Marv Wolfman Christopher Golden Popular Books

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Blade (birth name: Eric Cross Brooks; legal name: Frank Blade) is a fictional character and antihero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Marv Wolfman and penciller Gene Colan, his first appearance was in the comic book The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973) as a supporting character, but he later went on to star in his own storylines. Devoting his life to ridding the world of all vampires, Blade utilizes his unique physiology to become the perfect vampire hunter. While originally depicted as a human immune to vampire bites, Blade was retroactively established to be a dhampir following his adaptation as such in Spider-Man: The Animated Series and the Blade film series. He is the father of Brielle "Bri" Brooks (Bloodline). The character has been substantially adapted from the comics into various forms of media, including films, television series, video games, and his own animated series. Blade was portrayed by Wesley Snipes in the films Blade, Blade II and Blade: Trinity, and by Sticky Fingaz in the television series Blade: The Series. Mahershala Ali has been cast as the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) media franchise, debuting with an uncredited vocal cameo in the film Eternals (2021) ahead of the character's upcoming standalone film (2025). Publication history Blade was introduced as a supporting character in Marvel Comics' The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973), written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by Gene Colan. The artist recalled in 2003, "Marv told me Blade was a black man, and we talked about how he should dress, and how he should look – very heroic looking. That was my input. [...] The bandolier of blades – that was Marv's idea. But, I dressed him up. I put the leather jacket on him and so on". Colan based the character's features on "a composite of black actors" including NFL football star-turned-actor Jim Brown. He initially sported 1970s-style Afro hair and wielded teak-bladed knives. Blade appeared in issues #10–21, with frequent appearances until #61 in 1977. Wolfman spoke on the character's inception during an interview: When I was at DC I was working with a partner and we were working on the Teen Titans, a different version of it than I later did and came up with a Black superhero and we wrote it, and it was drawn and everything and for one reason or another the story was never published, there were all sorts of explanation but I was never there, all I know is the story was never published, and one of the promises I made to myself was that the next character is created, would be a Black character like the character for Teen Titans, because I didn't think Black characters were represented at all in comics to any great degree. I felt coming from New York City, going to a school, and everybody who attends that high school is pretty much everybody who lives within a few blocks of you, because that's the way it works, I went to school in Manhattan, called High school of Art and Design, and it took people of all of New York, you saw people of all kinds there, so it didn't sound strange to me, to use a Black character, and I just never understood why they didn't, so [when] I came up with Blade it came to me literally in a second. I'm not joking, I had just gotten the Dracula assignment, and I wasn't thinking about anything, suddenly, the character came full blown, I knew exactly who he was and what he looked like, and I knew everything about him. Wolfman recalled in 2009, I knew if I let him, Blade would eclipse the other characters so I pulled him back and let original supporting characters Rachel, Frank and Quincy shine. I also wasn't happy with my Blade dialogue, so I pulled him out of the book for a while — I think almost a year — and when I brought him back I played him a bit straighter. The early Blade dialogue was cliche 'Marvel Black' dialogue. Later on, I tried to make him more real. But it took growing up as a writer. Outside The Tomb of Dracula, he fought the scientifically-created vampire Morbius the Living Vampire in the latter's series in Adventure into Fear #24 (Oct. 1974), in a story written by Steve Gerber and penciled by P. Craig Russell. Blade's first solo story came in Marvel's black-and-white horror-comics magazine Vampire Tales #8 (Dec. 1974), in an 11-page story by Wolfman and penciller-inker Tony DeZuniga. This feature continued in issue #9 (Feb. 1975), with Wolfman and Chris Claremont co-scripting. This story was concluded in a 56-page solo story in the black-and-white showcase magazine Marvel Preview #3 (Sept. 1975), written by Claremont, with two chapters each drawn by DeZuniga and by Rico Rival (this story was announced for Vampire Tales #12, but was published here after that magazine was cancelled). A six-page backup story by Wolfman and Colan followed in Marvel Preview #8 (Fall 1976). Blade next came into prominence in the 1990s, beginning with Ghost Rider #28 (Aug. 1992), in the Midnight Sons imprint that included issues of Darkhold: Pages from the Book of Sins, Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider/Blaze: Spirits of Vengeance, Midnight Sons Unlimited, Morbius, and Nightstalkers. Blade co-starred in the 18-issue series Nightstalkers, and appeared with that team in a story in the anthology issue Midnight Sons Unlimited #1 (April 1993). He appeared in two solo stories, in Midnight Sons Unlimited #2 and 7 (July 1993 and Oct. 1994). Following the cancellation of Nightstalkers, Blade debuted in his first color-comics series, Blade the Vampire Hunter #1–10 (July 1994 – April 1995), written by Ian Edginton (with the last two issues by Terry Kavanagh) and penciled by Doug Wheatley. Blade next appeared in a 12-page inventory story in issue #1 (Feb. 1997) of the short-lived black-and-white anthology series Marvel: Shadows and Light. He then starred again in two solo one-shots: Blade: Crescent City Blues #1 (March 1998), by writer Christopher Golden and penciller and co-creator Colan; and Blade: Sins of the Father #1 (Oct. 1998), by writer Marc Andreyko and penciller Bart Sears. Marvel next announced a six-issue miniseries, Blade (storyline: "Blade: Blood Allies") by the writer Don McGregor and penciller Brian Hagen, but only issues #1–3 (Nov. 1998–Jan. 1999) were published. Marvel published a different six-issue miniseries later that year, Blade: Vampire Hunter (storyline: "Chaos (A)"; Dec. 1999 – May 2000), written and, except the last two issues, pencilled by Bart Sears. The next ongoing series, Blade vol. 2 by writer Christopher Hinz and artist Steve Pugh, ran six issues, published by Marvel MAX in 2002. Blade vol. 3 by the writer Marc Guggenheim and penciller-inker Howard Chaykin, ran 12 issues (Sept. 2006–Aug. 2007). The final two pages of the last issue were drawn by co-creator Colan. Blade also starred in two promotional comic books: Blade #1⁄2 (1999) by writer-artist Sears and inker Bill Sienkiewicz, bundled with issues of Wizard: The Comic Magazine #2000; and Blade: Nightstalking .... Discover the Marv Wolfman Christopher Golden popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Marv Wolfman Christopher Golden books.