Blade: Red Band #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBlade: Red Band #2 is the issue that formally introduces Elena, Blade's new vampire-hunting partner and supporting character, set against the backdrop of Mowloon City — a war-ravaged urban setting new to the Marvel Universe. The issue deepens the post-Blood Hunt character study of Eric Brooks: haunted by his possession at the hands of Varnae, Blade is here pulled back into violent purpose through an alliance with a figure who mirrors his own psychological damage, yet distrusts him for what he is. As one of the earliest standalone titles in Marvel's Red Band publishing initiative — a format that grew directly out of the Blood Hunt event's mature-reader polybagged editions — this series as a whole represents a meaningful structural shift in how Marvel packages and markets horror content to adult readers, and issue #2 is where that horror-driven character work begins to take full shape.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Writer Bryan Edward Hill, who had already helmed a Blood Hunt tie-in (Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt) and was concurrently writing Ultimate Black Panther, returned to Blade for this five-issue miniseries launched in October 2024. He is paired with artist C.F. Villa (whose credits include Avengers) and colorist Javier Tartaglia, with lettering by Cory Petit and editorial by Devin Lewis. The series was conceived as a direct successor to the Blood Hunt event, using the newly established Red Band format — Marvel's first experiment with producing an explicit-content, polybagged edition of a mainstream title — to tell a Blade story with visceral horror content that would have been commercially and editorially impractical in a standard-rated book.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Released November 27, 2024; cover-dated January 2025; part two of a five-issue miniseries titled Blade: Red Band (2024).
- Written by Bryan Edward Hill; interior art by C.F. Villa; colors by Javier Tartaglia; letters by Cory Petit; edited by Devin Lewis.
- First full appearance of Elena, a one-armed vampire hunter (mechanical prosthetic arm) based in Mowloon City, who becomes Blade's uneasy partner for the arc — she appears as a Supporting Character per the Marvel Database entry for this issue.
- Pontius Van Helsing — a villainous vampire cult leader introduced on the final page of issue #1 — is referenced but not yet seen in action; the issue establishes his hold over Mowloon City and his manipulation of trauma survivors.
- Story is set largely in Mowloon City, described within the narrative as a place 'superheroes forgot about,' a new Marvel Universe location introduced in this miniseries.
- Published under Marvel's Red Band format: polybagged with an Explicit Content rating and Parental Advisory label, a publishing approach that originated with Blood Hunt (2024) and represented the first time Marvel produced a separate, more graphic edition of a mainline comic.
- Three covers exist for this issue: the main C.F. Villa cover, a Federica Mancin variant, and a 1:25 retailer incentive variant by Doaly — all polybagged.
- The complete miniseries (issues #1–5) was collected in the trade paperback Blade: Red Band — Prodigal Son, published by Marvel/Penguin Random House.
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Reprints
Reprinted in Blade: Red Band - Prodigal Son #[nn] (2025)
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