The 1970s Origins of Morbius, the Living Vampire

Morbius Lives!

Why do we shout that, you ask, merry Marvelites? Because not only is he a “Living Vampire,” natch, but he also seems to be dominating our days with mags this month! First the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #101 FACSMILIE EDITION, reprinting the riotous arrival of the ol’ fangster, but now the all-new, all-sanguinary MORBIUS: BOND OF BLOOD #1, an ominous one-shot you can really sink your teeth into!

Y’know, Morbius’ early days in the Swingin’ Seventies offered up some of the most amazing anecdotes of his vamping—and since we’re in that vein, what say we head down Memory Lane and highlight of few of the wildest, way-out wonders, the stories that proved Marvel wasn’t batty by tellin ‘em!

Morbius once battled the X-Men!

The Living Vampire’s dazzling debut in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (1963) #101 set him on a course to be a big part of the wondrous Wallcrawler’s wide web, but there came a day when Morbius threw down against not one, not, two, not even three, but a total of four—count ‘em!—X-Men! And it all happened because of an itsy-bitsy spider…

Spider-Man and the Human Torch duked it out with Morbius in MARVEL TEAM-UP (1972) #3, but the fanged-one flew the belfry after a draw and turned up again in MARVEL TEAM-UP (1972) #4. Spidey was suffering from the outrageous effects of having Morbius’ blood rattling around in his own veins, and a doctor dude named Jorgenson got caught in the middle of the whole shootin’ match. Then...enter the X-Men!

See, Professor Xavier was old pals with Jorgenson and sent his merry mutants to retrieve him, which of course put them on Morbius’ scent. Incredibly, the vampy villain mopped up the floor with Iceman, the Angel, Marvel Girl, and Cyclops at first, but when Cyke bounced his beam off a mirror it mauled Mobius and that was that. Later, Jorgenson cured Spidey, but the question of what Xavier would do with a Living Vampire on his hands remained on everyone’s lips at story’s end.

Morbius met many monsters on a mountain!

We don’t know about you, but any story that begins with a title like “There’s a Mountain on Sunset Boulevard!” has gotta be good! It hit the racks back in 1976 in MARVEL PREMIERE (1972) #28, and yes, the world was never the same after poppin’ their peepers on the Legion of Monsters!

So, this mountain appears in L.A. and attracts the attention of a bevy of beasts that included the Man-Thing, Ghost Rider, the Werewolf, and our very own pasty-faced papa, Morbius. Seems that a big golden guy named the Starseed had returned the big hunk of rock to where aliens had snatched it from back in the prehistoric past—and he wanted to rejoin that funky little club we call the Human Race!

Sounds good, huh? Well, maybe to normal ol’ you and us, but Morbius and the Werewolf went all bloodlust on the bozo and it was all bets off. When Man-Thing waded into the pool, the Starseed learned what both pain and fear felt like and in the end lay dying…with a legion of monsters around him he could’ve cured of everything that ailed ‘em if he’d only been given the chance! He was a goodie after all! Ha! Suffice to say, Morbius felt fairly foolish as he trudged away to another day as a living vampire.

Morbius won the heart of an alien princess!

Not long after he made a molehill out of a mountain, Morbius once again got himself in the middle of the kind of wacky and weird situations that can only happen in a mighty Marvel mag. This time he fought a foe who belonged on the end of a Number Two pencil and fell in love with a damsel from another dimension with green skin!

What occurred was this: Morbius made the mistake of attacking Alicia Masters in MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE (1974) #15 and, of course, that set him on a rocky path to clash with the Thing. Felling from that fracas he winged his way to trying to suck the blood of—ready for this?—the Living Eraser. Yep, previously seen in TALES TO ASTONISH (1959) #49 mixing it up with Giant-Man, the crazy cut-up used his erasers to send Morbius and the Thing to…bum-bum-bum...Dimension Z.

Still with us, Bunky? Okay, once in Z-land, our intrepid heroes met with the former ruling party of the place, including the Princess Roween. And as these things are bound to transpire, Living Vampire and Alien Lady fell in love. But wait! There’s more! Upon returning to Earth and wiping out the Living Eraser, Morbius decided he couldn’t set up house with Roween and erased himself from our space. Hey, we don’t explain ‘em, we just tell ya about ‘em! 

Peruse these pugnacious publications with Marvel Unlimited! And read MORBIUS: BOND OF BLOOD #1 at your local comic shop on February 10!