The MCU Is Finally Giving Us the Violent Blade We’ve Wanted for 6 Years (With a Twist)

At long last, Blade is finally sort of making his MCU debut, and with an unexpected multiversal reworking. Marvel Studios’ Blade reboot has been an MCU project that has not only failed to materialize, but has also done so over the course of a very extended timeline, belying the fireworks of the movie’s San Diego Comic Con announcement. However, after all of that waiting, Blade is finally arriving in the MCU in Marvel’s next show.

The thoroughly bloody animated series Marvel Zombies will see the heroes of the MCU must battle a zombie outbreak. The big twist on Blade is that not only is Marvel Zombies set in an alternate reality as one wing of Marvel’s What If…? multiverse stories, but the Blade seen in the show’s trailer is a variant of the Blade in the traditional sense of the character’s history.

Due to the alternate universe setting of Marvel Zombies, the show’s Blade is actually a combination of Blade and Moon Knight, with the character officially called Blade Knight on the series. At any rate, the glimpse of Blade Knight seen in the Marvel Zombies trailer is a phenomenal first look at a version of the MCU’s Daywalker. At the same time, it might also hint at some less-than-thrilling news about the MCU’s mainline Blade still awaiting the chance to make his proper debut.

The Blade in Marvel Zombies Is Everything Fans of the Daywalker Have Waited For

Though the glimpse of Blade Knight seen in the Marvel Zombies trailer is relatively brief, it is more than enough to show the Daywalker at the top of his game as a slayer of a subset of the undead. Faced with an enemy with super-speed that borders on teleportation, Blade Knight can keep up with and deflect his enemy’s strikes from every angle at blinding speed. After Blade Knight finally strikes down his opponent, slashes her to multiple pieces, the MCU’s Daywalker has more than made his mark in his first animated appearance.

Owing to his multiverse-based splicing with Moon Knight, Blade Knight sports a version of Moon Knight’s costume, with the animated Daywalker also bearing Mahershala Ali’s likeness. Overall, the Blade seen in the Marvel Zombies trailer is at once a version of the Daywalker unique to Marvel Studios, and one whose skill in swordplay, martial arts, and vampire (or in this case zombie) hunting is very much up to par with the standards set by Wesley Snipes’ OG Blade.

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The MCU’s Blade Remains Bafflingly Stuck in Limbo

To call Blade‘s development hell an MCU project confounding would be putting it lightly. The Mahershala Ali-led Blade project was first announced at 2019’s San Diego Comic Con, that is to say six years ago and counting at writing. While it’s certainly fair to give Blade some degree of leeway on the project’s development delays due to the impact of the COVID-19, that would still leave Blade with roughly a half decade of zero progress, and a time frame in which Wesley Snipes even managed to take up the Daywalker’s sword again for 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, no less (along with Ryan Reynolds also championing a Logan-style Blade send-off for Snipes). What makes these delays especially flabbergasting is the fact that Blade, as a character, has never seemed to be such a tough nut to crack.

Original Blade screenwriter David S. Goyer shared exactly that sentiment in an interview with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, with Goyer describing Blade as “a relatively simple story“, and it’s certainly a valid description of the character. He keeps in the shadows, he slays vampires, and he moves on to the next hunt when he is done. With all of that said, with Marvel Zombies effectively combining Blade with Moon Knight, the version of the Daywalker seen in the trailer is more of a team player than usual, but one nonetheless still true to his roots as a master of slicing, dicing, and spin-kicking undead enemies. In turn, Blade’s appearance in the Marvel Zombies trailer raises another, equally pertinent question.

Marvel Zombies will be released on Disney+ on September 24th.

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