10 Iconic Comic Book Characters (Without Legendary Comics)

By far the highlight of Marvel's showing at this year's San Diego Comic Con was the reveal that they were making a new Blade movie and that legendary actor Mahershala Ali was going to be playing him. The crowd went absolutely ballistic, cheering and clapping with the force of several earthquakes.

Which, if you think about it, is peculiar. Because when is the last time you actually picked up a Blade comic?

Okay, the Blade trilogy from the nineties is the most likely reason that people are excited for this ultra obscure character from the Marvel books, but that version of Blade was specifically made to be as detached from his comic counterpart as possible, so it's unlikely that the Ali version will even resemble that original trilogy if it wants to be comic-accurate.

Blade is the most famous comic book character out there whose fame has absolutely nothing to do with the source material from which he hails. There isn't a seminal, legendary run of Blade that people look back on with any kind of fondness. Indeed you'd be hard pressed to find someone who's ever even read a Blade comic once in their lives these days.

With luck the movie will change that.