Amazing Spider-Man #699.1 (Morbius #0) review

Hey guys! Guest ASM reviewer Kevin Cushing here. Since this Point One issue is written by Joe Keatinge, writer of the upcoming Morbius: The Living Vampire series, and has been described by him as a Morbius zero issue, Brad, Don, and Erik graciously agreed to let me review this one to kick off my reviews of said upcoming series. So, in the middle of this madness in the run up to ASM #700, let’s take a little break and consider the vampires, huh?

Writer: Joe Keatinge with Dan Slott

Art: Valentine DeLandro and Marco Checchetto (pages 1-2)

Color Art: Antonio Fabela

Letterer: VC’s Chris Eliopoulos

Cover: Stefano Caselli

Assistant Editor: Ellie Pyle

Associate Editor: Sana Amanat

Editor: Stephen Wacker

THE STORY: As Dr. Octopus (secretly Peter Parker in Ock’s body, though that’s never mentioned in this issue) escapes from The Raft prison, he denies Michael Morbius passage with him. However, just after that party leaves, Morbius is somehow able to push open the door to his cell. The Lizard questions – where will he go? Who will take him in?

Morbius flashes back to his childhood in Greece with an absent father and an overprotective mother who never wanted him to go outside because of his rare, incurable blood disease. His best friend Emil Nikos was always by his side and helped him over the years to develop a cure, and eventually their work won them the Nobel Prize. When Morbius and Nikos took a yacht out to work in private, their experiment with vampire bat DNA and electro-shock treatment (which Nikos objected to) resulted in Morbius’ transformation into a living vampire. His first act was to feed on Nikos, and then he threw himself overboard. After a quick review of his meeting of Spider-Man and subsequently the Midnight Sons, Morbius’ mind returns to the present and the question – where will he go?

MY THOUGHTS: I have to say, this issue is kind of an odd duck in just about every conceivable respect. I’m not saying it’s bad – it’s not. It’s just a lot of choices that seem strange to me.

First and foremost for regular Amazing Spider-Man readers, it seems rather counter-intuitive to break the flow of the huge, game-changing “Dying Wish” story by running this review of Morbius’ past right before the final part and the final issue of Amazing Spider-Man to boot. Were Morbius a character that figured into Dying Wish it might make some sense, but I’d say any speculation that this was done because Morbius might have a role in #700 was over when the issue ended with “To Be Continued in Morbius #1.” You might argue that this is a Point One issue, so people should know it’s separated from the main series, but that is definitely not the case. Recent Point One issues of other comics, like Venom #27.1 and Ultimate Spider-Man #16.1 have been essential lead-ins to those series new stories. And while Amazing Spider-Man #654.1 was used similarly to this issue, as a zero issue for Venom, the most recent Point One issue of ASM was Amazing Spider-Man #679.1, which also featured Morbius and was an essential prelude to the later “No Turning Back” arc. Long story short, my point is this is an issue that was entirely skippable for those following Amazing Spider-Man, it was placed right before the final issue of a major storyline and the comic itself, and yet there was no way for ASM readers to really know that before buying it. A very, very strange publishing plan indeed.

Another odd choice, in my opinion, was to make this issue entirely an origin flashback. Clearly, the idea behind putting a Morbius issue written by the upcoming writer of Morbius in Amazing Spider-Man was to advertise the new series to Amazing Spider-Man readers and get them interested to try the new series next month. Sadly, I don’t see how this story is going to accomplish that goal. By focusing solely on the origin story, there is absolutely no indication in this comic of the direction the new Morbius series will take. I’m considered somewhat of a Morbius expert around here, and even I don’t have any idea what to expect from Morbius: The Living Vampire. Not even the kind of comic it will be, really. Instead what we get here is just a rehash of a story first revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #102 with some new details that don’t really matter (and many of which contradict past continuity – more on that later). This issue is only going to do anything for you if you know absolutely nothing at all about Morbius, and while that may very well be a lot of people, I still just don’t think this is going to excite the unconverted. I’m a sure thing to pick up the new series, but honestly there’s nothing in this comic that makes me want to or excited to. That’s a very big problem, if you ask me.

I also find the choice of artist a bit odd, even though the art is excellent. Why I find it odd is that this is supposed to be a taste of the new Morbius series, but we don’t get the new Morbius artist. Rich Elson, who will be providing art for Morbius, was actually the artist for Amazing Spider-Man #698 just last month, and for this issue we get Valentine DeLandro with two pages of Marco Checchetto. Considering these are ALL really great artists, I would have thought it would make more sense to have DeLandro do ASM #698 and give Elson this issue so we can see the Morbius creative team working together. Again, to be clear, I have NO complaints about the art in this issue. The artists are top notch and they’re doing top notch work. The scheduling is just another of those many odd choices I mentioned at the top.

And finally, let’s talk about this origin story, shall we? Let’s start with what Keatinge did right. One thing I greatly appreciated is that Keatinge is one of the very, VERY few writers who writes Morbius’ dialogue naturalistically instead of that really stunted kind of dialogue most people write for any foreign character. The latter would never work for the star of an ongoing series in this day and age, so we’re really lucky to be getting the former if the new series is to have a snowball’s chance in hell. He also seems to have a pretty good handle on who Morbius is in general, so that’s really promising, too. And I loved the recreations of the first fight with Spider-Man and the 90’s Midnight Sons era, so credit for that should go to both him and the talented Mr. DeLandro.

What this story got wrong, though, is pretty glaring. We’re presented with a Michael Morbius who lived his whole life in fear of the sun, of falling down, of getting cut. A Michael Morbius with a mother who wanted to protect him from the outside world because of his rare blood disease. A Michael Morbius who is stunned Martine Bancroft is with him because he has to be so reclusive.

Well, sadly, none of that works.

Michael Morbius found out about his rare blood disease AFTER he’d already won the Nobel Prize (by himself, by the way – it was not shared with Nikos). It was a tragic twist of fate when a Nobel Prize winning biochemist discovered he had an incurable blood disease and was powerless to do anything about it. I can’t say why Keatinge decided to reboot Morbius’ entire pre-vampire life, but it doesn’t sit too well with me. It’s something that I can’t really see grabbing new readers and will just annoy those few of us who are already fans.

In the end, given all I’ve discussed here, I’m afraid this Point One issue may actually hurt the chances of the new Morbius series rather than help it. I’ll still be in line, but will anyone else who read this looking for a taste of what’s to come?

GRADE: 2.5 disco-suits out of 5. Solid art and an ably told story, but full of odd choices, poor continuity, and no hints at the future.