Is Blade Marvel’s First Black Superhero?
Blade
Blade was not Marvel’s first black Superhero. He first appeared in Fantastic Four #52.
The Falcon also predates Blade.
Luke Cage, Hero for Hire, was the first Black Superhero to have his own comic book.
Blade first appeared in Tomb of Dracula #10, a year after Luke Cage’s first appearance.
Blade wasn’t a superhero. He was a vampire hunter who used wooden knives. His mother had been bitten by a vampire, so he wore dark glasses at night, and he was partially immune to vampire bites.
On to movies. The first black character from a Marvel Comic was J from Men in Black (1997).
Men in Black is not part of the Marvel Universe. It began as an independent comic and was acquired by Malibu which Marvel acquired.
Blade hit the big screens in the 1998 movie Blade. This changed the character. In this version he was half-vampire.
It’s questionable if he counts as Marvel’s first black superhero. This was the first movie licensed by Marvel to feature someone with superhuman powers. But it was not made by Marvel.
The first black superhero in a movie made by Marvel was James Rhodes in Iron Man 2.
The first black Marvel superhero to get a TV show was Luke Cage (again). But this was a Netflix series licensed from Marvel.
And the first black superhero to be the lead in an MCU movie was the Black Panther (again).
Marvel has announced an official MCU Blade movie for 2025; although that is a “troubled” production, they are still looking for a script.
But back to the 1998 movie starring Wesley Snipes. It was significant, but not because it had a black star. In the 1990s, comic book movies tended to be campy. The Batman movies started well, but by 1997, they had descended into Batman Nipples and one-liners from Mr. Freeze.
Men in Black and Blade showed that comic book movies could be made without being the least campy—and they could make money. Men in Black was a huge success, making over a half billion dollars (1997). Blade didn’t do as well, but its $131 million was very successful for the time.
Without those movies, superhero movies like X-Men, Spider-Man and the entire MCU would never have gotten funding.
