The game-changing comic book classic that never gets the respect if deserves steps back into the streaming sunlight

Once Batman Returns and The Rocketeer were out of the way, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that the 1990s and comic book adaptations really didn’t mix, at least until Stephen Norrington’s game-changing Blade came along.

It sounds ridiculous to say out loud considering the genre has been Hollywood’s most lucrative cash cow for over 20 years, but a string of high-profile commercial duds and critical disasters like The Shadow, The Phantom, Judge Dredd, Spawn, Steel, Barb Wire, and Batman & Robin were the many negatives that outweighed the few positives like The Crow and Men in Black.

Fortunately, by the end of the very first scene, everybody knew Blade was different. A quarter of a century on and it still ranks as one of the best openings any superhero movie has ever had, while Wesley Snipes’ ferocious turn almost single-handedly helped make the medium cool again, shifting its perception in the eyes of the general public.

Bryan Singer’s X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man tend to take most of the credit for igniting the comic book boom, but Blade should never be omitted from the conversation, even if it doesn’t often get the appreciation it deserves for reigniting a dying artform.

Thankfully, streaming subscribers have been revisiting the original trailblazer, possibly for something to do while the MCU’s reboot remains trapped in a hell of its own making. Per FlixPatrol, Blade has cracked the Prime Video Top 10 in countless countries around the world, leaving first-time viewers in no doubt that Mahershala Ali has a tough task on his hands to top Snipes’ Daywalker.