wesley snipes didn’t just play blade, he is blade. before there was an mcu, ten years prior to iron man, before the avengers, and superhero movies becoming the biggest damn thing on the planet, there was blade. and honestly, looking back, i didn’t fully appreciated just how important this was. blade came out in 1998, at a time when comic book movies weren’t the cultural machine they are now, and here was mr snipes leading his own major movie franchise, walking around in a leather trench coat and sunglasses with a sword on his back, hunting vampires. the fashion, the fights, the soundtrack, the attitude, the whole dark gritty world of blade still feels fresh almost 30 years later. the 1998 film made more than $130 million at the box office and spawned two sequels, helping prove that a comic book character could carry a major action franchise. marvel has even described blade as helping usher in a new age of superhero cinema. that’s why this character hits differently for me now....