MORBIUS: HIS MOST HALLOWEENISH COVERS

Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long look at Halloween continues! In the past, I examined the most Halloweenish covers for Marvel horror figures like Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider, the Simon Garth Zombie, Blade the Vampire Slayer, Satana, Lilith the Daughter of Dracula, Gabriel the Exorcist, Daimon Hellstrom and others. Last October I even looked at DC’s Creature Commandos.

“It’s Morbin’ time,” to quote the most ridiculed line from the ill-fated Morbius movie that starred Jared Leto.

VAMPIRE TALES Vol 1 #1 (June 1973)

Title: Morbius

Villains: Madame Laera and Nilrac

NOTE: This science-spawned vampire was mutated by the blood of vampire bats and other chemicals he used in an attempt to cure his own rare blood disease. After his debut in Spider-Man #s 101 and 102 plus clashes with Spider-Man, the Human Torch and the X-Men in Marvel Team-Up, Michael Morbius got his first solo story in Marvel’s black & white horror publication Vampire Tales.

Synopsis: One night in Los Angeles, Morbius tries to find his lady love Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona in the movie), whom he was separated from shortly after his transformation into vampire form. He encounters Carolyn, a female member of the Children of Satan cult.

Carolyn takes him to a gypsy woman called Madame Laera, who might be able to mystically locate Martine. Laera’s crystal ball winds up shattered, releasing a supernatural creature called Nilrac. Morbius destroys the creature and feeds on Madame Laera before resuming his quest.

VAMPIRE TALES Vol 1 #2 (October 1973)

Title: The Blood Sacrifice of Amanda Saint

Villains: Demon-Fire

Synopsis: Morbius winds up trying to save a woman named Amanda Saint from a Satanic cult called Demon-Fire.

Amanda’s sister, using the name Poison Lark, secretly leads a sect of Demon-Fire, succeeding their mother in that role. She tries to sacrifice Amanda as part of a vile ritual.  

Morbius fails to stop the ritual, and Poison Lark summons a spider-demoness named Arachne. 

VAMPIRE TALES Vol 1 #3 (February 1974)

Title: Demon-Fire

Villains: Demon-Fire, Arachne, Poison Lark and Katabolik

Synopsis: Poison Lark sics Arachne on Morbius. After a savage struggle, Michael triumphs and Arachne is destroyed. 

Morbius then goes on to defeat Poison Lark and her brutish lackey Katabolik. The Demon-Fire cultists from this temple die in their collapsing building during the chaos.   

FEAR Vol 1 #20 (February 1974)

Title: Morbius the Living Vampire

Villain: Daemond

Synopsis: Still searching Los Angeles for Martine, Morbius hides away one night after feeding. A sorcerer named Daemond claims he can cure Michael of his vampiric condition, but is lying and instead enthralls Morbius with his spells.

Daemond sends the living vampire to kill a powerful supernatural menace, but Morbius is stunned into inaction when he sees that the “menace” is really a female child named Tara. That’s the cliffhanger ending for this issue.  

FEAR Vol 1 #21 (April 1974) 

Title: The Uncanny Caretaker

Villains: The Caretakers and Daemond 

Synopsis: The female child Tara, called the Girlchild, has assorted psychic powers and is able to assume her adult form which wields a whip and has strength enough to fight Morbius. Michael manages to defeat her and, overcome with bloodlust, begins to feed on her, which unexpectedly causes her to revert to her Girlchild form.

Disgusted at the thought of feeding on a child, Morbius tries to get the severely weakened Girlchild to a hospital. He and Tara are intercepted on the way by a greenish-blue skinned man in a Grim Reaper cloak and cowl. This figure calls himself Kammar and spirits away Morbius and the Girlchild to a seemingly abandoned lighthouse.

Inside, Kammar and his two similarly garbed colleagues introduce themselves as Caretakers. They come from the planet Arcturus and use science and sorcery combined. The trio heal Tara and tell Morbius that – with the help of their human followers called the Children of the Comet – they have been trying to create a super-race that will be able to survive Earth’s inevitable nuclear wars. Tara is their only success so far.     

The Caretakers are at war with Daemond and his disciples in his cult the New Order. The Arcturans offer to cure Michael AND reunite him with Martine if he kills Daemond and his cult for them. Morbius agrees and attacks Daemond and company at their gathering site. As the battle rages, Michael realizes that one of Daemond’s followers is Martine Bancroft herself! 

FEAR Vol 1 #23 (August 1974)

Title: Alone Against Arcturus

Villains: The Caretakers

Synopsis: Picking up from the cliffhanger ending of Fear #22 (I skipped an issue since the cover wasn’t horror oriented.) Morbius realizes that the mystical energy field that he entered as he tried to escape from the Land Within (the Netherworld of the Cat People worshiped by Daemond) has teleported him to another planet.

NOTE: The above-mentioned Cat People are the same occult race involved with Tigra, the Werewoman.

After wandering the ruins of the planet for a few hours, Morbius at last comes upon two bipedal humanoids who are sleeping in each other’s arms and feeds on them, but not enough to kill them. This leads to Michael meeting Lord I (a childish play on words worthy of Jack Kirby, since the figure’s head is one large eyeball with some sort of mouth.)  

Lord I informs Morbius that he is on Arcturus, from where the Caretakers came. Lord I shows Michael that the rest of the planet’s surviving inhabitants are all deformed in some way like he is. The Caretakers started their science and sorcery genetic experiments here on Arcturus, resulting in killing off most of the population.

Those still alive all suffer from painful mutations and will welcome death, but first they used Arcturan science-magic to teleport Morbius here to show him what will become of the people of Earth if he does not stop the Caretakers from using the human race as guinea pigs the same way they used their fellow Arcturans.

To show their good faith and their nihilistic embrace of their imminent deaths, Lord I asks for a volunteer to let Morbius feed on all of their blood in order to put him at full strength before they send him back to Earth to battle the Caretakers. 

NOTE: Weird theme going here. In the issue I skipped the Cat People were facing overpopulation and wanted Morbius to feed on several of them to get their numbers back down to a manageable level.

Anyway, the Arcturan woman who volunteers is, ironically, considered deformed by the remaining aliens because she is what would be considered a beautiful blonde woman on Earth. Kind of an odd Marilyn Munster vibe going here.

Michael drains all of the beauty’s blood and Lord I prepares to return Morbius to Earth to battle the Caretakers as this issue ends.

FEAR Vol 1 #24 (October 1974)

Title: Return to Terror

Villain: Blade the Vampire Slayer

Synopsis: Back on Earth, Morbius learns that weeks have passed, but he is prevented from immediately launching his attempt to thwart the Caretakers by falling into battle with Blade the Vampire Slayer.

NOTE: I covered Blade stories a few Octobers ago HERE.

Blade and Morbius clash for a while, with Blade puzzled by the way Michael is immune to crucifixes, garlic and Holy Water. One of his wooden knives plunged into Morbius’ heart will kill him, however, and at the first opportunity Morbius slips away to take on the Caretakers.     

VAMPIRE TALES Vol 1 #7 (October 1974) 

Title: Where Is Gallows Bend and What the Hell Am I Doing There?

Villains: Demon-Fire cult members Reaper, Apocalypse, Rigor, Death-Flame and Coroner

NOTE: Even while running bi-monthly in Fear, Morbius had been continuing his battle with the Demon-Fire cultists over at Vampire Tales. I didn’t find the covers of issues 4, 5 & 6 grabbing enough to feature in this blog post.

Synopsis: Having survived their clashes with the Demon-Fire occultists at their temples in Los Angeles, CA, and Malevolence, ME, Michael Morbius and Amanda Saint went to Nevada in search of Amanda’s father.

The pair were mystically ambushed by the cultists and found themselves stranded in the Old West ghost town called Gallows Bend. While trying to survive against the remaining members of Demon-Fire – Coroner, Death-Flame, Reaper, Rigor and the cult’s maximum leader Apocalypse – Michael and Amanda learned that Gallows Bend was an intended theme park with an Old West motif. The cult had appropriated the site for ritual slayings, like Amanda’s father’s death on the gallows.   

FEAR Vol 1 #25 (December 1974)

Title: You Always Kill the One You Love

Villains: Daemond and the Caretakers

Synopsis: Morbius and the Girlchild are again caught in the middle of the supernatural war between Daemond and the Caretakers. Michael and Martine Bancroft are reunited amid the chaos but Martine is under Daemond’s control like the rest of his cultists and is helping them try to kill Morbius and Tara.

NOTE: It was two different writers on Morbius’ adventures here at Fear and over at Vampire Tales, yet both happened to mire the Living Vampire in the same type of “cults led by supernatural beings” storylines.   

VAMPIRE TALES Vol 1 #8 (December 1974)

Title: High Midnight

Villains: Demon-Fire cult members Reaper, Apocalypse, Rigor, Death-Flame and Coroner

Synopsis: With Amanda Saint’s just-hanged father now dead like her sisters and her mother, she allows Morbius to feed on her enough to replenish him for the final battle with the Demon-Fire cult. Michael takes on the cultists and the mystical powers of their leader Apocalypse.

Meanwhile, the people from whom the future Gallows Bend theme park was stolen surreptitiously set up explosives, determined to destroy their property rather than let the demon-worshippers continue using it. After Morbius has killed many of the cultists and is locked in combat with Apocalypse, the explosions begin.

Michael saves the still-weakened Amanda, but all of the villains are killed. Amanda and Morbius go their separate ways since he is still searching for Martine Bancroft.   

FEAR Vol 1 #26 (February 1975)

Title: A Stillborn Genesis

Villains: The Caretakers and Daemond

Synopsis: In the violent final battle in the Caretakers’ laboratory beneath the lighthouse, the Girlchild Tara and Morbius fight the Caretakers and Daemond & his cultists in a three-way clash. All of the cultists are killed except for Martine (below right), who was freed from Daemond’s control by Tara.

The Girlchild, realizing that she is the Caretakers’ prototype for their horrific genetic engineering experiments that will eventually reduce Earth to the same fate as the planet Arcturus, pleads with Morbius to kill her.

NOTE: What is it with these writers and having women offer their lives and/or blood to Michael?

Anyway, Morbius feeds on all of Tara’s blood, and her death-throes unleash enough energy to destroy the laboratory and the lighthouse as well as kill Daemond and the Caretakers. Michael and Martine escape alive. Sheesh! Even a similar ending to the Demon-Fire finale.     

GIANT-SIZE WEREWOLF Vol 1 #4 (April 1975)

Title: A Meeting of Blood 

Villain: Werewolf by Night 

Synopsis: The reunited Michael Morbius and Martine Bancroft catch each other up on what happened during the time they were separated from each other. Before long they begin searching for an adequate location to rent in Martine’s name where Morbius can establish a lab and resume trying to cure himself of his vampiric condition. 

On the night of the full moon Morbius winds up in battle with Jack Russell, the Werewolf by Night, on Los Angeles’ Miracle Mile and ultimately in the La Brea Tarpits.

FEAR Vol 1 #27 (April 1975)

Title: Night of the Vampire-Stalker

Villain: Simon Stroud (Tyrese Gibson in the movie)

Synopsis: Morbius and Martine move to Boston where she has located a remote mansion called Mason Manor to rent and use as Michael’s hideout while he works on a cure for himself. In the days ahead, Morbius tries drinking blood stolen from hospitals to avoid killing people to quench his thirst, but he cannot digest it. He resigns himself to needing fresh human blood.

Detective Simon Stroud, who had successfully hunted and hounded the Man-Wolf (John Jameson) into surrendering himself to the authorities, set out to end the threat of Morbius next. He clashed with Michael but they were interrupted by Helleyes, a kind of demonic colony creature which had been haunting Mason Manor for years.

NOTE: The mansion’s reputation for being haunted is why Martine was able to rent it so cheaply.  

VAMPIRE TALES Vol 1 #10 (April 1975)

Title: A Taste of Crimson Life

Villain: Morbius’ thirst for blood 

Synopsis: This story is still set before Michael and Martine were reunited. It’s a pretty good story, too, taking advantage of the greater freedom for violence in Marvel’s black & white publications.

Morbius tries quitting cold turkey from his addiction to human blood. Simultaneously he tries to concoct a cure for his condition with Alicia Twain’s help.

Tensions build up as his bloodlust rises, ultimately ending days later when Michael reaches the breaking point. An all-out slaughter of people in Painesville, PA follows before he can get himself back under control. 

NOTE: As I stated above, this is a well-done piece of work and it’s a textbook example of how necessary good artwork is to the sequential storytelling medium. The art in A Taste of Crimson Life excellently complements the writing.

        Even this macabre and perversely melancholy story wouldn’t amount to much if it was cursed to be accompanied by the incredibly ugly artwork of Frank Robbins or someone with a similar style.

VAMPIRE TALES Vol 1 #11 (June 1975)

Title: The Brotherhood of Judas

Villains: The Brotherhood of Judas

Synopsis: Another writer trying his hand on a Morbius story can mean only one thing – Michael takes on a sinister cult. At least this one is different by being made up of vampires who want to conquer humanity and feed on us like cattle.

Sheesh! It’s hard to tell if these 1970s adventures of Morbius were truly any good because they used the cult angle way too often. Disliking a series because of boring repetition isn’t a trustworthy gauge of its quality. This was the final issue of Vampire Tales but Michael’s adventures continued at his color series.    

FEAR Vol 1 #30 (October 1975)

Title: The Vampires of Mason Manor

Villains: People that Morbius killed over the years and came back to life as variants of his breed of vampire

NOTE: The previous few issues of Fear were drawn too ridiculously, so I skipped over them. Even the covers were poor and looked like Morbius was fighting a monster from a Warner Brothers cartoon. 

Synopsis: The setting is Mason Manor near Boston. With the demon called Helleyes and his race defeated in the previous issue, Morbius and Simon Stroud must once again join forces, this time against an undead assembly of Morbius’ past victims, a group whose existence and condition were unknown to Morbius until this very moment.

Out of a perverse instinct they have all gravitated to the location of the one who “spawned” them. These mutated offshoots of real vampires have overrun the place while Michael and Simon were dealing with Helleyes and the other-dimensional creatures who formerly haunted the place.

The battle with the horde of vampires plays out like the flood of zombie movies of the decades ahead, except these vampires are capable of speech. This issue ends with Martine having been turned into a vampire herself by another member of the coven from Mason Manor. 

FEAR Vol 1 #31 (December 1975)

Title: End of a Vampire

Villains: The Vampires of Mason Manor

Synopsis: Even Morbius’ color adventures sputtered out in this final issue of Fear. His involuntarily created coven of vampires is loose, again making this feel partially like a zombie flick.

Simon Stroud and the Boston Police refrain from trying to arrest Michael because they are helping him work on a way of transforming Martine back to normal since she had just turned living vampire.   

Stroud and Morbius succeed in killing off the other vampires and capturing Martine alive. Michael’s thrown-together serum turns Martine back to normal but is ineffective on himself. To leave the cured Martine free to live her own life, Morbius escapes before he can be taken into custody. 

MARVEL PREMIERE Vol 1 #28 (February 1976)

Title: The Legion of Monsters

Villain: Starseed

NOTES: This was a tryout for a potential Legion of Monsters series but it didn’t pan out in the 1970s. Such a series was launched decades later, however. 

Synopsis: A mountain suddenly appears on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, causing earthquakes and citywide panic. Michael Morbius has been hiding out in the city since fleeing Boston, so he heads off to investigate the mysterious mountain.

The sudden appearance of the mountain mystically imposes conditions similar to a full moon, transforming Jack Russell into his Werewolf by Night form and the beast is attracted to the mountain as well. The mountain also causes Johnny Blaze, who is currently working as a stunt cyclist in Hollywood, to turn into his Ghost Rider persona and he, too checks out the odd phenomenon.

The mystical mountain even affects the Nexus of All Realities in the Florida Everglades, where the swamp monster called Man-Thing can see an image of the mountain and is transported there by the Nexus. (It’s a comic book, just go with it.) As a bare minimum Satana the Devil’s Daughter should have been a member of this group, too.

The four monsters clash with the mountain’s occupant, Starseed, the sole survivor of a golden-skinned race of humans who were abducted – along with the mountain – millenia ago by aliens who practiced science AND sorcery. As the last of his race, he had himself and the mountain returned to Earth, but he and the Legion of Monsters misunderstand each other’s intentions and Starseed is, tragically, killed. 

*** In the years ahead, Morbius would show up as a guest star here and there, temporarily cured at times, but inevitably turning back into a Living Vampire so new stories could be written. At one point after a temporary cure, the attorney She-Hulk defended Michael in a case regarding all of his murders. 

FOR MY REVIEW OF TWO STORIES FEATURING MAN-WOLF, MORBIUS, SPIDER-MAN AND DR. STRANGE CLICK HERE.