Blood Hunt: Everything to Know about Marvel's Bloodiest Event Ever
Here's your Blood Hunt checklist and everything else to know about Marvel's vampire event.
Marvel's next mega-event is out for blood. The bloodshed begins in Blood Hunt #1 by writer Jed MacKay (Moon Knight, Avengers) and artist Pepe Larraz (X-Men, Fall of the House of X), the beginning of a crossover event in the same vein as Marvel's Civil War and Secret Invasion. The five-issue series will spawn spinoffs, one-shots, and tie-in issues of ongoing titles like Amazing Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, with Blade, Dracula, Werewolf by Night, Morbius the Living Vampire, and more supernatural surprises emerging from the shadows when a cursed eternal night falls over the Marvel Universe.
Blood Hunt begins with an event named Sundeath, when the world is plunged into darkness. The Avengers determine that users of the Darkforce — Blackout, Cloak, Darkstar, Dusk, Silhouette among them — have been turned into living portals to the Darkforce Dimension, darkening the skies so that vampires can rise from the dark and drown the Marvel Universe in blood.
Before sinking your teeth into Blood Hunt, here's everything you need to know about "the bloodiest Marvel event ever."
Blood Hunt Checklist
- Blood Hunt #1—5 (Main Series) / Blood Hunt: Red Band #1—5
- Free Comic Book Day 2024: Blood Hunt/X-Men #1 (Prelude)
- Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt #1—3
- Black Panther: Blood Hunt #1—3
- Blood Hunters #1—4
- Dracula: Blood Hunt #1—3
- Hulk: Blood Hunt #1
- Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt #1—3
- Strange Academy: Blood Hunt #1—3
- Union Jack the Ripper: Blood Hunt #1—3
- Werewolf by Night: Blood Hunt #1
- Wolverine: Blood Hunt #1—4
- X-Men: Blood Hunt — Jubilee #1
- X-Men: Blood Hunt — Laura Kinney the Wolverine #1
- X-Men: Blood Hunt — Psylocke #1
- Amazing Spider-Man #49
- Avengers #14—16
- Doctor Strange #15—17
- Fantastic Four #21—22
- Vengeance of the Moon Knight #5—7
- Venom #33—34
Blood Hunt Red Band Editions
Blood Hunt promises to be a bloodbath, so Marvel will release Blood Hunt Red Band Editions: expanded and unexpurgated versions that contain additional pages and more graphic art too explicit for the regular edition. The Red Band Editions mark the first time that a different edition of the same Marvel comic book is produced for more mature readers.
"Red Band Editions of Blood Hunt will feature some real vistas of carnage dreamed up by Pepe, unfettered as he is by the usual restraints," MacKay said in Marvel's Blood Hunt Diaries #1. "We thought of where we could push things over the top — and I think we succeeded."
Blood Hunt: The Heroes
Heroes at the center of the event include Blade, the Vampire Hunter; his daughter, Bloodline; the Miles Morales Spider-Man; the Avengers; the sorcerers Doctor Strange and Clea; and the Midnight Mission, who worked with Moon Knight before his death: Marc Spector's vampire assistant, Reese; Hunter's Moon, a fellow Fist of Khonshu; Soldier, an ex-mercenary; 8-Ball, a reformed criminal; and the feline super hero Tigra.
"Blade has a pivotal role to play," MacKay teased. "You can't have a vampire event without the Daywalker."
Blood Hunt: The Villains
Dracula, lord of the vampires, is also at the heart of the event, along with a new team of supervampires who feed on the blood of superhumans: The Bloodcoven. Along with Bloodstorm One — a Hydra-created clone of Dracula — the team includes Megrim, Cruel, Unusual, the Damascene, and Smoke Eater.
"Dracula is sitting pretty at the beginning of Blood Hunt — he's the head of a vampire nation, a first for vampires in the modern age," MacKay said. "Now, you'd think that would be enough for him... but vampires aren't known for their contentment."
Blood Hunt #1 is on sale May 1 from Marvel Comics.
