Images via Netflix

Before Marvel found success with the MCU, or Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool, before Nicholas Cage’s Ghostrider and Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman, even before the Bryan Singer X-Men movies there was Blade.

Released in 1998 Blade is a movie that helped keep the comic book and superhero film genre alive. At this point the genre is in serious decline. The popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have faded to distant memories, the Warner Bros.’ Batman films while commercially successful are being panned by critics with the last one, Batman & Robin being a giant “WTF”. Furthermore, other attempts at cashing in on the superhero/comic book genre such as The Shadow, The Phantom, Steel, and Spawn have done poorly in maintaining interest in the genre. If it wasn’t for Blade being the success that it was the movie industry more than likely would have shifted their attention away from comicbooks and superheroes and would have gone elsewhere for source materials.

If you think about it, Blade is also the reason why we have the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe. Prior to Blade Marvel’s only other film to get a wide theatrical release was Howard the Duck which was a major disaster and has gone on to be known as one of the worst films of all time, while all the other movies they produced were either released as direct-to-videos or as made-for-television movies. The success of Blade showed Marvel that it was possible for them to make successful big-budget and theatrically released movies.

Blade is probably as obscure as they come when it comes to Marvel’s vast lineup of characters. Debuting as a supporting character in The Tomb of Dracula in 1973, Blade would go on to make appearances and have backup stories in a variety of horror and supernatural-themed comics. In the ’90s Blade would become somewhat more prominent in comics by becoming a major character in the Nighstalkers series before getting his own self-titled series.

The cast of Blade consist of:

Wesley Snipes portrays the titular hero, Blade. According to my research during the casting process of Blade only three other actors were considered for the part of Blade and they were Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington, and Laurence Fishburne.

Wesley Snipes in my opinion was the best choice to play Blade due to his athleticism and martial arts ability. The only other person at the time who would have made a good Blade would have been Michael Jai White, but despite starring in Spawn the previous year White was too much of an unknown at the time to be able to carry this movie on his own while Snipes on the other hand was pretty much at the peak of his career.

Blade’s origin in the movie is pretty much shown in the opening minutes of the movie and elaborated by his mentor later on in the movie. Blade’s mother was attacked and bitten by a vampire while pregnant with him. While Blade’s mother is being treated at a hospital she ends up going into labor and giving birth to Blade who is born with a vampire’s superhuman abilities and thirst for blood but is immune to their weaknesses. When Blade is older he hooks up with Whistler who takes advantage of Blade’s abilities and trains him to be the ultimate vampire hunter.

Throughout the film Blade is portrayed as being cold and emotionless and in some cases even ruthless however there are times when Blade does show some small bits of emotion which while I suspect are plotholes and mistakes on the writers they do help emphasize the fact that Blade is only half vampire and that there are times when he connects and identifies more with his human side.

The cold and emotionless aspects of Blade are illustrated pretty well in the fight scenes of the movie when you see how brutality he dispatches his opponents, however I also think it is perfectly shown in this scene where he tries to interrogate Krieger, a familiar, a human who is secretly working for vampires by slapping the hell out of him before getting tired of his crap and pulling out a bigass gun to shoot him, all of which is going on in broad daylight on a busy street with plenty of witnesses around him. In this scene Blade doesn’t care much for secrecy, he just wants to make sure he accomplishes his mission.

Blade’s motivation to kill vampires is revenge which is shown quote.

I have spent my whole life lookin’ for that thing that killed my other, and made me what I am. And every time I take one of those monsters out, I get a little piece of that life back.

Blade’s life was ruined by vampires even before he was born. Blade wants revenge for what happened to his mother and for being cheated out of the life he could have had.

This scene also does a good job of breaking Blade out of his emotional shell and how much his mission to kill vampires has consumed him.. You have Blade and the film’s protagonist, Deacon Frost having a conversation before Blade pulls out his gun and tries shooting Frost. Frost escapes by throwing a little girl he was using as a hostage into the street while ducking into a crowd of people. For a moment you see Blade tempted to continue chasing Frost in order to finish him off, but his human side and compassion kick in and instead Blade turns to save the little from being hit by a bus, before reverting to his stoic self and coldly telling the little girl “go home” without even bothering to check to see if she is okay or even has a home to get back to.

Kris Kristofferson plays Abraham Whistler, Blade’s mentor and armorer. Despite having a pretty extensive filmography and musical career I really can’t tell you much more about Kristofferson. I remember seeing him in the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes with Mark Walhberg and Big Top Pee-Wee but I really don’t remember much about him in those movies. Whistler’s origin story is almost cliche in that after his family was killed by a vampire he declares war on all vampires and dedicates his life to killing as many as he can.

One thing that I find interesting about Whistler is that he’s not actually in the comicbooks. Whistler’s first appearance was in the episode of Spider-Man: The Animated Series where he and Blade guest starred and from there he moved onto the movies. Other than comicbook adaptations of the movies, Whistler does not exist in comicbook form. Now if you’re wondering what about comicbook Blade’s origin, he still had a mentor but instead of Whistler his mentor was Jamal Afari, a jazz trumpeter and vampire hunter.

Stephen Dorff plays Deacon Frost, the movie’s main villain and like in the comicbook is the vampire responsible for biting Blade’s mother and creating Blade. Frost’s goal in the movie is to gain the powers of La Magra, a vampire god so he can wage an all-out war against the human race.

Like Krisofferson I never really watched that many movies starring Stephen Dorff so I really don’t have that much more to say about him. I do know however that his character, Deacon Frost is completely different from the comicbook version. Aside from the movie version of Frost being portrayed as significantly younger, the comicbook version of Frost became a vampire by accidentally injecting himself with vampire blood and because of the unique way he became a vampire he gained the ability to generate a clone under his mental control. Also Frost has the ability to generate an unlimited number of clones because he can just keep biting clones. It’s a really headscratcher but that was in the ’70s so I’m sure it made sense back then.

N’Bushe Wright plays Dr. Karen Jenson, a hematologist who after being attacked and bitten by a vampire ends up hooking up for Blade and Whistler, helping them with their vampire war while trying to find a cure for her vampirism.

The only thing I’ve seen Wright in other than Blade was Dead Presidents where she played protagonist, Anthony’s sister-in-law who ends up dying during the armored truck scene.

Here’s that clip if you need a refresher. She’s the one who jumps out of the dumpster with the akimbo handguns.

I found Karen Jenson to add some uniqueness to Blade because while she’s introduced of damsel in distress she never actually becomes a love interest for Blade. Caught in the wrong place at the wrong time Jenson is an unfortunate casualty of the vampire war. This is basically summed up by Whistler when he tells her.

“There’s a war going on out there. Blade, myself, a few others, we’ve tried to keep it from spilling over onto the streets. Sometimes people like yourself get caught in the cross fire.”

Like anybody who is unfortunate enough to be caught up in a war Jenson is left with two options: Try to run or pick a side and that’s what she does because that’s what she has to do to survive which she admits when she insists on tagging along with Blade telling him:

“I have to stick with you. It’s the only way I’ll stay alive long enough to find a cure.”

Like I said she doesn’t stick with Blade out of love or affection, only self-preservation.

Donal Logue plays Quinn, Deacon Frost’s second in command. I’ve seen Logue in a lot of things over the years mostly guest work and small parts here and there. Off the top of my head I think some of his more prominent roles are the father from Grounded for Life, King Horik of Denmark on Vikings and Harvey Bullock on Gotham, as well as appearances in Sons of Anarchy, and The Patriot.

In the movie Quinn acts like a huge tool bag which makes it all the more satisfying when Blade uses him as his whipping boy setting him on fire, cutting off his hands on 2 separate occasions, slamming head head into and scraping part of his face off on a moving train and having Karen stab him in the balls with Blade’s sword. This all culminates towards the end where Quinn tries to get pay back on Blade for taking all that abuse only for Blade to casually dispatch him with a hidden wire from his vest.

Spanish actress, Arly Jover plays Frost’s vampire lover Mercury. Jover’s role in Blade is really small which makes me wonder what significance she has in the first place, in fact I don’t even think she’s named in the movie. I was only able to get her name from reading the credits and the Wikipedia page entry for Blade.

The only reason I feel Jover’s character is in Blade is because she’s supposed to demonstrate that even though Deacon Frost is a vampire he still has some shred of humanity left in him which is demonstrated by his love and affection for Mercury. I’m also thinking Mercury was inserted as a foil for Jenson since they do have a fight towards the end which ends with Jenson spraying Mercury in the face with a pepper spray filled with garlic she got from Whistler.

Not sure if you would consider this meta but years after Blade came out Jover would go on to play Una, a vampire princess in Vampires: Los Muertos the direct-to-video sequel to 1998’s John Carpenter’s Vampires.

German actor, Udo Kier plays Gitano Dragonetti, a vampire elder and leader who Deacon Frost would go on to overthrow and murder.

Kier has made a lot of dark and horror movies in his career including several vampire movies. I hate to say that he’s being typecasted but he’s almost a must if you want a vampire movie.

Sanaa Lathan plays Vanessa Brooks, Blade’s mother who towards the end of the movie is revealed to have come back as a vampire and has become one of Deacon Frost’s mistresses. Lathan is probably best known as the voice of Regina Tubbs from the Family Guy spinoff the Cleveland Show. Lathan’s role is fairly small. Basically the gist of her parts in the movie consist of: her giving birth to Blade, being revealed as still alive and a part of Frost’s organization, and getting staked by Blade.

Lathan’s death scene is another good representation of how the war with vampires has made Blade so merciless when it comes to vampires. Lathan gets cornered by Blade and attempts to appeal to Blade’s humanity by reminding Blade that she’s his mother, only for Blade to stake her saying, “I must release you.” This moment right here shows how devoted to the cause Blade has become. I stated previously that Blade’s primary motivation for killing vampires is revenge for biting his mom and ruining his life. It’s pretty obvious that Lathan’s character is trying to get Blade to lower his guard so she can escape, but the fact that not even for an instant that Blade falls for it shows that Blade has become so consumed by the vampire war that not even the slightest glimpse at the life he could have had could phase him.

Traci Lords played Racquel, the seductive vampire chick in the beginning who picks up a dude and brings him to the vampire blood rave.

If the name Traci Lords sounds familiar that’s because prior to working in mainstream movies she acquired quite a degree of infamy due to filming a number of mainstream porno movies while under 18 which when it got out that she was minor caused numerous porno shops and adult movie theaters to pull her films or fear facing charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.

One thing that makes Blade really standout is the way they portray vampires differently when compared to other vampire-themed and supernatural shows and movies. In shows and movies like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer/Angel, Twilight, and John Carpenter’s Vampires, vampires are portrayed as supernatural and mythological creatures, with their society and culture existing in secret, separately and unknown to the human race. In Blade vamprirism is portrayed more as a diseases which is emphasized when Whistler and Blade explain their methods of fighting vampires as well as with Karen Jenson being able to use science to cure her vampirisim. Also, vampire culture and society while still secret is portrayed more like organized crime with vampires having influence in several businesses and aspects of daily life as well as having several regular humans working for them on their payroll.

Looking back, Blade is a Marvel movie that almost didn’t want people to know it was a Marvel movie. If it wasn’t for his and Whistler’s appearances in the Spider-Man: The Animated Series from the ’90s I never would have known he was a Marvel character and even then, I remember the first time I saw Blade I was unsure that this was the same character just because the movie was so violent than I would have expected from a superhero movie especially a Marvel movie. It wasn’t until I noticed that Stan Lee and Avi Arad were listed as executive producers and noticed Marvel was listed somewhere in the credits that I finally realized that Blade is a Marvel movie.

Another reason why Blade doesn’t seem like a Marvel movie because it has a such a dark and gritty tone and was so incredibly violent. Watching Blade today it’s hard to believe that it was a Marvel movie especially in today’s age with Disney owning Marvel.

The tone of the movie is established pretty early in the film by the title card. No fancy graphic or fonts, or flashy graphics, just red text against a black background, simple but straight to the point.

The dark tone of the movie was pretty appropriate for the time. The light-hearted campiness that was seen in the Adam West Batman series has long since forgotten. Tim Burton’s dark and brooding Batman movies pretty much set the standard for comic book movies at the time with its dark and gloomy mood while comicbooks at the time were just as dark.

The level of violence in Blade should be no surprised considering that this is a vampire movie.

Vampires drink blood and literally within the first 5 minutes of the movie you get a glimpse into the Vampire underworld as you follow an oblivious victim to a vampire rave that turns into a literal bloodbath.

Blade came out right before The Matrix and so the fight scenes in Blade are free from the unnecessary acrobatics and slow motion that the Matrix popularized and were so prevalent in action movies in the late ’90s and early 2000s. Instead, the fight scenes are fairly realistic and pretty brutal even by today’s standards. This brutality just adds to the dark tone and seriousness of Blade and emphasizes the fact that Blade has one purpose and that is to exterminate vampires.

In the first fight scene Blade walks into the blood rave and without blinking pulls out a shotgun and starts blasting away at vampires. From the shotgun to mowing down vampires with a submachine gun, this isn’t so much a fight scene as it is a massacre. It’s almost like a mass shooting you would hear about on the news. Even when Blade transitions to his melee weapons he doesn’t screw around as he goes for a killing blow with every strike.

This fight scene is slightly different because you see a small shred of what’s left of Blade’s humanity when he tries to offer a comforting hand to what he thinks is an innocent little girl before finding out that she’s really a highly-trained vampire agent. When this happens he reverts back to a merciless vampire slayer and deals with her not by beating her in a highly acrobatic kickboxing match but by backhanding the shit out of her like an abusive husband from a Lifetime original movie before using the same efficiency to throw other vampire lackeys into the glass display cases.

This fight scene is a bit special because you’re treated to Whistler in action. Like Blade Whistler has a no mercy attitude towards vampires as he casually delivers a one-liner before mowing down an entire wave of familiars with a machinegun. This scene does make me wonder if the makers of Blade really didn’t understand guns because the gun that Whistler uses is a MP5SD, a 9mm submachine gun with an integral suppressor, and even though in real life suppressors are nowhere near as quiet as movies and TV make you think, this thing is just making all kinds of noise and giving off huge muzzle flashes. I wonder if whoever was in charge of weapons on Blade actually knew their guns or if they just chose that gun cause it looked cool.

The beginning of this fight scene might not seem practical by today’s standards, but back in 1998 it was cool as hell. It’s Blade storming a vampire-controlled building by crashing a motorcycle through a window. After Blade makes his entrance we’re treated to another intensely violent fight as he pulls out his guns and starts mowing down unlucky familiars. This scene ultimately leads up to Blade stoically walking up to a wounded familiar who tries begging for his life but unfortunately for him his words fall on deaf ears as Blade coldly ends his life with a shotgun blast to the head. All of this is being intermixed with scenes of Whistler’s body being covered up and taken away after he had died due to injuries he received while being tortured by Quinn. The juxtaposition of these scenes basically show that Blade has reached his breaking point. The vampires have stolen the closest thing that Blade has to family and he is done with their bullshit. As a follow up to the execution scene we see probably the most brutal fight in the movie as Blade takes on two vampires armed with martial arts and what are supposed to be taser batons. Despite their training these vampires are no match for Blade who casually takes care of them by stabbing them with syringes filled with EDTA, a compound which Karen discovered causes vampires to explode.

I think the brutality of this follow up fight is emphasized in two parts. One part is when Blade stabs one of the vampires in the eye with the syringe, and the other is seeing the vampires die from the EDTA injections, screaming in pain as you see them literally balloon up before exploding into a mess of blood and vampire flesh.

This fight scene is basically as ’90s as you get just because it has so many unnecessary and exaggerated elements and is also set to Playing With Lightning by Expansion Union, but despite all that it is still ultraviolent. It’s Blade casually killing Quinn like he was nothing before hitting full beast mode as he single-handedly destroys Deacon Frost’s private. Blade does not hold back as he punches and kicks the crap out of vampires, breaking necks and limbs, slamming heads into solid concrete. At one point Blade casually rips out a vampire’s Adam’s apple with one hand and just chucks at another vampire’s face. It’s 3 minutes of pure carnage all of which leading up to…

… final showdown with Deacon Frost.

According to information I found online the original final showdown between Blade and Frost involved Frost being transformed into this giant sentient tornado of blood. Unfortunately, this ending was received poorly by test audiences which forced them to change it. The clip I found it is a bit long due to all the commentary by the filmmakers but if you’re interested in just seeing the final part just skip to about 8 minutes in. Also watch the end, you’ll see the tease of Michael Morbius who was originally supposed to be the bad guy in Blade II.

Instead of the blood tornado ending we get this: Deacon Frost facing Blade in a sword fight. Despite Blade’s superior swordsmanship and martial arts skills, he’s no match for Frost who due to the La Magra ritual has superior strength, and regenerative abilities. This forces Blade to change his tactics and switch to his vials of EDTA, delivering the most memorable line in the movie, “Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill,” before drop kicking the final vial of EDTA into Frost’s forehead.

Seeing this scene I’m reminded with how obsessed action movies are with Japanese warrior culture due to the fact that Frost, a white dude is fighting Blade with a Japanese katana. Like past fight scenes it’s free of unnecessary acrobatics and is relatively realistic. It isn’t until Blade disarms Frost and tries slicing him in 2 that the fight starts getting a little ridiculous when Frost uses his new powers to knock Blade down as well as block Blade’s attacks by waving his arms in front of him.

The dialogue of Blade is exactly what you would expect from a ’90s action movie in that there are several lines which at the time may have sounded badass but today would sound pretty cheesy or seem ridiculous.

Aside from the “Some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill,” line.

You have this line that Blade delivers he gets shot at by police after trying to break into a hospital and finish Quinn off.

And you also have this gem which is spoken by Blade during a short interaction between him and Karen.

Even Whistler got in an action one liner when he rescues Blade by blowing up a wall and asking the vampires and their familiars, “Catch you fuckers at a bad time?”

Looking back at Blade there are a few plot holes. Looking at these mistakes through ’90s’ eyes its easy to see why it was so looked but in today’s world of easy access media which also comes with the ability to rewind it’s a lot easier to go and revisit things that seem off.

I’ve already brought up the inconsistencies in Blade’s behavior. The film establishes him as a stoic vampire-killing warrior but there are times when he changes and shows emotion or has an unexpected outburst. It was compassion that made him stop and save Karen Jenson instead of putting her out of her misery like Whistler told him he should have. When he encountered that kickboxing teen working for the vampires. He offered her a comforting hand, like a rescue worker saving a member of a Thai-soccer team, even though there’s really no logical reason why a little girl would be allowed to run free and unattended inside the vampire equivalent of a library so you think Blade would be wary of anything out of the ordinary. There’s also Blade’s outburst when he gets shot at by cops. It just came out of nowhere to hear him say “Motherfucker! Are you out of your damn mind?”

Plot holes like these I feel are pretty common in ’90s action movies. I’m not sure what made writes over look mistakes like these back then. I’m sure most of it is thinking that people would be too distracted by the action scenes to notice the mistakes or inconsistencies.

Like the plot holes other mistakes that I feel Blade is full are throwaway details. There’s this guy whom Blade buys essence of garlic from to make weapons and serum from. I remember when I first saw Blade I thought this guy was Blade’s brother. But no, this is the guy’s only appearance in the film. He doesn’t even appear in any of the sequels. You would think that after Whistler is killed and Blade goes on to fight the vamps he would call this guy for backup. Even in Blade: Trinity where it is established that there’s this whole secret network of vampire-slayers that Blade and Whistler work with Sure that ruins the whole image of the lone warrior but still if Blade has somebody to help him why he doesn’t he use him?

Another throwaway element is when Karen notices the vampire familiars in the elevator. I’m sure this is just to prove her Whistler’s point of how deeply vampires have infiltrated society. On top of that, these 2 also have different vampire glyphs than the one that Frost uses which means these 2 have a different master that they report to.

The final loose end that bugs me about Blade is what happened to Tim Guinee’s character, Dr. Curtis Webb. Originally it was believed that he died after being bitten by Quinn but towards the end it is revealed that instead of dying or turning into a vampire he instead turns into some sort of zombie who Quinn and Frost try to feed Karen to. Luckily, Karen is able to overpower Curtis and leave him for dead but that’s the last we see of him. It’s also the first and only instance we see of these zombie things in the entire Blade trilogy. You would think with all the vampire slaying Blade does he would run into these things more than once. Hell, it might have been cool if Blade met a vampire who kept a bunch of them as pets and Blade would have fought his way through them.

I remember in college taking a creative writing fiction class and one big problem that a lot of us had in our writing is that things have significance and a purpose and that you can’t just throw things in there and just quickly forget them. It’s like the old cliche that if there’s a gun in the first act that gun is going to go off by the final act.

These throw away details I feel are just the result of the writing at the time. I remember watching the old ’90s sitcom Just Shoot Me, where some of the characters are writing a screen play and they’re just throwing a bunch of random shit in there but honestly that’s not too far off on how some stories are written, and while there are entire forums and sub-reddits devoted to fan theories based on minute details or throw away scenes and elements, and while sometimes they mean something a lot of times that all they are are minute details and throw away elements.

The music of Blade is pretty good and fits the movie well.

1. “The Edge of the Blade” by Mystikal
2. “1/2 & 1/2” by Gang Starr & MOP
3. “Blade” by KRS-One & Channel Live
4. “Fightin’ a War” by Down 2 Earth & Rome
5. “Reservations” by PA
6. “Gangsta Bounce” by Wolfpak (Chief Headhunter, Mr Po-Flip & Slip-Roc)
7. “Things Ain’t the Same” by Kasino
8. “Deadly Zone” by bounty Killer, Big Noyd & Mobb Deep
9. ‘Blade 4 Glory” by Majesty & Bizzy Bone
10. “Stricltly Business” EPMD vs Mantronik
11. “Wrek Tha Discotek” Roger Sanchez & Soulson
12. “Confusion” (Pump Panel Reconstruction mix) by New Order
13. “Playing with Lightning” by Expansion Union
14. “Dig This Vibe” by DJ Krush
15. “Dealing with the Roster” by Junkie XL

As you can see by the soundtrack is a good mix of hip hop, techno, electronic, and alternative rock which gives Blade a really good urban feel.

The music featured in the movie is also good for establishing the moods.

I’ve already posted videos he blood rave scene as well as the fight scenes set to “Confusion”, “Dealing with the Roster”, and “Playing with Lightning.” These are high energy scenes set to high energy music which is really good.

This scene of Frost’s penthouse party set to DJ Krush’s “Dig this Vibe”, the instrumental gives a laid back almost dreamy feeling to the scene. I feel this helps establish Frost as a rebel in the vampire scene. The ruling class of vampires are established as old-school guys, business minded and dedicated to their old-school traditions. Frost is a representation of the younger, hipper, and more relaxed generations of vampires.

This is 2 scenes in 1 and features 2 songs which I wish were on the soundtrack but aren’t and they are “Yeah” by DJ Krush and “Chin Chin: by Bang Wa Cherry & DJ June.

The chase scene, set to “Yeah” features Blade chasing tracking Krieger, the police officer on Deacon Frost’s payroll to a vampire safe house. Sped up and at night, I feel the best way to describe this scene is by saying “The freaks come out at night.” The scene gives you glimpses of the vampire world as Blade passes a vampire feeding on a woman on the street and the entire chase scenes has cuts and audio of Krieger calling his superiors, who also work with the vampires and reporting to them about his run in with Blade.

This second part of the scene while another glimpse into the vampire world is also just a prime example of the Asian fetish that a lot of action movies have.  The vampire safe house is an Asian-themed nightclub/bar, and when Blade enters you see it’s filled with a bunch of older asian gentlemen wearing sun glasses at night in a darken club, smoking and watching two women dressed as school girls singing rapping and dancing on stage.These old men are obviously supposed to be either members of the Chinese Triads or Japanese Yakuza, and while I feel this was chosen to demonstrate how vampires have infiltrated society on a level which basically makes them the mafia or on a level where they control the mafia.

The way these men look at Blade is a little iffy. While Blade’s presence is enough to get their attention they really don’t get up from their business. I have some theories on this. One theory is that these guys are the mafia and dealing with Blade is beneath them because they have minions to deal with him for them. Another theory is that they know who Blade is and that’s why they don’t bat an eye towards him.  But if that’s the case why aren’t they panicking at the idea that Blade is about to kill them all? Or maybe they have an understanding with Blade that if they don’t cross him he won’t kill them? These theories just stem from poor thinking on the writers. They made a cool scene but that scene just created a bunch of questions.

All in all Blade is everything that would expect a movie from the ’90s to be. And despite its age it holds up pretty well. Let’s not forget that if it wasn’t for Blade we wouldn’t have the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it.