He’s a blade-wielding warrior and defender of the night: Moon Knight (Mahershala Ali). Wait, what? Although the two-time Oscar-winning actor was cast as the titular vampire hunter in Marvel Studios’ Blade reboot back in 2019, Ali has, so far, only made an off-screen voice cameo as the character in a post-credits scene ending 2021’s Eternals. A version of Ali’s Blade technically appeared in the series-ending montage that aired in the final episode of Marvel’s animated series What If…?, which pondered the question: What if the Daywalker was the Crescent Crusader instead?
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The montage — which showed glimpses into the multiverse with a series of mashups that never made it into the show, like Black Panther/Storm, Wolverine/Thanos, Doctor Strange/Hulk, and Silver Surfer/Jubilee — briefly featured a version of Eric Brooks who became the Fist of Khonshu rather than Oscar Isaac’s Marc Spector.
Rather than the typically all-white costume worn by Spector and alter egos Steven Grant and Jake Lockley, the Blade Moon Knight was shown wearing a black-and-silver suit with a hooded white cape to match his all-white eyes (in lieu of his traditional black trenchcoat and sunglasses).
Viewers only caught a glimpse of the animated Ali as Moon Knight, but artist Justin Kim has shared a new look at Ali’s Blade — but in the Moon Knight armor. See the official art below.
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“I had the privilege of designing Blade as Moon Knight,” Kim wrote in the post. “My goal was to utilize the wrappings of Moon Knight to create sharp shapes and make it seem like he could pull a blade from anywhere on his body. I also figured both characters alluded to being a sort of ninja, so I pushed that archetype.”
While the lunar-themed Blade didn’t appear beyond a cameo in What If…?, the reimagined Blade/Moon Knight (Moon Blade? Blade Knight?) will return in Marvel Zombies. The four-episode event series, a spinoff of the “What If… Zombies?” episode of What If…?, will also feature characters like Spider-Man (Hudson Thames), Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani), Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), Black Widow (Florence Pugh), Hawkeye (Hailee Steinfeld), and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). The TV-MA series is set to premiere this October on Disney+.
As for the Blade movie first announced at San Diego Comic-Con in 2019, the oft-delayed reboot is without a director and a release date after Disney removed it from its release schedule in October. (See the timeline of the Blade delays here.)
Meanwhile, actor Wesley Snipes, who played the half-vampire, half-human vampire slayer in the Blade trilogy between 1998 and 2004, reprised the role in last summer’s Deadpool & Wolverine. We’ll let you know when Marvel’s Blade stakes out a new release date.
