WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Morbius: Bond of Blood by Ralph Macchio, Tom Reilly, Chris O'Halloran & VC's Ariana Maher, on sale now.
Morbius is coming to theaters in 2022, and Marvel just released a a one-shot book that serves as a perfect introdution to the Living Vampire. This story, Morbius: Bond of Blood retells his origin while also showing why he considers himself damned to never rest in peace.
The book starts with Morbius saving a woman from a mugger and drinking some blood from the attacker but refusing to take his life. That leads to a flashback of his origin, in which the murder of his friend Emil played out again -- the first kill by Morbius and the one that tormented him to this day.
Morbius appeared for the first time in 1971's Amazing Spider-Man #101 by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gil Kane, Frank Giacoia, and Artie Simek. The parallels between Morbius, the Lizard, and a six-armed Spider-Man were apparent. In all three cases, the men used an untested serum to try to cure themselves: Curt Conners wanted to regrow his arm back, Spider-Man wanted to cure himself of his powers, and Michael Morbius had a debilitating disease. In all three cases, the serums had horrific side effects, with Spider-Man the only one to finally come out and return to normal in the end.
It wasn't until 28 years later that Morbius's greatest sin played out in Amazing Spider-Man #699.1 by Joe Keatinge, Dan Slott, Valentine De Landro, Marco Checchetto, and VC's Chris Eliopoulos. Morbius's origin was shown in this story, starting from childhood as a young boy with a mother who demanded he never go outside and never play. He had a childhood friend named Emil, and the two worked together into their university years to find a cure for Michael's physical afflictions that caused his body to remain brittle with his red blood cells constantly dying. The two finally found a possible cure by using vampire bat serum. They eventually won the Nobel Prize for their work, but the joy was short-lived.
The vampire bat blood caused Morbius to develop a thirst for blood, and he lost control, becoming a Living Vampire, and he ended up killing his best friend Emil the first moment he lost control. Michael tried to take his own life after his friend's death but realized he wouldn't die easily. He had to atone for his actions. This new Marvel one-shot retold the story and showed that Emil had a son who was dying. Michael realized he could save him and finally find peace for Emil's death. However, as things are with Morbius, there was never peace to be found.
He went to the hospital to see Christos, who only knows him as Uncle Michael. Morbius had kept contact with Christos and knew that if he could keep the boy alive and protect him, he could always quell the demons in his soul that tormented him for killing Emil. However, Christos was now dying, and Morbius only found one way to save him. He learned that Calvin Zabo had a near break-through to cure Christos's disease, but Zabo is the villain known as Mr. Hyde and gave up on his medical endeavors.
Morbius went to Zabo and asked for help but was told the only way he would help is if Michael retrieved his notes from Ravencroft with the instructions to help him become Hyde again. Michael agreed, trusting him, but Zabo double-crossed him, giving him a serum that did not save Christos but instantly killed him. Morbius had failed to protect the son of the best friend he had killed years before, and his one reason for fighting was gone. Michael stood at the graves at the end, and the realization came to him that he was forever damned. While he hoped Emil and Christos would rest in peace, he knew that he never could.
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