There's a pretty good chance that you remember watching Mahershala Ali as Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes in the Marvel series "Luke Cage."
Cottonmouth is the owner of the Harlem's Paradise nightclub, as well as the leader of the Stokes crime family. A series of events puts Cottonmouth and the bulletproof titular superhero at odds, but it's a confrontation within Stokes' own family that leads to his undoing. Described by Ali himself as a "Godfather"-esque antagonist, Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes' short-lived storyline — he dies unexpectedly halfway through the season, leaving a huge vacuum in his absence — excited the actor. "When [Netflix] approached me about Luke Cage, they gave me the arc, and for the first time, I found myself excited by a character's departure, because I felt like this was something I could give my all to for a period of time before saying 'peace' to him," Ali told Entertainment Weekly.
This wouldn't prove to be Ali's final dance with Marvel, however. Ali leant his vocal talents to the role of Aaron Davis, also known as Prowler, in the critically acclaimed animated film "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." He is also the MCU incarnation of Blade — the vampire slayer previously played by Wesley Snipes — a character whom he briefly played for the first time in the post-credit scene of "Eternals." This is only the beginning of Ali's Marvel experience, most likely, as he will soon reprise the role in a "Blade" reboot that's currently in development.
