You could argue that it was 1998's Blade, starring Wesley Snipes, that truly inspired the comic-book movie boom at the turn of the century. It was dark and gritty, and far removed from the campy efforts we'd seen years earlier in the form of Steel and Batman & Robin. Speaking about the experience to Slate, Snipes said, "We had no idea that Blade would be a success. Really, it was a labor of love that we thought would be only watched by very few people. But I had a good body of work, and wasn't concerned with it having a damaging effect on my career."

Yet, this shouldn't have come as any surprise to longtime fans of Marvel's fabled vampire hunter. The character is powerful, interesting, and has a deep, rich history (even if the three films diverted down an altogether different path). As expected with any comic-book hero, though, he's had more than his fair share of strange happenings and occurrences. So, we've dusted off the good ol' Blade almanac, paged through his past, and pinpointed some real goodies for the trivia junkies out there. After all, "when you understand the nature of a thing, you know what it's capable of."

15 THE NIGHTWING CONNECTION

Blade was created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, and appeared for the first time in The Tomb of Dracula #10 (July 1973). Both Wolfman and Colan are renowned in the comic book industry, with the former being noted as the co-creator of Nightwing. Now, remember, Dick Grayson/Robin was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in 1940, while Nightwing made his bow in 1984.

Speaking about co-creating Blade, Wolfman told Wild River Review, "I have no idea where Blade came from. He is only one of two characters that I've created (the other being Deathstroke) that came to me fully formed and in an instant. In the beat of a heart I knew everything about him. I wish I could explain better but that was the way it was. As I say, it only happened one other time."

14 LINK TO BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA

As mentioned in the prior entry, Blade made his first appearance in The Tomb of Dracula, which was obviously influenced by Bram Stoker's seminal 1897 novel, Dracula. It should come as no surprise, though, since most vampire-related things take a turn towards the old Count and his humble abode in Transylvania.

However, the original bloodsucker's influence on Blade didn't just stop there.

Tracking down Dracula (yes, that one) to Paris, Blade encountered the next generation of vampire hunters, inspired by Stoker's novel. He teamed up with Quincy Harker (son of Jonathan Harker) and Rachel van Helsing (great-granddaughter of Abraham van Helsing), as well as several others. It's a nice tip of the hat to the original source material, even if Blade had a strained relationship with the group.

13 HIS ROLE IN CIVIL WAR

Civil War – the comic book storyline not the movie – exposed a lot of superheroes and supervillains for being snitches and yes men. All those who agreed with the Superhuman Registration Act should've had their costumes dyed yellow and retired in the Museum of Yellow Bellies. Unfortunately, Blade was one of the stooges who registered and cooperated with S.H.I.E.L.D.

He didn't have much of a choice, though. While battling Morbius, Blade's longtime rival revealed he was registered and called in S.H.I.E.L.D. to take down Blade. The daywalker went down swinging, but he was reluctantly forced to sign the act. Later, Agent Maria Hill sent Blade after Wolverine. However, when he realized that Wolvie had saved his life years earlier, he called it off and told S.H.I.E.L.D. that if it went after the Ol' Canucklehead again, they'd have him to deal with.

12 MURKY ORIGINS

Movies always take liberties, subscribing to the principle that creativity shouldn't be confined to the limitations of the source material. Heck, remember how 2005's Constantine made John Constantine dark-haired and non-British when the character is the complete opposite? So, it should come as no surprise that 1998's Blade took some liberties with the titular character as well.

In the comic book origins, Blade was born as Eric Brooks in the Soho neighborhood of London, England, in 1929.

In the film, though, he was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1967. While it's not really a train-smash to change his country of origin, it would've been nice to see the filmmakers respect his British roots more. Additionally, why can't Blade be older since it's unlikely to make a difference to his body's aging process, right?

11 THE RIGHTS LAWSUIT

You have to feel sorry for comic-book creators and the rights issues they endure on a constant basis. In fact, it's shocking how Jim Starlin made more royalty money from a throwaway character like Anatoli Knyazev/KGBeast in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice than he has for Thanos in the entire MCU. Marv Wolfman tried to prevent this from happening to him back in 1997 when he sued Marvel over ownership of all the characters he'd created for the company before the Blade film was released.

Wolfman argued that he hadn't signed work-for-hire contracts when he created Blade and Nova while working at Marvel. However, the judge ruled in Marvel's favor, declaring that the company's use of the characters was sufficiently different from Wolfman's claim of copyright ownership.

10 THE ORIGINAL VAMPIRE SLAYER

One of the most popular vampire slayers of recent memory is Buffy Summers. Created by Joss "Don't Blame Me For Justice League's Woes" Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a franchise that continues to be adored by fans even today. However, the whole "the vampire slayer" shtick actually belonged to someone else before her…

Yes, folks, our favorite daywalker was the original vampire slayer.

In fact, he was even referred to as "Blade the Vampire-Slayer" by Dracula on the cover of The Tomb of Dracula #10. After some time, though, the powers that be decided to just refer to him as Blade. Look, in all fairness, it does sound more menacing to refer to him as simply Blade. It's sort of like naming your dog Butch – he sounds far more fearsome than if you named him Mr. Butch Twinkles.

9 ENHANCED POWERS

Let's put aside Blade's powers in the films for a second, since those differed from his original ones in the comic books. Basically due to an enzyme in his blood stream because of his mother being bitten by a vampire while giving birth, he's immune to bites from those pesky creatures. He also displayed immunity to vampire hypnosis as well, but he didn't ever show that he had superhuman strength or anything more vampire-like - until Morbius sunk his teeth into him.

It might as well have been the lottery for Blade, because he suddenly displayed superhuman strength, stamina, speed, agility, heightened senses, and a healing factor that rivals even Wolverine's. While he considers Morbius an enemy, his nemesis might've given him the greatest gift of all -- sweet powers!

8 TIES TO LATVERIA

For many years, we didn't know who Blade's father was. Turns out his name is Lucas Cross, a guy convicted of a crime he didn't commit and imprisoned in Latveria in the 1920s. Unfortunately, he was also dying of cancer at the time, and wanted nothing more than to see the love of his life, Tara Brooks, and his unborn son.

A prisoner made a deal with him, offering him a chance to live, and subsequently turned him into a vampire (but of course).

Naturally, he showed up decades later, but no longer as the benevolent father he would've been. Instead, he was a filthy villain whom Blade had to defeat. The reveal wasn't quite on par with the whole paternity deal in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, but it was an interesting angle nonetheless.

7 BORROWING HAWKEYE'S GETUP

So, the internet is pretty upset that Hawkeye hasn't featured much in the build-up to Avengers: Infinity War. It's a tragedy, since we all know that Clint Barton is the real MVP of the lot, and he deserves to be front and center of every poster. Blade, though, knows that Barton is the man, and he even borrowed his Ronin getup once upon a time.

In The Mighty Avengers, a character joined the team first as Spider Hero, but we didn't know his true identity at the time. Later on, he dug through a box of Barton's old stuff and picked out the Ronin costume to wear. Finally, it was revealed in The Mighty Avengers #9 that Blade had been using the Ronin identity all along. See? He chose something from Barton and not Tony Stark. What does that tell you?

6 THE BLADE: TRINITY DRAMA

We've all heard the stories about Blade: Trinity's tumultuous production. Snipes was apparently impossible to deal with at the time and hated director, David S. Goyer, so much that he even strangled him on set. It doesn't sound like it was a happy, or healthy, experience for anyone involved in that film, and you'd think they'd all want to move on. Not Snipes, though.

In 2005, he sued New Line Cinema and Goyer.

He claimed that he wasn't paid his full salary and that he was intentionally cut out of the decision-making process (even though he was one of the producers). Additionally, he said his character's screen time was reduced in favor of co-stars Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel. The lawsuit was reportedly settled, but don't expect Goyer and Snipes to be Facebook friends.

5 LL COOL BLADE?

Much like it's impossible to imagine anyone else but Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, it's difficult to see someone besides Wesley Snipes as Blade. While we're sure the likes of Jamie Foxx or John Boyega would do a good job at it, Snipes still has all the tools to portray the character – and we hope Kevin Feige is reading this and taking note.

Although, Snipes didn't actually land the role at first. Back in 1992, Snipes was being considered for Black Panther, while rapper/actor LL Cool J was the main contender to play Blade. While part of us is sad that we didn't get to see Snipes as T'Challa, we do need to thank the casting directors for choosing him to play the iconic vampire hunter. Can you even imagine LL Cool J in this part? Woof!

4 WHISTLER'S DEBUT

Comic-book animated series were on fire in the mid '90s. Not only did we receive the sensational Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men: The Animated Series, but we also got the less-mentioned Spider-Man: The Animated Series. Even if it isn't considered in the same league as the former two, it brought a lot of significant Marvel characters to the small screen – and introduced a few new ones of its own.

While his background is much like it was portrayed in the films, he's younger and cleaner than his cinematic version.

One of its better introductions was that of Abraham Whistler, Blade's mentor. While his background is much like it was portrayed in the films, he's younger and cleaner than his cinematic version. He proved to be so popular that he made his way into the film and became an important part of the trilogy's overall storyline.

3 HIS DAUGHTER

Back in 2015, Marvel announced Blade: the Hunter, a book to be written by Tim Seeley and illustrated by Logan Faerber. It was meant to explore Blade and his daughter, Fallon Grey, who'd fight vampires in high school (yes, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Yet, the book was never released.

Seeley explained that he quit to Newsarama. "Marvel was in a weird place because they had announced the hip-hop covers and a lot of people saw 'here's another black lead with an all-white creative team' and you know it's valid and definitely the case. Once the announcement hit, it was just one bad week. I kinda felt that it was completely fair and never something we hadn't considered, but everybody at Marvel was totally cool about it and wanted to find a way to make it work."

2 THE JAZZ INFLUENCE

While the films, TV series, and Spider-Man: The Animated Series had Whistler as Blade's main mentor, his comic-book guide was completely different. It was Jamal Afari, a jazz trumpeter and vampire hunter, who trained the young Eric Brooks. How jazz and vampire hunting are similar things we'll never know, but hey, at least he wasn't some decrepit and angry army veteran, right?

The good news is, he didn't only train Blade in hand-to-hand combat and help him become an expertise in hacking and slashing (slice and dice, baby), but he also taught him all about the art for the soul, aka music. So, if Marvel is ever looking to showcase its own version of Kenny G, the company needs not look any further than the O.G. vampire hunter.

1 STAN LEE'S CAMEO

As much as we've come to expect a joke in a grave situation in a Marvel film, we've also learned to expect the inevitable Stan Lee cameo. It's almost criminal if we don't see Marvel's greatest champion make a walk-on appearance in a movie.

The good news is, he actually did film a cameo for Blade. The bad news is, it was cut. (No pun intended.)

You see, the first cut of the film was 140 minutes and it didn't test well with the audiences, since those were the days when people wanted things short and sweet. As a result, a lot of reshoots and heavy editing happened, which actually delayed the film's release and resulted in Lee's cameo as a cop being cut from the final edit. Not excelsior.