Blade's comic book mentor, early on. A blues/jazz musician who was also a vampire hunter. In the movies, the mentor role went to Whistler, who was a David Goyer creation (as such, New Line/Warner Bros. claims ownership of the Whistler character, so he can't be used in the comics, even though Whistler was used in the 90s Spider-Man cartoon-- which happened even before the Blade movie came out-- long story short, Goyer talked Warner out of suing.).
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Jamal_Afari_(Earth-616)
Afari has been rarely used beyond the 1970s stories. In the 2006 Blade series he was turned into a vampire.. not sure what/where he is now, if he was "revived" and made human again or not.Jamal Afari was the man who raised and taught vampire hunter Blade everything about vampire slaying.[citation needed]
A vampire hunter himself in his youth, Afari grew up a young black man on the mean streets of Harlem living an average life.[citation needed]
Somehow, during that time, he came across vampires and started teaching himself how to fight and kill them to protect himself and the people he cared about in his life. He fought and slew many vampires.[citation needed]
He even tangled with Dracula himself and survived.[citation needed]
This gained him honorable respect from many street dwellers he saved who knew his secret. As the years went by, Jamal grew older and began to realize that he wasn't strong enough anymore to carry on his life as a vampire slayer and quietly retired.[citation needed]
He eventually learned how to play the jazz horn with exceptional skill and started to make a living off his talent. This peaceful life was proved short-lived due to Afari's later drug addiction and abuse. He was soon sent to a hospital to get over his problem.[citation needed]
After a while, he got better and recovered. On a cold December night, he was discharged from the hospital. When he made it back to his home, he was attacked by a number of vampires who had followed him and wanted to take revenge on him for their fellow vampires. When it looked as though he was about to die, he received unexpected help from a young orphan named Eric Brooks (who would grow up to be Blade), who was only nine years old at the time.[1]
Hill casually made Blade just a whole other tier of powerful. If he's still carrying Lucifer's sword, he has all of Dracula's powers along with one of the more powerful swords in marvel. I'm trying to figure out what characters he's comparable to now.The Adana already ruthlessly defeated Blade once. But after honing new vampiric powers and gathering an army of the dead, Blade is ready for a rematch. At stake? The fate of every soul on Earth!
I guess we'll get a sense because blood hunt starts right after, and we'll see him next to the Avengers again
I feel like Marvel could get away with Blade having undefined super strength/abilities on account of him being supernatural. As in he can be as strong as he needs to be depending on the threat. I know all characters' ability potency fluctuates like this from writer to writer, but I think it'd add a level of mystique to his enigmatic status to have thay be a part of his character.
I hope Blade goes globe trotting for more monsters after this arc is over. No sidekicks needed.
I know certain people have talked about Hannibal King here and there, but Blade's operating on a whole different scale than how he was handled in the 70s (especially back then when it was assumed that Hannibal was the "real" vampire and Blade was simply athletic and just had bite/hypnotism immunity). I'm not sure that Hannibal adds anything to the dynamic.
Yea I kinda think guggenheim permanently sidelined Hannibal king by giving him that antidote to the thirst. He never really enjoyed being a hero
https://www.comicsxf.com/2024/02/08/blade-8-preview/
Next week issue Preview, Satana appearance.
The Avengers are Firefighters. We're the ones who fly into the blaze, whatever it is. Because we're the ones who
can, so we're the ones who have to.~Captain Marvel
She's actually appeared with Blade a couple of times. They were in that Spirits of Vengeance book together a few years back, and she appeared in a couple of issues of Strikeforce with Blade too. Seemed like they were fine with each other then
I highly dislike the horned Satana look. It emerged a few years back and I've been waiting for it to go away for literally any reason.
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