Why Wesley should remain Blade from another earth/timeline and Ali should be the MCU Sacred Timeline Blade.
This is a long read:
It comes down to Age and the type of stories they can tell as well as how long they can tell them.
1 - Ali is 51 and Snipes is 63
This matters because if we are begging for them (Disney) to lean more into practical effects and stunts then ideally you’d want the younger more believable actor (with less post work needed) to play that part.
He also will appear around the same age as his on screen counterparts this matters because as a vampire he should age slow and you don’t want a silver fox Blade on the midnight sons.
2 - Health
This ties into age. My biggest fear as a Black Fan of comics is another Chadwick Boseman situation where he gets sick (this time due to almost being 70) and decides he can’t do the movies anymore.
Boom we are now faced with two bad choices
A: Kill him off before exploring his stories in the comics and team ups making a WAY too early pivot to his daughter (aka Shuri 2.0)
B: or recasting him younger (duh should’ve just went with Ali to start)
3 - Continutity
And this is a weird one but hear me out I think it would undo all the cool shit he did in Blade 1 & 2 (we don’t acknowledge trinity lol) so it could be fit into the modern MCU when you could actually just leave him as the Blade that we saw in the VOID (same as his movies) honoring his legacy and also allowing for him to appear as a multiverse version of himself alongside Ali if that’s what Marvel really wants but otherwise it lets both co-exist in a lore accurate way.
4 - Black Representation of original black characters not race swaps
As a black comic fan (male 31) our list of Silver Screen current hero’s is small
- Black Panther (dead/shuri)
- Blade (in production hell)
- Miles Morales (stuck at Sony and can’t be used in the MCU)
- Static Shock (DCEU and no where to be seen)
- Falcon/Cap - he’s holding it down for us (since he is comic accurate)
- Storm (not sure when we will get her again on the big screen in the modern day MCU ecosystem)
- Blue Marvel (yea not happening anytime soon)
- Brother Voodoo (not mentioned at all)
The list goes on.
So Blade/Ali really needs to hit and we also deserve an actor with chops and the longevity (age) to hang with our other favorites because we lost Tchalla as a character WAY too soon sadly and they didn’t give us a recast they just shifted to Shuri (whom I love but as a black male she doesn’t quite represent me the same)
So us black male comic fans are a bit starved for comic accurate depictions of black hero’s
(Wonderman is coming but he is a race swap so I didn’t add him in the list although I’m hype for him)
Conclusion:
Ali as Blade or (hell someone even younger (mid 30’s/40’s) and fit like Chris Evan’s etc would do the role wonders and also the very large community of black comic fans who are kind of in limbo rn
And just as a marvel fan no race involved we just all deserve a long term blade for the MCU and despite my deep fandom for Snipes he is almost 70 and I’d like him to stay as his version of Blade.
While also getting a new comic accurate MCU sacred timeline canon Eric Brooks
It comes down to Age and the type of stories they can tell as well as how long they can tell them.
1 - Ali is 51 and Snipes is 63
This matters because if we are begging for them (Disney) to lean more into practical effects and stunts then ideally you’d want the younger more believable actor (with less post work needed) to play that part.
He also will appear around the same age as his on screen counterparts this matters because as a vampire he should age slow and you don’t want a silver fox Blade on the midnight sons.
2 - Health
This ties into age. My biggest fear as a Black Fan of comics is another Chadwick Boseman situation where he gets sick (this time due to almost being 70) and decides he can’t do the movies anymore.
Boom we are now faced with two bad choices
A: Kill him off before exploring his stories in the comics and team ups making a WAY too early pivot to his daughter (aka Shuri 2.0)
B: or recasting him younger (duh should’ve just went with Ali to start)
3 - Continutity
And this is a weird one but hear me out I think it would undo all the cool shit he did in Blade 1 & 2 (we don’t acknowledge trinity lol) so it could be fit into the modern MCU when you could actually just leave him as the Blade that we saw in the VOID (same as his movies) honoring his legacy and also allowing for him to appear as a multiverse version of himself alongside Ali if that’s what Marvel really wants but otherwise it lets both co-exist in a lore accurate way.
4 - Black Representation of original black characters not race swaps
As a black comic fan (male 31) our list of Silver Screen current hero’s is small
- Black Panther (dead/shuri)
- Blade (in production hell)
- Miles Morales (stuck at Sony and can’t be used in the MCU)
- Static Shock (DCEU and no where to be seen)
- Falcon/Cap - he’s holding it down for us (since he is comic accurate)
- Storm (not sure when we will get her again on the big screen in the modern day MCU ecosystem)
- Blue Marvel (yea not happening anytime soon)
- Brother Voodoo (not mentioned at all)
The list goes on.
So Blade/Ali really needs to hit and we also deserve an actor with chops and the longevity (age) to hang with our other favorites because we lost Tchalla as a character WAY too soon sadly and they didn’t give us a recast they just shifted to Shuri (whom I love but as a black male she doesn’t quite represent me the same)
So us black male comic fans are a bit starved for comic accurate depictions of black hero’s
(Wonderman is coming but he is a race swap so I didn’t add him in the list although I’m hype for him)
Conclusion:
Ali as Blade or (hell someone even younger (mid 30’s/40’s) and fit like Chris Evan’s etc would do the role wonders and also the very large community of black comic fans who are kind of in limbo rn
And just as a marvel fan no race involved we just all deserve a long term blade for the MCU and despite my deep fandom for Snipes he is almost 70 and I’d like him to stay as his version of Blade.
While also getting a new comic accurate MCU sacred timeline canon Eric Brooks
Commentaires
As for his 4th movie I’m ok without it just because I was ok with how they used him in DP&W just let him cameo or let him ride into the multiversal sunset
(Secret wars or doomsday cameo could bang)
Think about it Wesley is older but still came back and slayed as Blade,
Cos of his background in Martial Arts I think he’s like 4 time black belt in different disciplines..
So it’s not that Ali can’t handle the emotional part of the role but more is he ever gonna out do Wes?
We’ve had 3 Spider-Men
Point being still Wes can handle that shit I don’t know about Ali without a stunt double doing half of it for him…
Also stunt training for a few months very rarely looks good on screen…
You need someone with an aptitude for picking it up .
Think back to keanu before matrix now add 30 years does it still work?!?
No well if this had been a thing with Ali for years then cool but I personally have not seen any skills that would make a great Blade again not advocating for Wes 4th movie but just showing why 2 blades isn’t necessary but recasting might be necessary for longevity here