Warning: Blood Hunt is a direct sequel to events in The Avengers (2023), Doctor Strange (2023), and Moon Knight (2021), so Late Arrival Spoilers for those comics may be unmarked on this page.
"Who will bite it?"
Blood Hunt is a 2024 comic book event from Marvel Comics, a Crisis Crossover set in the shared Marvel Universe. It's primarily created by writer Jed MacKay with artist by Pepe Larraz.
The event will see the Avengers, Doctor Strange, Moon Knight, and others become caught up in a Vampiric global uprising.
Comics involved with Blood Hunt:
- Preludes
- Free Comic Book Day 2024: Blood Hunt/X-Men #1
- Main Event:
- Blood Hunt #1-5
- Limited Series:
- Black Panther: Blood Hunt #1-3 - T'Challa is one of the first victims. Can he overcome his bloodlust to protect the kingdom he was exiled from?
- Union Jack the Ripper: Blood Hunt #1-3 - Britain's other iconic hero gears up for a vampiric fight.
- Blood Hunters #1-4 - An anthology series focusing on other heroes during this time of crisis with the main story focusing on Dagger recruiting heroes in her search for the missing Cloak.
- Dracula: Blood Hunt #1-3 - Dracula finds himself helping humanity, working alongside Bloodline, Blade's daughter.
- Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt #1-3 - Blade recruits Victoria Montesi, Ghost Riders Johnny Blaze, Danny Ketch and more to battle the vampire menace.
- Strange Academy: Blood Hunt #1-3 - the students of the Strange Academy turn to the Darkhold to save their home.
- Amazing Spider-Man: Blood Hunt #1-3 Spider-Man must find his old frenemy Michael Morbius as he's key to the vampires' plans.
- Tie-Ins
- The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #49 - Spidey vs. Vampires!
- The Avengers (2023) #14 - Steve Rogers recruits a new team (Hercules, Quicksilver, Hazmat and Kate Bishop) to battle the vampires!
- Fantastic Four (2022) #22 - Reed and Alicia trapped with vampires!
- Doctor Strange (2023) #15 - Stephen Strange, vampire!
- Venom (2021) #33 - Lee Price is back!
The first part of the event is scheduled for May 2024.
Blood Hunt provides examples of:
- Arc Welding: According
to MacKay in the initial press release, Blood Hunt will be spinning out of — and merging threads from — his current runs on Avengers, Doctor Strange, and Moon Knight. Indeed, the cover of the first issue showcases the casts of all three books (the Avengers, Hunter's Moon and Tigra, Stephen Strange, etc.) - The Bus Came Back: The leader of the Bloodcoven is none other than Bloodstorm One, a Modified Clone of Count Dracula who was created by Hydra and last seen in 1994's Nightstalkers #18.
- Continuity Overlap: With Invincible Iron Man (2022), as the initial promo poster and cover artwork for Blood Hunt #1 shows Tony Stark's wearing the Mark 72 Mysterium Armor that will be debuting in Tony book's just prior to the event.
- Crisis Crossover: Marvel's Summer 2024 event. Tie-ins include over half a dozen limited series and ongoing issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Venom, and MacKay's own trio of currently ongoing books.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Marvel's vampires. Pre-release artwork and solicitations show Blade, his daughter Bloodline, and Dracula all in prominent event roles.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Tony Stark's Mark 72 Mysterium armor, which will be debuting in Gerry Duggan's current run in early 2024, but which made its first appearance in the event's initial promo poster in October 2023.
- Enemy Mine: The Dracula mini-series sees the titular vampire not only working with humanity, but also with the daughter of his most hated foe, Blade.
- First-Episode Twist: Understandably, the Avengers and Doctor Strange look to Blade for advice on fighting the vampires, as he's been destroying them for decades. Unfortunately, this time he's apparently changed sides, and is leading them...
- The Night That Never Ends: The event's catalyst, as Marvel's Vampires cover the Earth in darkness and launch a global uprising. They accomplish this by turning Darkforce users such as Cloak, Darkstar and Blackout into perpetual portals to the Darkforce Dimension.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Promo artwork of the Bloodcoven reveals they are a cabal of vampires with unusual abilities: Cruel, a vampire mummified in razor wire that they can control like Combat Tentacles; Smoke Eater, a kimono-clad vampire who eats ghosts to empower himself; Damascene, a vampire whose body is comprised of polyhedra; Megrim, a vampire who hides her face behind a blood-soaked veil and whose dress has screaming faces in it; Unusual, a vampire whose body consists of a humanoid silhouette with abstract swirls; and Bloodstorm One, a Modified Clone of Dracula now clad in a suit of armor resembling an idealized human figure.
- Pragmatic Hero: When Blade visits Doctor Strange to confirm if he would destroy all vampires on Earth with the relevant spell when some vampires are his friends, Strange compares it to the idea of cutting off an infected limb to save the patient.
- Pun: The official trailer and promo artwork have fun with the appropriate, if obligatory tagline for a vampire-centric event: "Who will bite it?"
- Shout-Out: According to Jed MacKay and Pepe Larraz, Bloodstorm One's Sculpted Physique exoskeleton is a reference to the suit of armor worn by Vlad Tepes in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
- Sole Survivor: When the Bloodcoven attack the Forbidden City, Black Panther is only able to evacuate Sam Wilson by teleporting him away as the other six Avengers are defeated, reasoning that the death or turning of Captain America would be too great a victory for the vampires.
