The collected "Blade" No. 1-6, a comic series written after the "Blade" trilogy of films.

Nowadays, the vampire hunter Blade is most well-known because of the movie  trilogy that came out starting in 1998. But he’s been kicking around comics since the early ’70s, so he’s older than any other character on this list. His place in the world of abstinent vampires is a little tricky, though, and it’s not just because he’s more of a dhampir — a vampire’s offspring — than a true vampire. He has some supernatural abilities, but exactly where they came from and how they affect him depend on whether you’re watching movies or reading comics … or which comics you’re reading.

The basic story, though, is that he picked up some vampiric traits when Deacon Frost fed off Blade’s mother during his birth. Eventually, Blade grew in to a man who can walk in daylight and is immune to vampire bites. Even though he’s not a true vampire, he’s on our list of abstinents because he has, in most of the more recent depictions, an unshakable thirst for human blood. He quenches his thirst through everything from feeding on rats (comic) to dosing himself with a home-brewed serum (movie).

Turning away from drinking blood has made Blade a fighter, not a whiner. He’s masterful with a range of weapons, from teak daggers to automatic firearms, and he seeks vengeance against all vampires in part because of his own contamination. And in a way, that makes him similar to another abstinent vampire: Spike from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel.” Spike definitely does his share of sniveling, but when an implanted chip stops him from doing harm to humans, his newfound impotence makes him that much more hostile toward vampires and other demons.

NEXT: No. 1 — The vampires are not what they seem.

Previously:
No. 5 — Angel and Edward Cullen (Tie)
No. 4 — Bill Compton
No. 3 — The Citizens of Purgatory

On vampires and their weaknesses:
How Vampires Work
How Garlic Works
How the Sun Works