So a couple months ago I picked a trade to review thinking I knew what it was and was wrong and it was pretty funny! It worked out okay, but I was like “okay, I should learn from this, look the stuff up in the future!”
Well. Hm. Definitely didn’t think this was the Morbius trade written by Vita Ayala. Nope.
‘A Monster Called Morbius’ and ‘Vampire At-Large’ (Amazing Spider-Man #101 – #102)
In which Peter grows extra arms that don’t help at all.
Here I’m introduced to Morbius, the Living Vampire. He has bouts of doubt and remorse in the day, and a habit for sucking the life of people at night. The enzymes of his blood help to get rid of Spidey’s excess arms.
My favorite thing in this issue is the way Peter lies to Gwen and makes her sad. The most Peter Parker thing in the world is lying to people he loves and hurting them when he’s trying to protect them. Maybe his great power is just hurting people.
My least favorite thing is the terrible lettering, especially in the beginning of issue #101. Extremely hard to read! Very bad flow!
‘Spidey and the Torch—Together!’ and ‘Spidey and the X-Men—together!’ (Marvel Team-Up #3 – #4)
In which Peter and Johnny do not kiss for some reason.
Just kiss already!
Now, okay, this is pretty fun. The enzymes that Spidey used to get rid of his arms made him dizzy so he had to get help from his buddies. So he kinda swings around the city being sick and accidentally captures the attention and help of the Fantastic Four and X-Men until they beat up Morbius and get him a cure.
She’s the wrong person to kiss for like 100 reasons, what are you doing.
The thing about this trade, and the stories so far, is that they’re really only focusing on how Morbius came to be and a couple of things he did, but he’s very much not the star of these comics — Spider-Man is. I wanted a Morbius comic! I wanna know what this dude’s deal is, I don’t care about Peter getting too dizzy!
‘Adventure Into Fear with Morbius’ (Adventure Into Fear #20)
In which, finally, a comic about Morbius instead of one featuring him.
Alright, this is good, this is cool. A third of it is recapping what I just read, but it looks cool, so I’m in on it.
Morbius eats a lady (not that way) then goes to take a food coma nap, where he’s found by a rabbi and a reverend. Morbius eats the rabbi (not in like a vore way but, well, huh, maybe it is?). Then the reverend turns out to be a demon(?!) who controls Morbius into doing his will, and Morbius is made to go and eat a mysterious person in a limo! And it’s a very young, innocent, girl! And then…the story is over. The next issue isn’t included here. Which is really frustrating because this is the first time a story has been about Morbius and not what Morbius is doing to other people and/or Spider-Man!
So this is a mixed bag, all things considered.
‘Enter Morbius the Living Vampire’ (Amazing Spider-Man #699.1)
In which everything gets tied together in a meaningful way.
A complete story! All about Morbius! That makes him more understandable! Made me empathetic even!
While it was a good idea to put this in the trade, as it really elevates the rest of the issues, but I’d rather just read this issue than any of the others, or just this issue than the whole. It’s a great comic! Easily my favorite of the bunch, while also honoring and giving meaning to the earlier stories.
I didn’t really enjoy this trade as a whole. I’m sure I’d enjoy the Spider-Man issues more in the context of Amazing Spider-Man instead of a collection of Morbius stories, because I would rather have read a collection of stories that felt like they were about Morbius. It didn’t make me want to read more Morbius stories, or excited to see the film. If anything, it’s made me more likely to skip the Amazing Spider-Man #101 – 102 when I get to them when reading that series. This was not a great way of presenting these stories, and really just didn’t work for me as a reader.
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