Black Superheroes: Blade

"Some motherf@#$ers are always trying to ice skate uphill!"

Name: Eric Cross Brooks

First Appearance: The Tomb of Dracula #10 (1973)

History: Tara Vanessa Cross-Brooks, who was in labor, sought shelter at a brothel in London, England. A doctor was called in after she started experiencing complications, but it turned out that it was a vampire in disguise: Deacon Frost. Frost drained Tara of her blood before being chased away. Sadly, Tara did not survive the incident. Her son, Eric Brooks, who was still in the womb when she was bitten, lived despite odds. Because of the circumstances of his birth, Eric was born with a natural immunity to vampire bites and an innate and deep hatred of all vampires. He was raised in the brothel for a few years before he came under the tutelage of veteran vampire hunter Jamal Afari, who trained him in his profession. Over the years Eric became an Olympic-level athlete, a top notch fighter, and a master of weapon combat, though he was especially skilled with knives and daggers which earned him the nickname “Blade.”

Blade would become one of the most prominent vampire hunters in the world, with clashes with the legendary vampire Dracula to his name and teaming up with other famous hunters. However, his life took an unexpected turn years later when he encountered Morbius, the Living Vampire. Morbius bit him and, likely due to his significantly different nature compared to other vampires and possibly because of Blade’s unique physiology, the British hunter had a sort of mutation that granted him super strength and more obvious vampiric traits (including fangs and a bloodlust) but an immunity of sunlight and other weaknesses. With his training, years of experience, and his newfound powers, the “Daywalker” is the most famous, skilled, and feared vampire slayer in the world.

Blade is the only one capable of stopping Morbin Time
Well, Blade and Box Office returns...

Beta Says: Wow, I cannot believe that I’ve been doing Black Superheroes Month since 2011 and it took me all this time to remember to write about Blade, who was the goddamn most famous comic book character in America for a bit. I think it’s two reasons: 1) I feel like I kept pushing Blade back saying “I’ll do him next year” in favor of a character I found more interesting and 2) I sometimes forget Blade exists, as he’s actually not all that popular in the comics. He’s a C-tier character at best and yeah, every few years Marvel will try to give him an ongoing, but they always end up canceled. It’s crazy to think that Blade is kind of ho-hum in terms of comics prevalence, considering he single handedly saved the concept of superhero movies.

More on the weird dichotomy of Blade after the jump.

Gee, I wonder why they gave him a fade and black leather?

Blade was originally created for the cult classic 1970s quasi-horror comic The Tomb of Dracula. Horror in comic books is one of the most interesting and ultimately tragic stories in the medium, but it’s not important enough to today’s topic to bother getting into. All you need to know is that the Comics Code Authority put a stop to vampires appearing in comics two decades before this, but a more lenient interpretation of the code led Marvel to starting bringing back of the more cartoony horror creatures, including Dracula. Blade was one of many characters introduced over the comics’ run. Like Luke Cage, he was created based on the Blaxploitation trend in films at the time (note the funky fresh afro).

Modern fans might be surprised to see the rather goofy character design of Blade from this time period but might be even more surprised to learn that he didn't get his trademark “Daywalker” powers (all the vampire’s strengths, none of the weaknesses) until well over two decades later (we’ll get to that shortly). The only superpowers he initially had was an immunity to vampire bites and…that’s it.

Following the end of Tomb of Dracula, Blade would make sporadic appearances over the years but as a niche character in a niche subgenre he was part of his own little corner of the Marvel Universe and rarely interacted with more prominent characters. It wasn’t until the 1990s that Bade started becoming a bit more prominent as books like the Nightstalkers (a team of vampire hunters) and team-ups including the Midnight Sons, both focusing on the supernatural side of Marvel, became popular with a section of fans. Blade would start to interact with more mainstream characters like Ghost Rider and Morbius the Living Vampire. This was all still pretty cult-like stuff and Blade was as far away from the top of Marvel’s hierarchy as you could get. Maybe an occasional guest spot in Spider-Man or whatever, but not much more.

Pictured: A good argument for making changes from comic to film

Things changed later in the decade. New Line Cinema had acquired the film rights for Blade and while superhero movies had become extremely toxic in Hollywood following the critical disaster of Batman & Robin in 1997, Blade being such an obscure character likely helped shield him from some of the blowback as most people at the time wouldn’t have even known he was from a comic. Furthermore, the filmmakers opted to heavily tweak several aspects of Blade’s character. He was redesigned to the long coat and sunglasses wearing character we’re more familiar with. It also revamped his powers, giving him the physical strength and speed of the vampires he fights while also cursing him with the bloodlust as well, but being immune to sunlight thus earning the epithet “the Daywalker.” Also, instead do being English, he was now American and from Detroit specifically. And they cast Wesley Snipes, in likely his most iconic role, who brought an air of cool that the character had never previously possessed.

While the film was in preproduction, the team behind Spider-Man: The Animated Series caught wind of this and made near identical changes to the character there as well, further spreading the misinformation that Blade had always been that way.

Anyway, the Blade movie was s a huge hit, so much so that Hollywood completely changed their tune on superhero movies, paving the way for X-Men and Spider-Man to get the greenlight, which in turn helped set up for Marvel Studios to begin making movies. Blade himself became an icon in pop culture. An incredibly slick black hero played by one of the coolest actors of the day was nothing to sneeze at. For a brief time, it’s very easy to say he was the most popular and lucrative comic character in the industry.

Blade in his natural habitat:
Looking cool on a cover before vanishing for a few years

Except in the comics. Despite the popularity of the film, Blade never enjoyed anything close to the prominence in the comic as he did in Hollywood. The biggest thing Marvel did for him was write a convoluted plot to explain their Blade getting similar powers as the movie-Blade in 1999. Even now, almost three decades later, Blade has never been anything other than a c-lister, doomed to have short-lived solo series cancelled before they could get going and regulated to occasional guest spots in more popular books. I think the reason is that Marvel couldn’t quite figure how to make Blade a more central character in the superhero part of their universe. After all, Bade fights vampires and vampires aren’t exactly a major threat in Marvel most days of the week. It would seem the writers and editors couldn’t be bothered to come up with any clever way to bring Blade into the spotlight alongside Spider-Man and the X-Men for any reasonable length of time.

Which is ludicrous. Marvel should have forced the issue with Blade as they had a duty to the new fans who are suddenly curious about his comic book counterpart, and a duty to their own pocketbooks, to try to make Blade a more prominent character since way back in’98. He is, against all odds, an extremely recognizable black hero, who is probably as popular of Black Panther in pop culture, and Marvel has been content to let him linger in the background. Yeah, I get it; perhaps he’s not selling books all that well, but frankly Marvel made a point to force Captain Marvel and, hell, even the Avengers in the 2000s to the top of their focus and both brands are doing relatively well today. There’s no reason they couldn’t do the same thing with Blade.

These days Blade is sort of lower-ish tier, but on the radar. This is mostly due to Marvel Studios having been trying to make a Blade remake the last few years, so he is currently enjoying a new series that debuted in 2023 as a result. Likely once that hype is done, he will slide back into his normal spot in his own little corner of the Marvel Universe where the writers don’t visit. He could be more. It’s not that difficult to find a reason for a person with superpowers to decide to use those powers to fight evil people with superpowers who aren’t vampires. Blade could be on the same tier as Black Panther or Storm if Marvel wanted him to be. Anyway, enjoy the current Blade series while it lasts.

Good start, but they'll need to fight Ultron or some other villain
Otherwise it' s a "team-up" and not a "superhero team"

For more on Blade visit World of Black Heroes. Next time we will look at a legacy character who’s behind the scenes creation is convoluted enough to make them interesting, even if their place in DC Comics does not reflect that.