Blade: Red Band #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBlade: Red Band #3 marks the first full, in-action appearance of Pontius Van Helsing, a wholly original Marvel Comics creation who inverts the Van Helsing legacy by casting the archetype's latest descendant as a vampire cult leader rather than a monster hunter — a dark-mirror twist on one of gothic horror's most enduring family names. The issue represents the creative center of gravity for the five-part miniseries, escalating from the slower-paced opening chapters into genuinely unsettling horror territory and delivering the confrontational payoff that the series' premise promised. More broadly, it is part of the Red Band imprint's early expansion, demonstrating that Marvel's new mature-content initiative could sustain original, standalone horror narrative rather than merely offering R-rated supplements to existing mainstream titles.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Blade: Red Band was launched in October 2024 as a five-issue limited series written by Bryan Edward Hill — who had previously scripted Midnight Sons: Blood Hunt — with art by C.F. Villa, a Marvel Stormbreaker-class artist who had worked on Avengers. The series was conceived directly in the wake of the Blood Hunt crossover event, which left Blade's identity and humanity in question after his possession by Varnae, the first vampire. Issue #3, released December 25, 2024, brought Federica Mancin in as a co-artist alongside Villa, and was published under Marvel's Red Band imprint — a format introduced earlier in 2024 with Blood Hunt Red Band Editions as the publisher's first dedicated mature-content variant line, distinct from earlier adult imprints like Marvel MAX.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First full, in-action appearance of Pontius Van Helsing (Earth-616), a new Marvel villain who descends from the Van Helsing lineage but operates as the leader of a vampire cult rather than as a monster hunter.
- Pontius Van Helsing first appeared in silhouette/cameo on the final page of Blade: Red Band #1; issue #3 is his first substantive appearance in the story.
- Also contains the first appearance of Doctor Shay Marcus, a supporting character who dies within this issue, per the Marvel Database.
- Written by Bryan Edward Hill; interior art by C.F. Villa and Federica Mancin; colors by Javier Tartaglia; letters by Clayton Cowles (League of Comic Geeks) and VcCory Petit (Marvel.com); edited by Edward Devin Lewis.
- Cover art and inks by C.F. Villa; cover colors by Federico Blee. Two variant covers were produced: a 1:25 Rafael Albuquerque Retailer Incentive Variant and a Martín Cóccolo Variant — all polybagged.
- Released December 25, 2024 (cover-dated February 2025); 32 pages; rated Explicit Content; UPC 75960620929300311.
- The issue is set primarily in Mowloon City, a war-ravaged Southeast Asian city that serves as the backdrop for the Pontius Van Helsing cult storyline introduced across the first three issues.
- Part of the Red Band imprint, which Marvel launched in 2024 as a polybagged, parental-advisory mature-content line — the first time Marvel produced a dedicated alternate edition or original title specifically for adult readers in this format, distinct from the earlier Marvel MAX approach.
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