Morbius, the Living Vampire, a.okay.a. Dr. Michael Morbius, Ph.D.,[1] M.D.,[2] is a fictional character performing in American comic books published through Marvel Comics. Created through creator Roy Thomas and initially designed by way of penciler Gil Kane, he first regarded as an enemy of the superhero Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man #a hundred and one (October 1971).[three]
Despite his preliminary status as considered one of Spider-Man’s horror-based totally rogues and also an adversary of the vampire hunter Blade, liable for turning him right into a dhampir, Morbius went on to come to be a brooding, gritty and tragically flawed antihero in his own series and other titles. His genuine identity is that of a former award-winning biochemist named Michael Morbius, who turned into imbued with pseudo-vampiric superhuman capabilities and bodily traits after a failed biochemical test which become meant to remedy his uncommon blood disorder, in preference to originating from supernatural way. The rest of his appearances characteristic his struggles along with his pseudo-vampiric character, his insatiable lust for human blood and his subsequent efforts to remedy his horrific condition, along together with his eventual stint as a brutal and nightmarish vigilante, now and again returning to villainy.
The person has seemed in numerous media adaptations outside of comics which includes lively suggests and video video games. IGN ranked the individual as Spider-Man’s 19th-best villain.[4]
Jared Leto will portray Morbius in a stay-movement film variation set in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe scheduled for release on April 1, 2022.Publication records[edit]
Morbius debuted in The Amazing Spider-Man #one zero one (cowl-dated October 1971) following the February 1971 updating of the comedian-book enterprise’s self-censorship board, the Comics Code Authority, that lifted a ban on vampires and sure other supernatural characters.[5] It become the first problem of Marvel Comics’ flagship Spider-Man collection written via someone aside from character co-creator and editor-in-leader Stan Lee. Lee, busy writing a screenplay for an unproduced technological know-how fiction movie,[6] bequeathed the collection to his proper-hand editor, Roy Thomas. “We were talking approximately doing Dracula, however Stan wanted a costumed villain. Other than that, he didn’t specify what we should do,” Thomas stated in 2009, including that part of the man or woman thought came from an unspecified science-fiction movie of Thomas’ children, depicting a person changed into a vampire with the aid of radiation as opposed to magic.[6] Thomas stated that the call “Morbius” changed into now not intentionally taken from the antagonist Doctor Morbius within the movie Forbidden Planet.[6]
Thomas and penciller co-writer Gil Kane created the character as a man who’s given pseudo-vampiric abilties and traits via medical in preference to supernatural means.[7] Kane based totally the person’s appearance on that of actor Jack Palance.[8]
A tragic and sympathetic antagonist in his initial two-problem tale arc, having obtained his pseudo-vampiric addiction even as researching a treatment for his personal rare, however fatal blood sickness, Morbius collided again with Spider-Man in Marvel Team-Up #three–4 (July – September 1972) and the only-shot problem Giant-Size Super-Heroes #1 (June 1974). Morbius went on to star in Vampire Tales, a black-and-white horror comics mag published through Marvel’s sister company, Curtis Magazines, performing in all however two of the mature-target market identify’s 11 problems (August 1973 – June 1975).[nine] All however the first and last of these were written by means of Don McGregor, with penciling by Rich Buckler and by Tom Sutton, mostly.
Adventure into Fear #20 (February 1974), Morbius’s first starring function in comics, cowl art by using Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia
After his first two Vampire Tales tales, Morbius concurrently became the star of his own characteristic in Marvel’s bimonthly Adventure into Fear anthology collection, beginning with issue #20 (February 1974) and persevering with thru problem #31 (December 1975), the ultimate trouble of the series.[10] These have been written, successively, with the aid of Mike Friedrich, Steve Gerber (who had written the first Morbius solo tale in Vampire Tales #1), Doug Moench and Bill Mantlo, running with a huge form of pencillers.
Following sporadic visitor appearances in the course of the subsequent sixteen years, Morbius became revived inside the 1992 collection Morbius the Living Vampire, launched as a part of the “Rise of the Midnight Sons” crossover tale arc in Marvel’s supernatural/horror comics. It ran for 32 problems (September 1992 – April 1995). These later stories add to his repertoire of powers the ability to hypnotize others and describe his capability to fly as psionic in nature. A one-shot special problem, tentatively titled Spider-Man/Venom/Morbius with the aid of Morbius creator Len Kaminski, turned into scheduled for 1993, but never published due to the author’s departure from the collection out of disgust with Morbius penciller Ron Wagner. Wagner felt that Kaminski’s tales were too individual-pushed and Kaminski claimed that Wagner complained about the tales to the editorial team of workers and left “snide margin notes in which he made his private opinion of my plots clean” (Kaminski would see those notes due to the fact he and Wagner labored under the Marvel approach), but not noted Kaminski’s tries to get in touch with him so that they may discuss how the series should be completed.[11] Series colorist Gregory Wright stepped in as author with trouble #nine and delivered the bloodshed-heavy testimonies that Wagner wanted.[11] Despite this, Wagner lasted just six issues longer than Kaminski on the collection; Wright stayed with Morbius via problem #23.
Alongside the middle collection Morbius the Living Vampire, a reprint collection, Morbius Revisited, turned into published from 1992 to 1993, and featured cloth originally published in Adventure into Fear #27–31. Solo stories starring Morbius also appeared in Marvel Comics Presents #144 (late December 1993), numerous troubles of the Midnight Sons Unlimited collection (1993–1995), the only-shot problem Strange Tales: Dark Corners #1 (May 1998), Amazing Fantasy vol. 2 #17 (March 2006), and the one-shot difficulty Legion of Monsters: Morbius (September 2007)
On October 17, 2012, Marvel introduced that Morbius might seem in a brand new comic with the aid of writer Joe Keatinge and artist Richard Elson, beginning January 2013.[12]Fictional character biography[edit]
Born and raised in Greece by way of his unmarried mother, Michael Morbius skilled an isolated childhood due to his uncommon blood circumstance, which contributed to his unsightly and unpleasant-searching look. Despite his seems, he was an intellectually talented younger guy who spent his time studying and, in time, have become a exceedingly respected and Nobel Prize-winning biologist specializing inside the field of human and animal biology with a scientific diploma in hematology. After escaping from his domestic u . s . a . to New York because of his pseudo-vampiric situation, he started work to discover a treatment and to guard his fiancé Martine Bancroft. He got here to the eye of The Lizard and Spider-Man, who teamed up in opposition to Morbius to obtain a sample of blood in an effort to therapy their own mutated physical conditions. The reality in the back of his awful circumstance is that, with a view to remedy himself of an unknown blood disorder that became killing him, he tried a treatment using a mixture of vampire bat DNA and electroshock remedy. However, this rather troubled him with “pseudo-vampirism” that mimicked some of the powers and the bloodlust of the supernatural vampirism. Morbius now needed to drink blood so that it will continue to exist and had a sturdy aversion to mild. His bones have become hollow and he won the capability to fly, as well as gaining superhuman electricity, splendid-velocity, and improved recuperation. His look, already unpleasant, now became hideous—his upper dog tooth extended into fangs, his nostril flattened to seem extra like that of a bat’s, and his skin became chalk-white. He additionally received the potential to turn others into comparable “living vampires” like himself through biting them and consuming their blood, infecting them with the ailment of pseudo-vampirism.[13] People whom Morbius inflamed with the disorder of pseudo-vampirism did now not clearly die as a result and that they will be cured thru an antidote derived from Morbius’s blood that Morbius and Martine had created, although that antidote might now not paintings on Morbius himself. They also did now not acquire his potential to fly or his recovery element and any mortal wound could kill them.[14] He later sought a cure for his condition, however battled Spider-Man, the Human Torch, and the unique X-Men.[15] Morbius then encountered Barbara Clark and guarded her from a demon named Nilrac, however sadly after that, Morbius killed her and drank her blood to satisfy his starvation, feeling a sturdy feel of guilt immediately in a while.[sixteen]
