Blade (1998 film) = Finished (Patreon)

If you ask someone why the original Blade films were notable, one of the most common responses you'll get is that they were "cool". Specifically, Blade himself is cool. 

Imagine my surprise when I found that wasn't the case.
At least, not universally.

Look at Blade in the above image. Among normal people.
He's a tall black man in a flat top wearing a long trenchcoat over blocky, bulky combat armor. In the daylight, Blade is frankly weird. He's dressed for another setting--another world--entirely, and it shows.

Surrounded by the monsters who fear him, he's an unstoppable, sword-wielding badass. Fear embiggens the man. Just walking around though, it's easy to see him as a little...goofy.

I've thought about this discrepancy a lot, and the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that this shift actually works in the movie's favor. If anything, it grounds Blade in a way a more unobtrusive outfit would not. Standing out among the crowd, a freakish anomaly, Blade becomes more than a person. He's a symbol. A guardian who protects mankind, but is doomed to be set apart from it.

In the world, but not of it.