Tokyo Ghoul’s Ken Kaneki vs. Michael Morbius, Who Wins in a Fight?

While ghouls and vampers hunt in different circles, Tokyo Ghoul’s Ken Kaneki and Michael Morbius’ unique backgrounds suggest that they will meet one day, perhaps in a fight over the same human meal. Each brings an interesting skill set that has served them well. But will it be enough to finally force the other to rest in peace?

Neither Kaneki nor Morbius wanted to become a soldier in the army of the undead, but sometimes fate can be cruel. Since they feared what they had become, their turn to the occult was initially difficult. Each fought their macabre urges for flesh and blood. Eventually, they embraced their inner demons and became two of the strongest albeit most gruesome beings of the supernatural world.

Kaneki’s entry is more the result of happenstance than anything else. After being attacked by a classmate who, unbeknownst to him, was a ghoul, he barely escapes with his life when a beam falls on his attacker’s head, presumably killing her. With Kaneki’s life slipping away, rather than wait for a donor, doctors use an organ from the classmate that attacked him to replace one he lost in the fight. As a result, Kaneki is transformed into a half-human, half-ghoul member of the undead. Indeed, while his hybridization is believed to give him more strength than a traditional ghoul, it initially limited his mental ability to go “full ghoul” mode. As a ghoul, Kaneki exhibits superhuman strength, speed, endurance, and immunity to pain. He also possesses many of the traditional abilities of the undead including the ability to regenerate. Of all his ghoulish abilities, the rinkaku kagune/kakuja is the most impressive. This manifests as a multi-limbed tentacle that grows out of his back. Besides giving Kaneki increased strength, the rikaku provides both offensive and defensive abilities. Naturally, as a ghoul, Ken must eat human flesh to survive. On the human side, Kaneki has developed himself into a skilled martial arts expert and swordsman.

Unlike other undead, Morbius’ transformation was not via the actions of another paranormal being. He was not bitten or scratched by another vampire. Instead, Morbius’ metamorphosis came by his own hand. While searching for a cure to the rare blood disease he suffers from, Morbius discovered a possible treatment using vampire bat blood. When an experiment using the blood goes shockingly wrong, Morbius turns himself into a vampire, or more specifically a vampire hybrid. Consequently, after transformation, he obtains most of the supernatural advantages that vampires have while avoiding most of its weaknesses. For example, when in vampire mode, Morbius has superhuman strength, speed, self-healing and regeneration abilities, heightened senses, hypnotic powers, and the ability to fly. However, unlike vampires, he is not significantly affected by sunlight or crosses. He can be seen in a mirror. The only drawback to his being a vampire is his insatiable desire for blood. On the human side, Morbius has a world-class intellect.

So, who wins in a fight? Both are comparable in terms of strength, speed, and endurance. Both also can self-heal, though Kaneki’s ability is probably faster. Morbius can fly, which gives him some advantages. However, to win a fight, one needs to physically overcome the other. In this respect, Kaneki has a clear advantage. Not only is he adept in hand-to-hand combat, but with the addition of his tentacles, Kaneki can simultaneously launch multiple attacks. Moreover, while both have been in more than their fair shares of fights, almost every fight that Kaneki has been in has been matter of life or death. That surely would give him a mental edge over Morbius.

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Marcel Green
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Marcel Green is a comics news writer for Screen Rant. A lifelong comic fan who originally was a “Marvel Only” collector, he has matured into an “independent” fan of all things comics, manga, cartoon, and anime. Happy to finally be able to put all those hours reading comics over the years to good use.

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