This article contains spoilers for Winter Guard #3.
Red Guardian, the Soviet super-soldier, recently made his MCU debut in Black Widow - and now Marvel Comics has revealed he has a secret Blade connection as well. Marvel Comics is set in "the world outside your window," but there's just one problem with that; it means stories age quite significantly, especially given Marvel's sliding timeline that means characters don't age at the same rate as in the real world. Red Guardian is a classic case in point, because he was created at the height of the Cold War as Russia's answer to Captain America.
Unlike the comics, time in the MCU operates at roughly a normal rate. For their version of Red Guardian, played by David Harbour, Marvel Studios decided to weave the character into the history of their shared universe; they revealed the Cold War was a superhero arms race in the MCU, with Red Guardian created by the Russian super-soldier program. Amusingly, he even believed he clashed with Captain America on one occasion, delightedly recounting tales of battling the star-spangled Avenger. While he could just have been lying, The Falcon & the Winter Soldier confirmed the history of the MCU's super-soldier program is a lot more complicated than anyone previously thought, so it's possible he encountered another Captain America while Steve Rogers was on ice.
Now, in the comics, Ryan Cady and Jan Bazaldua's Winter Guard #3 has just revealed Red Guardian also has a secret Blade connection - because apparently he's an old enemy of Count Dracula himself. Readers have tended to focus on Red Guardian's Cold War conflict with Captain America, forgetting that he also served as a Russian superhero, and thus presumably had missions that had nothing to do with espionage. "We often crossed paths during the Cold War," Dracula recalled in one conversation. "A worthy opponent, in his prime... Not that he ever managed to defeat me."
Marvel Comics have largely been set in the United States, and consequently their presentation of the Cold War was rather one-sided; characters like Red Guardian only appeared when they crossed paths with established heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, or other members of the Avengers. Winter Guard #3 is a vital reminder that, for all Red Guardian and his fellow members of Russia's Winter Guard may have been viewed as villains by the Avengers, in their homeland they were heroes - with their own enemies and adventures. In this case, Red Guardian has a surprising untold history with Dracula, the King of Vampires himself, Blade's greatest enemy.
The interesting question is whether or not this will be true in the MCU as well. Black Widow ended with Red Guardian and Melina taking the surviving Black Widows away to safety, but it's unknown what happened to them next; Yelena Belova has wound up working with the Contessa, but it's possible Red Guardian and Melina have attempted to retire and focus on rekindling their romance. The rise of vampires in the MCU could be what it takes to bring Red Guardian back into action - perhaps meaning he could even turn up in Blade.