Those who saw David S. Goyer’s 2004 superhero film Blade: Trinity, the third and final episode in the Blade trilogy, may recall Ryan Reynolds in the character of Hannibal King. In fact, a competitor executive claimed that Reynold’s excellent performance in the film reminded him of Marvel’s Deadpool.
The executive was adamant that if a film about Deadpool was ever created, only Reynolds was capable of portraying the character. But well, we all know what happened next! Anyway, returning to the main character of today’s video, Hannibal King was created by the legendary team of Gene Colan and Marv Wolfman.
In truth, the fictional figure originally appeared in 1974 as a supporting character in The Tomb of Dracula’s 25th issue, which included an intriguing surprise at the conclusion.
Prepare for today’s film, in which we will look at the character’s origins, all of the key plot arcs, his powers and abilities, as well as his other appearances. Are you all set? So, let us get started!
Hannibal King Origin
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Hannibal King maintained an adequate standard of living by working as a private investigator. Of course, he craved for more and was actually waiting to lay his hands on a case, one that would give him both names as well as fame. Now, it so happened that he did land himself a big matter that required him to probe deeper into an industrial espionage case. But while exploring the factory, King was bitten and killed by the vampire, Deacon Frost.
King awoke three days later in a morgue only to discover that he has now transformed into a vampire himself. Obviously sickened and appalled at what he had become, King made up his mind not to give in to the vampiric instincts. With him needing blood to survive, King started buying supplies of blood, at times even stealing supplies when needed or draining blood from the corpses that he found.
He was determined never to feed on a human. King also continued to work as a private investigator and be dependent on his own natural skills that he had developed over the years instead of resorting to his new powers. But, his vampiric limitations permitted him to travel freely only during the night for obvious reasons.
His Major Story Arcs
It goes without saying that King was hell-bent on finding Deacon Frost and he took a rather distinct interest in the cases that particularly revolved around Frost. Nonetheless, he carried on with his pursuit of Frost and chanced upon the vampire killer, Blade, who by the way was also after Frost. Of course, Blade despised King for being a vampire and wanted nothing less than stab a dagger through his chest.
So, you can imagine the duo engaging themselves in fights and it was only after King was able to convince Blade that he had never really fed on a living human that they decided to put their differences aside and work together in defeating Frost. Tracking Frost to his apartment, the duo waited for him only to find a dead body that he had left behind. Blade and King together tracked down several leads of King’s and eventually, Blade became restless and his impatient approach made him encounter his doppelganger, a clone created by none other than Frost.
Blade tried battling but that only led him and his clone to get blended together upon physical contact. Of course, King rushed to save Blade but no points for guessing that he did not really stand a chance. So post a wee bit of wrestling, King fled through a window only to have himself later crash into Dracula’s party. Even with Frost being a part of the party, King wasn’t successful in capturing him.
It was then that it dawned upon him that he needed Blade no matter what and therefore had the Son of Satan, Hellstorm, perform exorcism on the doppelganger. Post the expulsion, Blade was free and King was effortlessly able to kill the clone after which he took Blade to his hideout of Frost. Even with the duo facing a horde of their own clones, they managed to kill him and also had the whole place blown up.
There was a time when King while investigating the death of a man, made contact with Doctor Strange. With King coming to a conclusion that he has been able to link the death with the recent revival of Dracula, he thinks he is in need of reinforcement and ends up contacting Strange. As for Dracula, he happens to be looking for the occult book, Darkhold, one that had a spell capable of both creating as well as destroying vampires. Therefore, King is seen joining hands with Strange and tracing the book with the sole purpose of tracking down Dracula.
With Strange teleporting the book from Avengers Mansion to Castle Mordo in Transylvania, the duo of Strange and King along with Wong, Blade and Frank Drake travel there in order to retrieve it and cast The Montesi Formula spell. With Doctor Strange repossessing the Darkhold and using the spell, Dracula gets destroyed along with all the other vampires. Speaking of King, because he resisted his vampire instincts of bloodlust and never really fed on a living human, the spell did not obliterate him.
Strange made King go through a full blood transfusion thus restoring him back to his previous human self. He is seen leading the life of a normal human till the spell starts wearing off. King gets back his vampire abilities along with his weaknesses. He is also seen having this urge for human blood but at the same time, it isn’t mandatory for him to survive. This is followed by the trio of King, Blade, and Frank establishing a detective agency called Borderline Investigations the trio was more popularly known as the Nightstalkers.
There came another time when Strange resorted to the trio to face Lilith, the mother of all demons. But Lilith had her own plans; she came to the trio instead and fooled them into attacking Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze. She even had one of her minions spy on the Nightstalkers so as to make sure that they did their job.
But, with the minion getting a tad too close, the Nightstalkers ended up disemboweling him and sending his head back to Lilith. Strange later had the Nightstalkers teleported to the Arctic Circle along with the Darkhold Redeemers, the Ghost Riders, and also Morbius. Together, all of them are seen forming the Midnight Sons and battling against Lilith and her Lilin.
Now, if we are to talk about King’s relationship with his teammates, especially Blade, the latter could not really come to terms with the fact that King was back to being a vampire. In fact, King was actually seen making use of his vampire abilities, something that he never really did before in the past. With time, King’s partners literally became quite hostile but King was able to see through things with Frank and Blade crossing lines.
As a result, he started drinking and went to extreme levels – we are specifically talking about the time when Hannibal King actually begged the Ghost Rider for the Penance Stare. Would you believe that? Well, of course, this angered Blade the most. So much so that he actually wanted to repossess the Darkhold and exterminate the whole race of vampires and this time for good.
It was Johnny Blaze who first got a whiff of Blade’s plans and he sent both King as well as Frank to prevent Blade from doing so. The duo fails to stop Blade and the latter ends up making a deal with a demon just so he could have the power to wipe out the whole occult himself. No points for guessing, beheading Hannibal King was categorically his first choice of action, post which he is literally seen going on a murdering splurge. The remaining members of the Midnight Sons are left with no choice but to come together and fight back.
In fact, it was Louise Hastings, who was successful in regaining the possession of the occult book and casting a spell reviving not just King but all the others that Blade had slain. It was natural on the part of King to think of his vengeance on Blade and this made him give up on his drinking habit. Post a lot of soul-searching, the duo of King and Blade put their differences aside and went back to safeguarding the innocents from the occult.
Next, post a confrontation with one of the members of the Lilin, the Ghost Riders assemble the Nightstalkers and the other members of the Midnight Sons to let them know that Lilith isn’t alive anymore. This leads the Nightstalkers to let all the other members of the Midnight Sons know that they are nothing but menaces and that all of them are back on their radars. With the group deciding to part ways, they are soon ambushed by an army of Lilin emerging out of some kind of a mystical mist.
This led the Ghost Rider to divide them into two different teams. While King went with Victoria Montesi and the two Riders to check the site where Lilith was killed, the remaining group decided to stay behind and inspect the supernatural mist. King and his squad are seen facing the very much alive Lilith along with her Lilin at the Cypress Hill Cemetery. Had it not been for the Caretaker and Doctor Strange, the group would not have been able to make it out alive.
Even with Strange sheltering the group at his Greenwich Village mansion, the Lilin were able to trace them there post possessing Morbius. While Strange was successful in exorcising Morbius, both the groups are seen coming together, battling them, and also seeking refuge at The Night Club. It’s safe to say, the group is seen emerging victorious.
Just when you thought all is back to normal, we hate to break it to you that just cannot be the case. Another one of Hannibal King’s major story arcs revolved around the time when Hydra was seen making use of a Dreadnought just so that they could purloin the special gun of Frank and also burn down the entire office space of the Nightstalkers. It was around that time that King decided to leave Boston forever.
In fact, he had also started drinking again when Doctor Strange appeared and put them together to work again. Frank’s gun was too powerful to be left in the hands of Hydra and the news was that they had effectively managed to make a cloned version of Dracula. After the third wife of Dracula, Domini, approached the trio, believing occult forces to have taken her baby, King and Frank left to deal with Hydra as for Blade, he decided to stay back and look for the baby. While King and Frank were reported to have been killed in action, their bodies were never really recovered.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking King died because he did reappear and aided Blade in overpowering a raised from the dead Deacon Frost. It was after this that he is seen shifting his base to San Francisco and opening a small detective agency.
Post getting employed by CIA agent Tatjana Stiles to look into a vampire named Navarro, King not only gets captured by the vampire but is also forcibly made to feed on a human. King and Stiles were eventually able to put an end to the vampire but at the cost of Stiles getting fatally wounded. It should not surprise you when we tell you that Stiles was King taking his second human life as he ended up turning her into a vampire.
Last of his major story arcs revolved around Blade asking King to help him take down a super vampire called Draconis in London. Apparently, the vampire was resistant to all kinds of major weaknesses. So as part of their plan, the duo had the whole water supply blessed and firebombed Draconis, post which they come back to the US. With King tracing a paper copy of a prophecy that Blade had been teased with, Blade went looking for his father, Lucas Cross.
Soon, King is able to figure out that the prophecy will not only restore the souls of all vampires but also remove their traditional debilities. Realizing that the whole spell was sort of reliant on Blade, knowing him King decides to join Cross and ends up attacking Blade.
King is slain by Blade and the latter is eventually made to fulfill the prophecy. While it does not restore the souls of the remaining vampires, what it does is revive every other vampire that Blade has killed, including King. Aware that the world would be in dire need of him now that all the vampires are back, Blade decided not to take the vampiric cure that Dr. Doom gave him. Instead, he gave it to King as an act of apology for having slain him. As for King, he is last seen pondering whether to take the cure or not.
What Makes Him A Challenging Opponent?
Because he is a vampire, he is seen possessing all the powers that a vampire is usually related to. King is exceptionally strong, is in possession of superhuman speed, stamina, agility, acute senses, regenerative abilities, shape-shifting, hypnotism, mind control, weather manipulation, and let’s not forget the power of immortality. There have also been times when he has simply refused to make use of his supernatural powers, thereby making him well-versed in hand-to-hand combat, an expert marksman, an interrogation expert, a skilled investigator, and most importantly, a strong-willed person.