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Today, I look at how Black Knight stopped using the sort of lightsaber sword that he started using in the 1990s instead of his Ebony Blade.
This is “Never Gonna Be the Same Again,” a feature where I look at how bold, seemingly “permanent” changes were ultimately reversed. This is not a criticism, mind you, as obviously things are always going to eventually return to “normal.” That’s just how superhero comic books work. It’s just fun to see how some of these rather major changes are reversed. This is differentiated from “Abandoned Love,” which is when a new writer comes in and drops the plot of the previous writer. Here, we’re talking about the writer who came up with the idea being the same one who resolved the change. This is also differentiated from “Death is Not the End,” which is about how “dead” characters came back to life, since this is about stuff other than death.
I have another featured called “Always Kind of Wondered,” which is about when comic book writers try out something that comic book fans had been wondering about for years. Stuff like, “Why doesn’t the Atom try to de-shrink the Bottled City of Kandor?” and things of that nature. Well, this story is sort of tied into that, as well.
You see, Black Knight’s Ebony Blade had a Blood Curse on it, as he explains in Solo Avengers #4 (by Roger Stern, Paul Ryan and Bob Layton)….
Just look at what Dane says in these panels. “I always use the broad sword when I hit people, but I have to be careful not to nick them or else the Blood Curse will be activated.”
In Avengers #293 (by Walter Simonson, John Buscema and Tom Palmer), Black Kngiht decides that he has to kill the mutated Marinna, despite the curse. But Namor insists that since she is his wife, he should be the one that ends her life and even here, with NAMOR doing the stabbing, the curse STILL has a negative effect on Black Knight!
So naturally, wouldn’t you think, “Hey, why don’t I just NOT use this cursed sword?” It has other magical properties that have come in handy over the years (I’ll be showing one of them in an upcoming Comic Book Legends Revealed), like the time that Dane was able to teleport it to him during the Siege on Avengers Mansion (he was even able to travel through time to get his sword in the past), but the downside sure seems to outweigh the upside and yet when Black Knight returned to help out the Avengers as a reserve member in an emergency in Avengers #336 (by Bob Harras, Steve Epting and Tom Palmer), he is still rocking the Ebony Blade!
However, when he officially returns to the team as an active member in Avengers #343 (by Harras, Epting and Palmer), Dane has now replaced his Ebony Blade with, in effect, a lightsaber…
I love how Captain America cannot even PRETEND to give a crap about Dane’s new sword. “Oh yeah, good, good, okay, I have an important shield cleaning I need to get off to, bye!” We know that Captain America digs J.R.R. Tolkien, but I guess he never got into Star Wars.
Dane used that energy blade for a number of years, including some memorable moments like when he murdered the Supreme Intelligence at the end of Operation: Galactic Storm to avenge the billions of Kree that the Supreme Intelligence had killed in an attempt to kickstart the evolution of the Kree race.
Even when Dane and Sersi left the Marvel Universe entirely in Avengers #375 (by Harras, Epting and Palmer), he brought the energy blade to the Ultraverse with him and as he became the leader of the Ultraforce, he continued to rock that lightsaber throughout his time in the Ultraverse…
Eventually, as the Ultraverse was winding down, Dane headed back to the regular Marvel Universe. Once he re-entered the Marvel Universe, though, Black Knight’s weird soul connection to Sersi kicked in and she somehow took the pair on a journey through time and space in Black Knight: Exodus #1 (by Ben Raab, Jimmy Cheung and Andy Lanning)…
During that issue, Black Knight did not have his energy blade on him, so I guess he lost it in time? When he eventually returned to Earth, he could have build a new one, but instead, he was taking some time to himself now that he was officially split off from Sersi, soul-wise. In Heroes for Hire #2 (by John Ostrander, Pascual Ferry and Jaime Mendoza), Dane visits New York and considers taking a job from Jim Hammond when he is suddenly offered a journey to the magical kingdom of Avalon from the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legend (which Black Knight certainly has some experience with from his time in the past in the body of his ancestor).
Once there, he is then offered a new sword of light and a shield of night and he accepts…
However, Dane is not sure whether it was all a dream or not until he discovers that he has a special medallion from his journey and when he touches it and says “Avalon” with belief, he transforms into the Black Knight, complete with new sword, shield and a flying horse named Strider…
So that was now the new Black Knight status quo. It did not last all that long on its own, really, but at least it got Black Knight out of the laser blade era, which was so very 1980s (well, that and the bomber jacket that he wore over his costume, of course).
If you have a suggestion for a future Never Gonna Be the Same Again (or an Always Kind of Wondered), drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com
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