...design that by the way I now realized was blatantly copied for youngblood's Chapel.
Really guys STOP pretending theb90s did not happened. They did.

This is the first time I saw Blade, on a trading card in the early 90s, about 5 or so years before the movie came out.


This very much looks like the character Snipes would play. Snipes's Blade is far more comic accurate (appearance wise anyway) than pretty much all of the movie X-men or Spider-man's enemies.

[Kaijudo]

People are kind of of confused here, since Blade aas not that widely known, but his movie design was a derivation and evolution of how he looked like in the 90s before the movie, when was part of the Night stalkers, bombed around with Dr. STRANGE and the Darkhold redeemer and got in blood feud with morbius tried to kill spiderman and commit mystical genocide...design that by the way I now realized was blatantly copied for youngblood's Chapel.
Really guys STOP pretending theb90s did not happened. They did.

Nobody's saying the 90s didn't happen and that's a good point about Blade's Youngblood-inspired look feeding into what the Wesley Snipes version ultimately looked like. That said, you can't deny that the way Blade is currently presented directly ties back to the Snipes take on the character, much more than the 90s Chapel version.

[Baron of Faltine]

I'm mostly indifferent to Blade outside of liking his 1st movie as a kid and thinking he looked cool but I don't get this argument that he needs powers. There are tons of heroes without powers in comics and it's not like his powers are that standout, strong or intergal to his character AFAIK. Not wanting to take away Spider-Man, Hulk or Wolverine's powers I get because those are iconic and ingrained into their characters, what even are Blade's powers anyway? Generic low tier physical stats? A slightly stronger Captain America? If anything wouldn't him being a normal human make him more unique instead of guy with low level super strength #34567.

In the end the problem is two-fold.
First off "regular" human hero in action based fiction are already and always borderline superhuman with indefinite endurance, stamina and resilience as the plot demand, as well as various superhuman feat justified by unearthly talent and training. (Cough-batman-cough)
Second :Vampire hunting had always been an difficult thing. In the class8c way is less physical action thing and more a strategic job. Like taking the vampire at his weakest when he is sleeping in the coffin(90% of classic vampire movies) of assaulting the nest during the daylight pulling the fiends outside in the light. Nice and dandy for a single movie, a book where the vampire hunting is akin to investigating a serial killer and the investigation is as important or more than the actual killing, or the focus are actually the vampire and not the vampire hunter(Blade and Van Helsing were not the main characters DRACULA was! )
But in and an action ongoing series or movie, you need the hero going physical, close and personal. Problem. By any logic in fair fight an human will lose against a vampire, otherwise they will it be a menace that regular ploce can handle(one anime made me realize that werebeast are scary because they are pretty much invulnerable otherwise they are no more deadly than regular wolf, that we have hunted to near extintion in some places)
And this considering that marvle vampires are already more frail than most (as frail as buffyverse ones). They are the only ones where a single stake to the heart is enough to kill...where actually it does it permanently kill. Even going by classic movie lore, removing the stake will resurrect the fiend...just saying) Still they are veeerry fast, at times depicted almost close to golden age quicksilver! And they seem to be enough strong to hurt the thought hide of Ben Grimm. So yeah...is either superpowers or power armor, otherwise the whole thing become contrived and unconvincing .

[Riv86672]

Personally, I prefer his original Tomb of Dracula look to anything that's come after and think they're leaning WAY too hard into the Snipes version now. And while that original look was definitely a 70s thing, it can certainly be updated to reflect today's fashions. Look at this image from Greg Smallwood's rejected Midnight Sons pitch:

Attachment 122031

^^^Bingo.

To be clear I’m okay w. Blade’s Snipes/current look.
It’s funny though, because that look seems pretty generic now (the all black leather look is pretty common across comics). Going back to an updated variation of his OG outfit would actually help him stand out, now.

[LukeCagefan]

Tomb Of Dracula Blade was a Blaxploitation style vampire hunter. Nineties pre-Snipes movies comic Blade was the vampire hunter version of the Punisher. I feel like Snipes and the modern comic Blade are somewhat a mixture of the two.


Yep. Blade's dad needs to be retconned out of existence like Shang Chi's problematic white mom was.

I'm surprised Marvel didn't just make Afari Blade's biological father. Marvel love a retcon reveal and it would make Blade even more of a tragic figure if he had to kill his own father after he was turned into a vampire

I would love Afrai being his father tbh.

[Agent Z]

I'm mostly indifferent to Blade outside of liking his 1st movie as a kid and thinking he looked cool but I don't get this argument that he needs powers. There are tons of heroes without powers in comics and it's not like his powers are that standout, strong or intergal to his character AFAIK. Not wanting to take away Spider-Man, Hulk or Wolverine's powers I get because those are iconic and ingrained into their characters, what even are Blade's powers anyway? Generic low tier physical stats? A slightly stronger Captain America? If anything wouldn't him being a normal human make him more unique instead of guy with low level super strength #34567.

Kind of contradicting your own argument here.

[Agent Z]

^^^Bingo.

To be clear I’m okay w. Blade’s Snipes/current look.
It’s funny though, because that look seems pretty generic now (the all black leather look is pretty common across comics). Going back to an updated variation of his OG outfit would actually help him stand out, now.

Outside of characters like Batman and Black Widow who have either always dressed like that or have for the majority of the modern age, who else is wearing black leather in superhero comics? Everyone else is wearing spandex or if they are wearing leather, it isn't black.

[Baron of Faltine]

^^^Bingo.

To be clear I’m okay w. Blade’s Snipes/current look.
It’s funny though, because that look seems pretty generic now (the all black leather look is pretty common across comics). Going back to an updated variation of his OG outfit would actually help him stand out, now.

OK I am going to repeat it, because oddly this little thing irken me badly, but was the opposite, Blade look in the 90s inspired the movie look, he wore leather bike outfit and sported a katana all the time he was in the nightstalkers!. I will post a link to a pic if I can find a image to do so not encoded in a wiki, but really that was the opposite!

[Baron of Faltine]

Kind of contradicting your own argument here.

Yeah, expecially considering the little fact that "normal" humans sports an alarming level of uberhuman powers without considering disbelieve bending plot armor. Or to put in simpler terms. In superhero comics average human is on "too fast too furious fate of the furious " Dominic Toretto level if not on the rock level.

[The True Detective]

Sounds like you've not really read the character, and further more please explain how you as a baseline human would handle a bloodthirsty creature that's strong enough to flip cars, yet can move well beyond your field of vision, good level of regenerative, invulnerability talent? Now add that you may have to fight more than one at a time, cause ya know they're not going to just sit there and wait their turn. You and any other regular human would nothing more than a grease stain in milliseconds.

Lex Luthor fights Superman, Dr. Doom has power jacked literal Gods, Iron Man builds suits to fight Gods, etc, Blade fighting a vampire without powers isn't all that crazy by comic book standards and no I've never read the character but it sounds like he didn't have powers in the beginning anyway. I don't really care either way but there isn't a huge gap between a Captain America and Batman level peak human and a barely superhuman Bane or Deathstroke level metahuman.

And while there may be a lot of heroes with no powers there are obviously way less of them than there are heroes who do have them. The average superhero has actual powers so he'd still be more unique without them. "But it's not realistic" he's fighting vampires, let's not pretend realism matters here.

[Agent Z]

Lex Luthor fights Superman, Dr. Doom has power jacked literal Gods, Iron Man builds suits to fight Gods, etc, Blade fighting a vampire without powers isn't all that crazy by comic book standards and no I've never read the character but it sounds like he didn't have powers in the beginning anyway. I don't really care either way but there isn't a huge gap between a Captain America and Batman level peak human and a barely superhuman Bane or Deathstroke level metahuman.

And while there may be a lot of heroes with no powers there are obviously way less of them than there are heroes who do have them. The average superhero has actual powers so he'd still be more unique without them. "But it's not realistic" he's fighting vampires, let's not pretend realism matters here.

Doom does have superpowers. He's a sorcerer.

Also, Blade did have powers originally. He was immune to a vampire's bite. The vampire powers did come later after the Snipes movies, but he was never a normal person to begin with.

[Baron of Faltine]

Lex Luthor fights Superman, Dr. Doom has power jacked literal Gods, Iron Man builds suits to fight Gods, etc, Blade fighting a vampire without powers isn't all that crazy by comic book standards and no I've never read the character but it sounds like he didn't have powers in the beginning anyway. I don't really care either way but there isn't a huge gap between a Captain America and Batman level peak human and a barely superhuman Bane or Deathstroke level metahuman.

And while there may be a lot of heroes with no powers there are obviously way less of them than there are heroes who do have them. The average superhero has actual powers so he'd still be more unique without them. "But it's not realistic" he's fighting vampires, let's not pretend realism matters here.

Ufffrrghhhh.....
Lex Luthor is a supergenius, class nine intelligence and all. He has that comic book intelligence that allow him to build insane reality warping ****, usually when wanting to get close to Superman he wear a cool purple and green armor and go for it. He also has endless resources as Batman does
Batman...should I rally pull in god batman? Should I really? The "with enough time a preparation" thingies?
Doctor Doom is a sorcerer, martial artist,super genius and what else. In most superhero rpg is the multiclass of multiclasses!
Iron Man is supergenius and gizmoteer, with endless resources....see a trend here.
All "regular" human have the weirdest excuse to how they can do what they do, usually endless money.
Blade....unless he started wearing skintight exoskeleton for killing vampires or goes under cybernetic enhancement(hey were the 90s your were no one if you did not get a glory bionic eyes and soem metal plates, could have happened....)
Notice how when punisher had to deal with really superpowered opponents he either , Oh what a coincidence ! , stumble upon a power armor, or some one use only superweapons, or he get turned briefly into frankestein(loved that story!) And often he barely make it...or he just got the weirdest plot armor/ridiculous amount of luck and complete dumbness of the opponent(everything he defeat Wolverine is frankly as absurd as Superman get mindcontrolled EVERY TIME HE GOES TO GOTHAM WHAT THE HECk WRITERS!)


Now before the 2000 martial arts somehow was seen as one of those "equaliser" of sort , but overtime expecially since articles against fake martial arts and macdojos become more widespread as well as the wise recommendation that no martial arts allow you to dodge bullet or knockout bigger opponents with a simple touch and that in most case running away is best solution(because apparently you have to tell clearly that you can not stop bullets and knives bare handed) kind lowered the appeal of martial arts as "regular dude can handle a god if know those"
Unless is super martial arts, but those are akin to magic(replace spell cha ting with katas is the same) hence superpowers.

So yeah. EitherBlade become freaking Batman, ie super good at everything, filthy rich with kick ass light armor that can be magical as well as Fleet of vehicles and tools for any needs. Or get lil power boost and let him go for the gritty Street hero look.