Morbius The Living Vampire Creates A New Breed of Spider-Monster

Warning: contains spoilers for Amazing Spider-Man #92!

One of Spider-Man’s most dangerous foes has received a massive upgrade, and it’s all thanks to yet another classic Spider-Man villain: Morbius, the Living Vampire. Dr. Michael Morbius suffers from a debilitating condition that grants him powers not unlike a classic vampire and has been a thorn in the webslinger’s side for quite some time. But Amazing Spider-Man #92 reveals that Morbius isn’t the villain of the hour: it’s Dr. Curt Conners, the Lizard.

In current comics continuity, the Amazing Spider-Man series is receiving a massive shake-up in the form of the Beyond story arc. Peter Parker suffers a tremendous setback when hit with a deadly radiation-based attack courtesy of the villainous team the U-Foes. While Parker recovers in the hospital, Ben Reilly (his clone from the 90s Clone Saga storyline) takes over as the city’s official new Spider-Man. Funded by the mysterious Beyond Corporation, Ben Reilly receives a high-tech suit and is even paid for his superheroics.

But not all is well within Beyond. Ben Reilly discovers the corporation is actively experimenting with forbidden bio-tech (and has classified data pertaining to Ben Reilly’s memories regarding his status as a clone). With Peter fully recovered (at least in his own mind), both Spider-Men assault Beyond’s headquarters in New York, only to come across all sorts of monsters and hodgepodge creatures. Beyond the ominous “Door Z” is a gigantic version of the Lizard, who is easily three times his normal size and has even sprouted wings. Beyond has run plenty of experiments on Connors, thanks to the apprehended body of Morbius.

When Morbius is freed from his prison, he admits that Beyond managed to “stabilize” his condition – but they knocked him out and imprisoned him instead, taking samples of the doctor’s tissue to presumably use on the Lizard. The fact that the Lizard has been supercharged with Morbius’ DNA is not surprising for fans of the upcoming Morbius film. The synergy between comics and the MCU/SUMC (Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters) is vitally important to increasing the reach of the brand, and this means more appearances by Morbius in the future.

In the grand tradition of Spider-Man villains, neither Morbius nor the Lizard are actively and/or purely evil. Both have been the victims of experimentation, and Spider-Man knows it. Nevertheless, the Vampire-Lizard proves to be an incredibly violent foe to face, even for Spider-Man.