I’m not sure where to begin because I was caught a bit off guard with this drop.
Late June of 2018, aka what seems like forever ago when Sony announced Jared Leto would step into the shoes of Marvel’s living vampire, a lot of people just kind of shrugged. Then it fell off the radar for many of us.
It’s no secret I love Spider-Man and I’m a mega Blade fan, so just the very idea of Morbius coming to undead-ish life got my total attention(teased for villain in sequel to Blade in alternate ending to original years ago).
Then you consider all the interactions Spider-Man has had with Morbius over the years and the possibilities just seem to explode. He even got his own series for a bit (and a reboot a few years ago) and was a fairly prominent early 90s Marvel character.
So there I was Monday afternoon minding my own business, and suddenly Morbius is back on the radar as I start seeing countless Facebook shares, tweets, and other places here and there. For those unacquainted, the trailer starts to break it down rather nicely for an outside audience.
One of the first things we see is that Michael Morbius is a beautiful doctor, soon the history lesson begins.
In flashbacks through a conversation a still human Morbius is having, we see that his childhood seemed very hard. Not only with a rare and difficult medical condition(s), but clearly we are reminded how cruel people can be as school bullies bravely beat down a much younger version of Morbius in the school yard.
Flashing back to present time, Morbius begins to somewhat self narrate and explains how he was born with this rare condition and he’s running out of time. We see his work as a doctor in the background while this all goes on. So much science.
Dr. Morbius seems to have sufficient funding, a man of means here as he toils away in a lab that looks like it’s very well furnished. He hints through conversation that he’s close to a cure but it’s not a legal one, I’m guessing not the most ethical…and seems to require you going to some god forsaken place and just saying “fuck it”.
As Morbius reaches the temple of doom, he reiterates that what he is about to do would be a cure for his condition is reckless af tbh. So, like most cures he stands at the entrance of this big ass cave, slices his hand open, and then literally all the bats come flying out. All of them. I counted.
After receiving the world’s biggest bat hug, we are returned to more present day as Michael is now in a containment unit of sorts. We notice he’s not requiring assistance to stand and he just looks like he’s having a shit day.
As he begins to punch the glass looking walls of this containment unit, the glass begins to break. The music changes to fit the new mood. We see and hear brief conversation and it’s noted he’s changing. We also hear a weird noise briefly I can’t quite figure out. Sony takes time to remind us it made some Spider-Man movies and Venom. Also, more bats.
Since that day, he could fetch really good
Through his conversation or perhaps notes to self and some visual confirmation, Morbius informs us that he has increased strength and speed. We get a glimpse of teleporting(seems to borrow from Nightcrawler type effects), he mentions and we see echo-location, and then the downside. He tells us he has an overwhelming need to consume blood.
As this scene transitions to the next, it looks like Morbius is on a big vessel, maybe a cargo ship? Anyways, there are people who seem to want him or maybe want him dead and we get our first real look at Morbius just tearing people apart.
Cut back to more current day from the look of things, the question is posed of how far someone is willing to go for a cure(I’m paraphrasing), as we get confirmation Michael Morbius(who looks to have escaped from jail) is in Spidey’s universe as he walks by a mural of Spider-Man with “murderer” scrawled across it, reminiscent of how Far From Home ended and seems to be pulled from the Spider-Man game.
While the trailer winds down, the film is shown in a darker sense. It takes on a more horror movie type feel(he is a vampire), and just before the title is shown, we get our first glimpse of our Living Vampire which, visually looks on point to what I recall from comics and other media representation over the years.
If the glimpse wasn’t cool enough, before the trailer fades to black suddenly we see Adrian Toomes, aka Michael Keaton’s Vulture having a brief interaction with Michael, we don’t quite know the full fate of Vulture so this is interesting.
It’s a really solid trailer and seems full of promise. They’ve made a point to allude to a few things which could not only keep this in the Spider-Verse but perhaps touches its toes in the full MCU as well.
This opens the door to Spidey, Venom, perhaps even Blade. So many possibilities and what is ultimately a really cool character with so much potential. This one comes to us at the end of July, so, until then I guess we will just have to speculate and see what other Easter eggs may drop along the way.
