Abraham Whistler (Blade's mentor in the Wesley Snipes films) actually debuted in Spider-Man: The Animated Series in 1995. John Semper Jr, a writer on Spider-Man: The Animated Series, got a hold of David S. Goyer's script draft and decided to include Whistler in his Blade episode. Of course Whistler looks nothing like his live action counterpart but some of the personality was already there. Oddly enough Abraham Whistler has yet to be adapted into the mainline comics.