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Morbius is more than just a guy with fangs and a skin problem, and writer Joe Keatinge really wants readers to feel like they know the Marvel Comics vampire.
The character has risen again recently in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man less as a supervillain and more as a misunderstood soul. Now as part of the "Marvel NOW!" initiative, Dr. Michael Morbius is getting his own solo title plus a new section of New York to explore in Keatinge's Morbius: The Living Vampire, debuting Wednesday and featuring art by Rich Elson.
For those wondering how Morbius is different than Dracula or even Edward Cullen, Keatinge breaks down in the first issue what makes him "vampire-ish," from advantages such as being mostly strong and impervious to injury to disadvantages like an aversion to light and uncontrollable bloodlust. (And garlic? He doesn't mind it at all, especially in a nice pesto.)
Before that, though, Keatinge wrote a prelude story in Amazing Spider-Man issue 699.1 this month where he explained "what it was that made me want to take on the job," he says, beginning with how he gets out of the supervillain detention facility The Raft.
Much of it centered on his origin: Growing up in Greece, Michael Morbius had a rare disease that killed his blood cells and weakened his immune system to the point where his body was in constant danger. Working with his brother, he became a biochemist worthy of a Nobel Prize and used an experimental cure that involved vampire bats.
Things didn't go as planned — thus why he's now "vampire-ish."
"It's certainly not Twilight, I'll tell you that much," Keatinge says of his Morbius series. "But even the stuff that I really enjoy like Salem's Lot, it's a totally different guy from that."
Morbius has long been considered a villain but what the writer most enjoys about Marvel baddies such as Doctor Doom or Thanos is "they're not pulling their mustaches trying to figure out how to tie someone to the rails," he says. "In the case of Doctor Doom he doesn't get it — he's the most noble person in the Marvel Universe in his eyes. He's not doing anything evil from his point of view."
But the case of Morbius is different in that he's not actually a villain, although he's been punched enough by Spider-Man over the years since his first appearance in 1971.
"He's actually pretty close to Peter Parker — the big difference is that unlike Peter Parker realizing with great power comes great responsibility, he looks at it as great power comes with great bitter consequence," Keatinge explains.
"He's a guy who's trying to do better. The whole reason he exists is because he's trying to cure his disease and hopefully by curing his own disease, he can cure people all over the world. You've got this noble intent there, but everything keeps going horribly wrong."
His relentlessness to atone for his sins takes him to Brownsville, a neighborhood of Brooklyn known for its violent crime. While putting Morbius in Manhattan would have just added one more to an overflowing group of characters there, Keatinge says, he wanted to place him somewhere Marvel comics haven't gone very often as well as explore the parallel between Morbius and Brownsville.
"It's an area of town that wants to do better and is constantly striving to do better, but it's just fallen on hard times and its not getting the support it needs from the police and New York as a whole," Keatinge says. "But the people within it are really working hard to improve it."
Noah St. Germain, the mohawked antagonist who controls Brownsville, is not one of those folks. He won't just be the "cackling villain" of Morbius, though, according to Keatinge. "How that role plays out is something I don't think we've seen before, the influence one person has. He plays a very atypical role for a bad guy in the Marvel Universe."
One ally Morbius will find in Brownsville is Becky Barnes, a homeless street artist introduced in the second issue who, like Morbius, aims to help her lot in life but finds things constantly going wrong.
"In Morbius' case, people keep dying because of him, so Becky's isn't that dramatic," Keatinge says. "But she sees something in Morbius — he's an outside source who actually stands up for people. He actually stands up against St. Germain and people you don't stand up against. She's attracted to that in the sense of this is a guy who actually wants to and could do some good out here."
Before tackling the new series, Keatinge revisited old Morbius stories all the way back to his creation by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane in the disco-era 1970s — which explains the groovy ultra-high collars and plunging neckline of his trademark costume.
While he's always liked the character, the writer's found he empathizes with him a lot more than expected.
"There's a lot to chew on. Who can't relate to striving to get to a better place in their life, but it just doesn't work out? People in general see a little bit of themselves in that character," says Keatinge, who also has an issue of his Image Comics series Glory out this week and begins a new story arc of Hell Yeah later this month.
If you're interested in this series, just check out your local comic book store or log into Marvel.com to check out your nearest comic book shop.
"You have a pretty good chance of making someone really feel for Morbius. That's what I do best in my own stuff: No matter how crazy situations get, you still feel like you know this person. He's like somebody you see on the street, even though you don't see too many vampires walking around."
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