Morbius the Living Vampire is one of the most tortured, antiheroes in the Marvel Universe, but he didn’t go from Spider-Man villain to hero overnight.
Morbius, the Living Vampire makes his live-action debut as the next addition to Sony’s cinematic Spider-Verse in Morbius. While Morbius might’ve started out as a tortured villain to the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, the Living Vampire eventually transitioned into a steady role as a lethal supernatural superhero, much like his cinematic counterpart Venom.
In the years leading up to Morbius’ creation, the Comics Code Authority had strict regulations about what kind of content could be featured in comics, including an effective ban on supernatural monsters like vampires. But by the early ’70s, the CCA started to relax its rules. With that in mind, outgoing Amazing Spider-Man writer Stan Lee suggested that Roy Thomas and Gil Kane create a vampire villain for Marvel’s chief web-slinger. And with Amazing Spider-Man #101, that’s exactly what they did with Michael Morbius, who used an experimental serum to cure his blood disorder only to transform into a vampire.
While his origins, like many Marvel characters, were more rooted in science fiction than horror, Morbius appeared in two separate anthology comics series when supernatural characters were popular in the ’70s. Morbius appeared in both the black-and-white magazine Vampire Tales, which was published through Marvel’s sister company Curtis Magazines, and the more traditional anthology series Adventure into Fear. Appearing sporadically throughout the Marvel Universe, the tragedy of Morbius’ condition gained greater emphasis, making him a more sympathetic, tormented antihero who loathed the monster he had become. For the next several years, Morbius returned to a more villainous role. However, Morbius would find his own form of heroic redemption in the ’90s.
In his own series and its related titles, Morbius resurfaced to team up with the various supernatural heroes and monsters of the Marvel’s Universe, with the ensemble dubbed the Midnight Sons. Formed by Ghost Riders Johnny Blaze and Danny Ketch to combat the demon Lilith and her monstrous offspring, the team consisted of Morbius, the Ghost Riders, Blade, the monster-hunting Hannibal King and eventually Doctor Strange. While the Midnight Sons line mostly failed to take off with readers, Morbius’ self-titled series lasted for 32 issues before the Living Vampire returned to his status as a more sporadic hero around the Marvel Universe.
In the late ’90s and early ’00s, Morbius worked alongside Doctor Strange and Blade to combat traditional supernatural vampires while continuing to battle his own inner darkness. After registering with S.H.I.E.L.D. following Civil War, Morbius assisted the government in combating an attempt by the undead from the Marvel Zombies Universe — including a zombified version of himself — from invading the main Marvel Universe and would later form a new incarnation of the Midnight Sons with Werewolf by Knight, Daimon Hellstrom and Man-Thing, to contain future zombie threats.
Recent relaunches of the character had Morbius relocate to Brooklyn, to battle more street-level threats in his own lethal way while occasionally crossing paths with supernatural monsters, most notably in his own short-lived 2013 self-titled series. In his currently ongoing series by Vita Ayala and Marcelo Ferreira, Morbius has continued his efforts to deal with his vampiric affliction with ghastly results that even drew the attention of Spider-Man.
While his battle against his vampiric affliction is still causing him trouble, Morbius is the prime example of a Spider-Man villain who has been able to redeem himself and have that atonement largely remain — in contrast to Sandman and Doctor Octopus’ inabilities to avoid returning to villainy. Like Venom, Morbius is a character that has long succeeded due to his tortured nature and his efforts to balance his more noble qualities with an insatiable thirst for human blood.
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