6 Years Later, A Highly-Anticipated Marvel Hero Finally Makes Their MCU Debut, And Their Fate Is Shocking

Marvel Studios has a knack for bringing in new and exciting characters with every new release. This year alone saw the MCU debut for deep cut Marvel characters like The Sentry, plus fan-favorites like the entire Fantastic Four, and even Red Hulk. Even on the television side of their slate, Marvel continues to wrangle together notable pillars from their stories for live-action and animation. Daredevil: Born Again delivered the villain Muse into the MCU and this year’s Ironheart saw the devil of the entire Marvel Universe arrive with Mephisto. The latest Marvel release has an MCU debut that is six years in the making.

At San Diego Comic-Con 2019, just after Avengers: Endgame‘s release, Marvel Studios was taking a victory lap; the studio seemed unbeatable. That panel marked the moment that projects like Thor: Love and Thunder, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but also when the first Disney+ shows were revealed, including WandaVision, Loki, and Hawkeye. Kevin Feige’s final announcement was the one fans are still waiting on: the reveal that Mahershala Ali will play Blade in the MCU. Now, with Marvel Zombies, Blade has finally entered the MCU, but it comes with a couple of asterisks, plus spoilers.

The MCU’s Blade Finally Debuts, But Not How You Expect

The presence of Blade in Marvel Zombies wasn’t a surprise to anyone, he was confirmed by Marvel to be a central character in the story quite a while ago. That said, there are some major differences between the Blade seen in this animated TV series and what we may very well get in live-action. Though the Blade in Marvel Zombies is clearly modeled after Mahershala Ali’s likeness, the Oscar-winning actor does not lend his voice to the character; instead, Todd Williams voices Blade. But that’s not where the differences end.

Blade in Marvel Zombies is, of course, still a half-vampire, but he gets a bit of an upgrade in the series as he’s taken on a new title: Moon Knight. Though many know Marc Spector as the avatar of Khonshu, Moon Knight is actually a title passed to many other heroes throughout Marvel history. As revealed in the series, Spector seemingly died at some point in the zombie invasion, leading the Egyptian deity to make Blade his new avatar.

One place that this version of Blade almost certainly matches the expectations of fans is how he handles himself in combat. Appearing across all four episodes of the series, Blade makes use of his trademark weapon to take down countless zombified heroes, including a key scene with the matter-shifting Ghost and a moment in the final episode where he slices a tiny zombified Hank Pym. That said, Blade does suffer a surprising fate, perishing in the final fight against the Scarlet Witch and her zombie army, annihilated to dust by a wave of her chaos magic. The good news is this won’t be the last time the MCU brings us Blade, at least, in theory.

What’s Next for Blade in the MCU?

As noted, Mahershala Ali as Blade was confirmed to be in the works six years ago. Technically, he made an uncredited appearance in a Marvel movie already, with his voice being heard in the post-credit scene for Marvel’s Eternals, a scene that has not been paid off by the studio in any meaningful way.

Furthermore, progress has started and stopped on the Blade solo movie a number of times over the years with two different directors hired and exiting the project in that time. Countless writers have also been attached to the Blade movie, including True Detective‘s Nic Pizzolatto and X-Men ’97‘s Beau DeMayo. Even the cast has been unable to stay attached, with actors like Delroy Lindo and Aaron Pierre attached to star in the film only to confirm later that they were no longer involved (Pierre would move to the distinguished competition as the project lingered, starring as Green Lantern John Stewart in the upcoming HBO TV series Lanterns).

For Blade, Marvel fans remain in “wait and see” mode. No official progress appears to have been made on the movie in some time, with the last update coming a year ago when the project was officially removed from Disney’s release calendar. If there’s one thing we know about the Day Walker, though, he’s always out there somewhere.

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The MCU’s Blade Delay Forced an Unplanned Power Upgrade for His First MCU Appearance [EXCLUSIVE]