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

[Agent Z]

I prefer Blade with daggers, not swords. There's something about the close quarters nature of combat against superior foes that appeals to me.

Wait, don't swords also count as close quarters?

The problem with Blade is that Marvel has a notorious habit of featuring nonpowered humans with a gimmick in the same venue as godlike, world-breaking villains. They made Blade at least a part-time Avenger, so obviously it benefits him to have superhuman abilities, as opposed to merely survivability devices and a sharp, pointy, jabby, slashy weapon. As long as Marvel writers keep doing that, Blade can't really go back to the days of being "normal" entirely.

Blade would still need superpowers to survive the type of threats he deals with as a vampire/demon hunter. The final battle in the first movie would have been over in a second if Blade weren't part vampire.

[Riv86672]

Huh, wonder how things would have gone if Richard Roundtree played Blade in the 70s.

^^^It couldn’t have been anything but awesome!

And, a crossover movie w. William Marshall’s Blacula would’ve been the Freddy VS Jason of its generation…



…except you know, good.

[Nomads1]

I'm gonna have to go with no, on this. Pre-movie Blade was, IMHO, quite bland and boring. It's very rare for me to think this way, or to say something like this, however, I do think the synergy changes made him a more interesting character.

Peace

[Nomads1]

Yeah I'm sorry the post movie version just blows the original out of the water. There was nothing cool about Blade pre movie. I mean just look at him

^^^Seventies era Blade worked, though!

Who's the black vampire slayer that's a sex machine and all around player?
(Blade)
You're damn right

Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Blade)
Can you dig it?

Who's the cat that won't cop out when there's Nosferatu all about?
(Blade)
Right on

They say this cat Blade is a bad mother
(Shut your mouth)
But I'm talkin' 'bout Blade
(Then we can dig it)

He's a complicated man
And no one understands him even Whistler…

I see those stakes, I think Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.

Peace

[chamber-music]

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.

I don't think any Blade fans actually acknowledges the dad thing.

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

[Triniking1234]

I always thought movie Blade took inspiration from Vampire Hunter D.

Also his dad is white? I thought both of his parents were black and some vampire turned the mum when she was pregnant with him.

[Lukmendes]

That is one of the most wisest word ever spoken on these boards. �� ��

Thanks.

Yes, changing just for marketing is wrong but so is doing that just for nostalgia, that is something more personal and less universal than we all think.

Yeah, the "good ol' days", may not have been actually good lol.

I wouldn't call it nostalgia. Blade had already been synergized when I got into comics. And the Alfred companion doesn't work because he was thin and with a mustache in the serial, which likely came earlier and prompted the creation of the comic version, which guessed what he would be like and shortly thereafter changed what they got wrong. Comparing that to Blade would make more sense if you were talking about having Whistler jump into the comics, which I wouldn't be opposed to. So long as it didn't displace Jamal Afari in his mythos.

Even if he wasn't supposed to be fat originally, he was still just a comic relief character who didn't even know Bruce and Dick were Batman and Robin, and I doubt he was more interesting that way just because it was the "original", similarly, I'm not sure if changing Blade back to a human would be an actual improvement.

[James Cameron]

I like Tomb of Dracula and Blade's introduction in that, his contention with Harker and his friendship with Taj.
Aside from the movies that's the only Blade I really know. He never appeared in any of the books I read when I was really collecting, but I love the Tomb of Dracula comic.

[James Cameron]

I'm gonna have to go with no, on this. Pre-movie Blade was, IMHO, quite bland and boring. It's very rare for me to think this way, or to say something like this, however, I do think the synergy changes made him a more interesting character.

Peace

I did not think he was boring at all. His pan-African roots, the loss of his team of black vampire hunters and his uneasy alliance with white vampire hunters represented the black power movement at the time. And to me Blade having powers emphasizes those qualities in a lot of ways, except for that I see vampirism in Blade comics as allegorical to whitenes or white capitalism/capitalism in general in many ways and I think him being connected to vampires in any physical way dilllutes that allegory (be it unconscious or not) . The original film however did a really good job with it though, it really showed off Blade as the anti capitalist champion he always had been.

[Username taken]

I always thought movie Blade took inspiration from Vampire Hunter D.

Also his dad is white? I thought both of his parents were black and some vampire turned the mum when she was pregnant with him.

Yeah, his dad is from Latveria in the comics (if I remember correctly).

Interestingly, I don’t think we ever saw Blade’s dad in the movie.

[Tracks]

I did not think he was boring at all. His pan-African roots, the loss of his team of black vampire hunters and his uneasy alliance with white vampire hunters represented the black power movement at the time. And to me Blade having powers emphasizes those qualities in a lot of ways, except for that I see vampirism in Blade comics as allegorical to whitenes or white capitalism/capitalism in general in many ways and I think him being connected to vampires in any physical way dilllutes that allegory (be it unconscious or not) . The original film however did a really good job with it though, it really showed off Blade as the anti capitalist champion he always had been.

I think those initial themes have been completely lost in his current stories.

[James Cameron]

I think those initial themes have been completely lost in his current stories.

Of course, I agree - Do you see that a good or a bad thing?

[Kaijudo]

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:

Blade.jpg

[Tracks]

Of course, I agree - Do you see that a good or a bad thing?

Bad for sure. I think thats why so many of his solo stories have felt aimless.

[Baron of Faltine]

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:

Blade.jpg

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.