If We Can Recast T’Challa, Why Not Blade?

Full disclosure: That’s fan made, not official. Also, it’s not that I care about Blade, Marvel’s famed “daywalker” vampire hunter. All know about Blade comes from the Fox Kids Spider-Man cartoon. I don’t care about vampire stories in general, and I don’t need something to be rated “R” for me to think it’s good, including (and usually especially) superhero stories. I saw vampires on Saturday morning as far back as the 1970s who were still better than Twilight’s alterations because they were still a threat, though sometimes just to villains. Drak Pack is actually one of a few examples of crimefighting vampires. Exceptions exist like Count Von Count from Sesame Street, or Dingbat from Dingbat & The Creeps but one is teaching kids numbers and the other is a wacky comedy. Point is, I have no horse in this race, but this is something that’s odd to me and I would like to see if anyone can explain it.

See, I’m one of the voices that wanted T’Challa to be recast in the Marvel Cinematic Universe after the unfortunate passing of Chadwick Boseman, and I wonder if he would have taken on the role, knowing what we all know now between his health and the reactions at Marvel Studios to let the character die and replace him with his sister in violation of lore they couldn’t care less about because it came from a dirty comic book, that media for losers that they’re “improving” by making it all for and about them and screw you, geeks. The important people are taking your stuff because popularity is for them alone. Hollywood is so much like high school…but I’m getting off track.

The point is I’ve seen some of the same voices that were part of #RecastT’Challa on social media insisting that one way to get the ever-delayed MCU version of Blade out there to a happy audience is to forget Mahershala Ali, the actor who has seen his role trapped in development hell and bring back Wesley Snipes, who does enjoy the role and is currently between tax violations. Fans loved the Blade movies and I can understand that. What I can’t understand is the same people against replacing him are some of the same people willing to replace another Marvel hero.

A lot of the same arguments for replacing T’Challa still exist when it comes to Blade. At over 60 years old (granted, Ali is 50, which may still be too old but I’m not as familiar with the character’s frozen physical age, being half-vampire after one bit his mother during childbirth), he isn’t going to be able to do the action scenes much longer, if he can at all. I don’t think we want the late career Steven Segal version of Wesley Snipes, and if he passes or goes back to prison you’d have to replace him anyway. Disney’s track record with this is crap. They replaced General Ross after William Hurt passed away with Harrison Ford. Meanwhile T’Challa got replaced as a character out of alleged respect to Boseman despite both his and his family’s wishes that the character continue on, and they replaced Kang with Robert Downey Von Doom for their big multiverse arc nobody asked for after Jonathan Majors got his own prison time for domestic violence charges. In short, Disney and Marvel Studios have no idea what they’re doing, which has been obvious since Avengers: Endgame.

First appearing in 1973 (cover dated July, but released in April so we almost shared a birthday) in the pages of Tomb Of Dracula, which is canon in the Marvel Universe, Eric Cross, aka Blade The Vampire Slayer (long before a certain high school cheerleader) is a Marvel comics character, like T’Challa. He also has not appeared in the MCU unless you count Deadpool & Wolverine and I’m not sure Kevin Feige does. In fact I’m pretty sure he doesn’t considering how little he seems to care about anything prior to gaining full control after the committee that kept the adaptations on track with the comics were kicked out for doing their jobs right, making fans happy, and thus making the merchandise valuable. So in the proper NOT-616, Snipes wasn’t Blade, and we’ve seen different actors represent different universes in both Doctor Strange and Spider-Man’s entries in the multiverse arc, and that’s continuing with Mister Fantastic.

By insisting there is “no other Blade”, you’re making the same mistake Feige did by saying there is no other T’Challa except Boseman. Both characters were created years before either many played the role. Black Panther did a few animated appearances while Blade has the one I knew of before this article, the aforementioned Spider-Man appearances. He didn’t even show up on Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends when Dracula pursued Starfire. However, while Blade has had fewer out of comics appearances (the following video is probably all of them as of this writing), it’s not like Snipes is the only, or even first, to play the role.

(That’s not even counting the video games. YouTube video here showing that history. Some of them look like they suck…no pun intended.)

So why is it okay to replace Boseman, or other aging out actors according to fans who were even willing to see a new Tony Stark if Robert Downey Jr was done (though apparently he’s willing to come back as Doom and really confuse us all as to what they were thinking or where that story’s going to go given Doom never removes his mask except to eat and bathe while Marvel Studios can’t let an actor go five seconds as a masked voice), but only one actor must play Blade forever. We had a similar discussion recently with Optimus Prime and the reasons for Transformers One failing. The comics (or in Prime’s case the toys) came first. They’re the source material. This isn’t Blade Runner or the Mad Max series, where an actor created the character. Harley Quinn was created for Arleen Sorkin, and despite being the most recent character in this article Sorkin is one of over 20 people to play the fallen psychologist.

Snipes was never the Blade of the MCU, and he’s not irreplaceable, any more than Adam West, Christopher Reeves, Tobey McGuire, Rino Romano (my favorite Spider-Man VA), Lou Ferrigno (who has played Hulk physically and in animation), or any other actor who has played a character from a comics in person or in vocals. We can have a new Blade with a new take we can only hope matches the source material, but that’s on the director and screenwriters, not the actor.

So if they find the right actor, why not have a new Blade? What’s makes him more special than the Black Panther?