Time jump! Spider-Douchery 101- Morbius, the awesome vampire

I'm going to interrupt the cliffhanger to get to the reason I wanted to make this blog int he first place.

My favorite character, Micheal Morbius.  This is technically a Morbius review blog, including his various supporting cast.  Spider-Man happened to come first, so I've been doing a lot of Spider-Man.  while this shows the rise and fall (and possible redemption of Spider-Man thanks to a new writer this year), Morbius tends to highlight just how bad the hero can get (and also how great his potential to be good is).  But Morbius is his own character, having interacted with other characters more than he has with Spider-Man; he's not just a litmus stick.

You saw my mini-rant about the Morbius movie tagline.

What a joke.

A sad, sad joke.

Morbius has a long, complicated, and very amusing history in Marvel comics, but that has been looked over ever since Dan Slott took over Spider-Man and a very disastrous solo series of him tying to help 'the hood' (odd references that resembled anti-homages didn't help at all) or the Miles Morales series making him extremely out of character hasn't helped his reputation lately.

And now Sony, who wants to make a 'Spider-Man-less Spider-verse' wants to handle him.  In the same way, they handled Venom.  Except worse.

With Venom, they actually got the basics correct (yes, I will try to cover Venom comics too).  But with Morbius, they got nearly everything they could wrong.  the backstory is somewhat correct.  In order to cure himself, Morbius ends up turning himself into a vampire.  Still, they screwed up his wife, who is supposed to be British and the rest of the characters don't exist in any of the comics.

They also hired the worst actor possible, Jared Leto.  Jared claimed it was 'method acting' for his portrayal of The Joker to send other actors used condoms and dead animals and to harass Margo Robbie, who played Harley Quinn. He was so irritating as a person, one actor who never wanted to act in a DC movie again threw a party and invited all the other actors, but barred Leto form even trying to come.

There's also a comic coming out soon starring Morbius, but given the lack of advertisement and care from any comic news sites, it's probably not only bad, but it seems Marvel wants it a good excuse to cancel it.

Hopefully both of those so badly the MCU  takes over, redeems the poor guy, and someone who knows more than his backstory will write him.

Anyway, on with the comic.

That is one HELL of a bitch slap

This is Spider-Man 101, a long way from 27.  Since then Spider-Man comics had gotten a lot better and started showing the quality they were known for.

Peter has moved on from High School and has moved out of his house with Aunt May.  He now attends college and has made friends with Doctor Connors, AKA, the Lizard (enjoy him while the fun lasts) and has started to date a girl named Gwen Stacy, not just put on hissy fit tantrums.  He also started whining about regretting being Spider-Man (not the first time and won't be the last) and tried to cure himself, which resulted in growing extra limbs.

Exclamation points are the only punctuation we know!

The comic starts right there, with  Peter going 'oh shit, I gave myself extra arms!'

It's actually pretty logical that he freaks out and thinks his life is over when something like THAT has happened.   At this point in comics, while there are heroes all over the place, no one likes someone who looks different unless they can beat the crap out of you (and even then, there are many exceptions).

While he's worried about being turned into a sideshow or an experiment, the phone rings.  Gwen, having no clue he's spider-Man, let alone that he's gotten 'more spidery', invites him out to a porno.

I think

He declines and says he's going out of town, which will later turn out to not be a lie.  She's disappointed and he's pretty sure he got dumped.

Peter goes back to freaking out, this time about killing Aunt May from the shock of seeing him with six arms.  Or possibly that he never tried to make money off his tailoring skills.  I mean, in his vision, he's wearing a sweater with six sleeves and it looks perfect.

He mopes a bit more and then the phone rings again.  It's Robbie, a new (and in my opinion much better) secretary and office assistant than Betty.  Robbie was one of my favorite characters in the cartoon and he's a fave in the comics.  If you don't like him, get your own blog.

Robbie tells Peter about a photography gig The Bugle could use and that Peter could make good money from it.  Peter bails on that too, but Robbie's super concerned.  JJJ, as always, doesn't care. Eh, better than my boss.

Creepy narration, creepy movie, creepy arms...I'm not reading Tales From The Crypt, am I?

Then spidey remembers someone who might be able to help him: his friend Curt Connors AKA The Lizard AKA, enjoy it whiles it's still good.  Connors says there's a summer house Peter can use to try and cure the side-effects of his current cure.

Thanks, comic, I wasn't planning on sleeping any time soon

The monster here is supposed to be Morbius, right? Between Peter and Connors, I don't think we need any more scary.

A really good point the comic makes is that  Spider-Man has to change how he handles web-slinging, now that his extra arms not only add weight, but size and momentum.  He also made sure the venture out in the dark, despite the coloring.  he's actually showing to be a genius, despite being more of a Doc Ock than the actual one.

Given that he's a LIVING vampire, I'd say that means the  beach house is in serious need of an inspection

 Spidey snaps back to reality that this isn't a haunted house--yet--and that he should get to work at finding a way to be less spidery.  For once, his spider-sense shows up out of nowhere and yet, he ignores it.  Why do you have it if you don't care when it works?

Not only is his spider-sense back, but it can sense Morbius off-shore AS HE IS CHANGING INTO A VAMPIRE.  I kid you not.  Morbius has not only not yet met Spider-Man yet, but he's also not fully changed.  Heck, he's not even in on American soil yet.  He's barely in American waters and that's only because he was picked up by an American crew after his own boat was set adrift (it not like he needed a plan in case he turned into a vampire and bit the guy steering the ship).

A ship run by a drunk neanderthal and He-Man. I think that's a much more interesting plot.

With the captain dead (it's not actually clear if Micheal went and killed him or the captain wandered into where he was hiding or even if Micheal was involved), the crew decides to kill the guy they took on board. Micheal points out the obvious that if they just lock the damn door and dump him on shore, he's not their problem anymore.

This is what Micheal canonically looks like as a human.  That's not a joke.

We're introduced to the first aspect of why Micheal Morbius should not be a Spider-Man villain.  He has no fighting skills whatsoever other than running away. And he's good at it.  At least against normal people. He considers himself weak-willed for it, but he's not a fan of getting beaten up or killed.  Already the guy needs therapy.

For some reason, he waits until night to fully transform and to change into his costume.  Then again, his dialog changed so much that I don't think he can help what he's doing.

No, I don't know how he hid a disco collar the size of hang glider under his shirt.

And then he turns into this.  It's not permanent yet.  Hey, YOU try turning into a vampire and tell me how consistent it is the first few days.

He's successful in killing off people who wanted to kill him, but he suddenly gets hit by remorse dives into the sea as a semi-suicide attempt.

Wait, his comic was for kids, right?  That was what the Comics Code was all bout and that was why he wasn't a  supernatural vampire. I'm not kidding.  Stan said 'they won't let us make a magic vampire?  Make a science vampire.  That'll show 'em.'

I'm not kidding.

I thought you were Greek. How many languages do you speak?

So, magic bad, suicide good?

Let's move onto something more pleasant.

Meanwhile, Spider-manages to work.

Two days?  how long do vampires sleep?

He doesn't manage any progress in de-arming himself, but at least he tries.  Soon, Morbius wakes up and isn't a picky eater.

Worst. Vampire. Ever.
And I find this hilarious.

I have no idea what is going on here.

Spidey is smart enough to figure out Micheal's a vampire, but not smart enough to figure out he's not just some generic guy in a costume out to build supervillain cred. They fight and since Spider-Man has been working hard with no sleep for two days, Morbius manages to smack him so hard, the ground floor spider-Man was working on turns into a flight of stairs and Morbius smacks him all the way down.

Suddenly Curt Connors arrives with intentions to stop the silliness, only to turn into the Lizard from the excitement.  This is the kind of fun I miss in comics, especially from Morbius.

What will happen? More silliness, seriousness, and angst int he next issue (and then we see what happens to Spider-Man, but you knew it would turn out alright, whether I told you he lives to meet a vampire or not).

WHAT THE HELL IS HE SWINGING ON: 2

STUPID VAMPIRE DECISIONS: 3