Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was even an idea in some executive’s head, there were Marvel movies bringing some of their most iconic characters to the big screen, albeit in a more divided fashion. Spider-Man, the X-Men and even the Fantastic Four got big blockbuster movies that helped put Marvel’s superhero characters on the map.
But before all of them, there was another Marvel character making bank at the box office. One who you might not even consider a superhero and whose film was not just grittier and darker than most comic book material, but even debuted in movie form with an R rating. I’m talking, of course, about Blade.
Eric Brooks — better known as Blade — is a Dhampir, which is to say a human and vampire hybrid, who basically has all the powers of vampires but without most of their weaknesses, meaning for example that he can walk through sunlight without being harmed, a feat that has earned him the nickname The Daywalker.
Despite being part-vampire himself, he is a hero in the Marvel Comics universe who predominately deals with hunting vampires and saving innocents from falling prey to these creatures of the night.
Even though he is largely free from vampire weaknesses, he does still need to consume human blood but he tends to use a special serum to offset his bloodlust rather than feast on humans like his foes would.
Because of the dark subject matter of vampires and horror themes, Blade comics can get pretty gritty and bloody, which puts him at an odd spot in the comics since the more mainstream heroes tend to be a bit more lighthearted or “PG-13” than Blade can be.
Blade is a very interesting character when it comes to Marvel Comics. Although Marvel has always had a wide variety of genres and approaches to their various characters, despite the vast majority of them sharing the same universe, Blade still sticks out massively as a character who is a lot more famous than his comic presence would have you believe.
Unlike previous characters I’ve covered in this article series like Daredevil’s over 700 issues or Fantastic Four who go even higher, Blade actually doesn’t even have 40 issues to his name.
Back in 1998 when his first movie released? There were only 10 issues that were actually focused on Blade specifically, so he was a very minor character even at the time.
Of course, like many other Marvel characters, Blade has had a presence in the comics besides his own run, whether it be as part of a team like the Midnight Sons or just having crossover appearances in other characters’ storylines, but it’s still impressive that New Line Cinema took a chance on such an obscure character… and even more impressive that it massively paid off.
The success of 1998’s Blade, starring Wesley Snipes in the title role, led to a full movie trilogy as the film was followed by Blade II in 2002 and Blade: Trinity in 2004 and we even saw Snipes return to the role last year in Deadpool & Wolverine which brought back several old characters from the pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe days.
Since Blade is so separated from the superhero side of the universe as well as has a fairly low publishing history compared to most other characters you’d see in movies, it’s not uncommon to hear someone go “Wait, Blade’s a Marvel character?” which actually makes him an even better fit for a crossover like Marvel vs. Capcom, where one of the fun things about the roster is to surprise fans by bringing out characters you may not expect.
Another character who is often mistaken as a non-Marvel character is the comedic Howard the Duck who we recently learned was actually being developed for the original Marvel vs. Capcom, but Marvel appeared to get cold feet out of worry that they’d get in trouble with Disney if fans mistook him for Donald Duck.
Of course, Blade has no such issues as he doesn’t directly resemble other famous characters to the degree that Howard the Duck might, certainly not any of Disney’s roster before they purchased Marvel, and while he never was mentioned as being on the table for the early Marvel vs. Capcom games, he actually was considered for Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
“There was just too much similarity with Dante…” — Ryota Niitsuma
Back in 2017, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 producer Ryota Niitsuma went on a tweeting spree on Twitter (now known as X) where he explained the reasoning for many characters that were originally considered for the game, with Blade being one of them.
Unfortunately, his comment on Blade is a bit anticlimactic — all he had to say about the fighter was that “There was just too much similarity with Dante…”
It makes sense at first glance — they both wear tenchcoats, they both wield big swords and they both use guns when they’re too far away to be slashing and even the gimmick of being half-vampire feels like it has some overlap with the Devil May Cry protagonists’ half-demon status.
Even so, surely there’s enough to draw on here to make them distinct from each other. Despite the trenchcoat, they’re not visually similar enough to confuse them since Dante is pale as a ghost and wears a bright red trenchcoat, while Blade himself is a Black man (British also, if you’re curious) wearing a pitch black trenchcoat.
Also, Dante’s moves are all about style and pizzazz while Blade would likely be a much more direct assassin or slayer, so even though I can kind of see Niitsuma’s point I really do feel like there’s more than enough room to differentiate between the two in their movesets even if their general archetype is similar, especially when they have such different personalities.
Blade hasn’t really popped up too much since his movie trilogy ended so while his relevance isn’t at the peak it once was, there could still be hope for him to appear in future Marvel fighting game projects if they were to happen.
There’s been a long-standing Blade reboot starring Mahershala Ali which has unfortunately gotten stuck in development hell and if it ever makes it out of it, we’re likely to see a lot more discourse surrounding the character again.
Marvel Rivals, the latest popular game featuring Marvel’s superheroes, also had Blade show up in a stage cameo in the second half of its first season, though he still has yet to be added as a playable character.
He may be in something of a limbo in most areas right now, but if we do see a new Marvel vs. Capcom game there’s a good chance that whoever’s in charge of it will take another look at Blade and decide “we have to get this guy in”, even with Dante in the roster (because you know there’s no way he’s missing out on future installments).
As a character who’s mainstream media presence eclipses his comic presence, it’s a bit surprising that Blade has never gotten into a fighting game roster after so many Marvel games have been published.
But that also makes it feel like he’s got an even better shot at making it in for any future games since he already managed to kickstart Marvel’s movie success back in 1998 and most definitely has not been forgotten by fans.
