Adaptation Displacement: Before it was made into a popular movie series, Blade was a somewhat obscure Marvel character that was a part of one canceled horror-superhero series after another. Since the movies, Marvel has attempted to bring him into the limelight many times, only to have his series cancelled due to a lack of readership. It seems that the guy just works better in the movies.
First film: Deacon Frost is a younger vampire who sets himself apart from the older vampire hierarchy and their preference to remain in the shadows to rule humanity from behind the scenes, desiring to openly reduce all humans to cattle by incarnating the evil blood god La Magra. Frost maintains a network of nightclubs where hapless humans are frequently killed for the vampires' feasts; kills a vampire elder in an exceptionally painful way by removing his teeth and letting him burn up in the sunrise; murders one of his human minions For the Evulz; throws a little girl into traffic to distract Blade; attacks Blade's mentor Whistler and leaves him for dead; and sacrifices the entire vampire council as part of the ritual to summon La Magra. However, Frost's worst crime is his past attack on Blade's then-pregnant mother and his transformation of her into a bloodsucking monster, later rubbing this fact in Blade's face to hurt him.
Blade II: Eli Damaskinos is the Overlord of the Vampire Nation, and the true villain behind the Reaper outbreak. A believer in the pureblood rhetoric of vampires, Damaskinos schemes to create an entirely new race of vampires to overthrow and slaughter humanity and vamprekind alike, with Damaskinos as the progenitor of the new species. In his quest for this, Damaskinos oversees routine mass murder of humans to harvest their bloods in such quantities as to fill factory reservoirs, and Damaskinos personally bathes in large pools of his victims' blood. Willing to forego all semblance of empathy or humanity to achieve his desires, Damaskinos experimented on his own son Jared Nomak to turn him into a Reaper before targeting him for death, and Damaskinos later sends his daughter Nyssa and her elite squadron to die at Nomak's hands, uncaring of the swathes of life lost in the process so long as he can raise an entire brood of vampire children to be experimented upon.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Whistler spends his time angry and being angry, and we love him for it.
Jerkass Woobie: Blade's morals and social skills leave quite a bit to be desired. In his defense, his life has been utter crap from day one.
Every now and again you'd see a review or two (especially regarding the sequels) that Blade was influenced by The Matrix due to the Badass Longcoats, Sunglasses at Night, Wire Fu and Bullet Time. Despite the fact all these things were very much present in the first film (1998) which was released before The Matrix (1999). The character was introduced in the Dracula comic books back in the 1970s; he didn't become popular until the 90s though.
Honest Trailers points out that the Blade trilogy actually predated Deadpool (2016) as the first R-rated superhero movie, and Black Panther as the first Marvel movie featuring a black superhero, something that entertainment news apparently forgot about when praising the latter two movies.
Narrator: Okay, look, it's fine if you don't remember Meteor Man,note The first movie ever to star a black superhero but there were three of these!
Tough Act to Follow: Wesley Snipes' iconic take on Blade. To such an extent that Blade: The Series drew negative comparisons. While some were disappointed that the Marvel Cinematic Universe wouldn't bring Snipes back, many liked the studio's choice, Mahershala Ali, though how well he'll do is to be seen. Though his cameo in Eternals shows that he already has the voice down, at least.
Watched It for the Representation: Way before the MCU was a thing, Marvel actually turned some heads with this trilogy back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Not only because he was, at the time, one of the lesser known heroes from their stockade, but because he was a person of color at that, so getting his own movie was certainly a draw for many African-Americans.
