10 Marvel Franchises That Could Replace The Avengers

2. Midnight Sons

Midnight Sons
Marvel Comics

Of all the characters that everyone expected to join the MCU by now, Blade is surely the biggest.

The character, made famous by Wesley Snipes in the Blade Trilogy, has experienced limited success in the comics. But there's no denying his cinematic preeminence, with only Wolverine, Spidey, and perhaps Iron Man the other Marvel heroes to match the character when it comes to popularity. He's clearly a big deal, and while talk of a Blade film has stalled somewhat in recent months, one would hope that Marvel haven't forgotten about the character - especially when they have so many other supernatural characters to play with.

Fortunately for Disney, the House of Ideas took the liberty of making a supernatural team ripe for the big-screen back in the nineties. Dubbed the Midnight Sons, the group was led by the two leading Ghost Riders at the time (Johnny Blaze and Dan Ketch), the Daywalker himself, Morbius the Vampire and more. Robbie Reyes' version of the Spirit of Vengeance already appeared on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and in bringing Blade back, Marvel would already have two components to create a supernatural team-up worthy of the Avengers tagline.

The comics are still playing catch-up when it comes to reigniting interest in that particular comic, but artist Greg Smallwood is certainly keen on the idea, having conceptualised a Midnight Sons comic late last year to wide acclaim on social media.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.