Comic Books

Dr. Strange

(25,921 posts) Mon Oct 23, 2017, 10:22 AM Oct 2017

The origin of Super Villains/Heros: Morbius, the Living Vampire

Dr. Michael Morbius was a brilliant scientist born in Greece who became a Nobel Prize winning biochemist. He suffered from a debilitating blood disease and developed an experimental treatment involving vampire bats and electroshocks. Its side effects turned him into a pseudo-vampire who needed to consume blood in order to survive, and gained typical vampire characteristics such as an aversion to sunlight, and the powers of flight, enhanced strength, speed, and healing (a healing factor). His overall appearance changed as well: he gained fangs, his nose flattened to appear more bat-like, and his skin became extremely pale. Additionally, the victims of his bite would turn into living vampires themselves. When he first experienced the change, he killed the assistant who had helped him develop the treatment.

Morbius traveled to the United States by ship, and in his blood thirst slaughtered the crew. He tried to kill himself but failed and took a room at a beach house where he encountered Spider-Man who was, at the time, trying to reverse the process that had given him six arms. Morbius attacked Spider-Man, but their battle was interrupted by Dr. Connors who transformed into the Lizard.

Morbius escaped, but not before biting Connors (which partially returned him to normal). Spider-Man and Connors realized that Morbius' blood could be a cure for both of them and decided to help each other. They tracked him down and after another battle extracted some of his blood, causing Connors to remain in his human state and Spider-Man to lose his additional arms.

Morbius is an interesting character, very reminiscent of Barnabas Collins from Dark Shadows. He started out as something of a villain, but gradually became a sort of anti-hero in the vein (heh) of Punisher. This was really fleshed out in his series “Morbius: The Living Vampire” which was part of the Midnight Sons collection of the 90s.

There’s been a little mention of using Morbius and/or Blade in future Marvel movies, but nothing definite.