New "Morbius: The Living Vampire" ongoing

We've been talking about this in the Marvel NOW thread...

 

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Eh, unnecessary censorship and all I still love that show. And while it may not have been the most accurate portrayal of Morbius, it did introduce me to the character. That being said I'll probably give this new book a try even though I'm on a plasma free diet.

 

What happened with Morbius in ASM? I'll probably try this out since Keatinge mentioned the Legion of Monsters will factor into it--their recent mini with Elsa Bloodstone was one of the best things I read from Marvel this year--but I haven't paid any attention to ASM in years.

 

In a nutshell, Morbius was one of the "7" at Horizon Labs (he was the mysterious #6), and was basically using the lab trying to cure himself...

In the recent ASM Lizard story, Morbius dug up Billy Connors grave to get access to Connors' DnA in order to try and use it for his own personal cure (we've seen Lizard & Morbius blood working together waaay back in ASM #101 & 102), though he was also making the claimn that he could use his "findings" to cure Dr. Connors...

After being manipulated by a Lizard controlled Dr.Connors, Morbius went on a mini-blood lust forcing Spidey to beat the crap out of him and ultimately getting tossed into the Raft... Max Modell, the owner of Horizon Labs, was going to kick Morbius out after hearing about the desicration of Billy's grave...

Hope that helped...

 

Oh, okay. That's not too bad. I thought they might've done something that would be a real problem for Morbius to come back from, since he was being quite good as basically the Reed Richards of Monster Metropolis with the Legion of Monsters. But he's still pretty morally gray, and those actions from ASM, while ghoulish, aren't really harmful to his super-scientist portrayal.

The "7" what?

 

The "7" are the lead scientists that work for Horizon. Aside from Peter and Morbius they're all new characters.

 

The number 7 refers to the number of labs available at Horizon. It's kinda like the Augusta National golf club for geniuses. There's limited space and the late Marla Jameson got Peter his job there because of her friendship to Max Modell, the guy in charge. When all the new co-workers were introduced it was "so and so works in lab 3" and so on and so forth. Each lab is like a mini vault that's very private giving Peter a spot to both store and create his tech in secrecy.

When Horizon Labs was first introduced by Slott, there was a lab #6 that nobody except Max Modell and Reed Richards knew about it's occupant due to a confidentiality agreement. The mini mystery was revealed during Spider-Island that Morbius was "that" occupant.

And FYI, his work with Connors was revealed at the end of Spider-Island, showing him having the Lizard locked up, experimenting on him. The recent arc continued that story.

 

Ah. Cool.

 

Yup, so cool that you don't buy it.

 

That was just a general indication that I understood your explanation of who the 7 are, not an indicator of interest in the story. I think Horizon Labs sounds kind of like overkill on the Peter-as-scientist front, to be honest.

 

Yeah, because everybody loved it when he was reverted to a virgin photographer living in his Aunt's house.

 

Well, no, but those aren't the only two extremes. I would've much rather seen him return to teaching, maybe by returning to his graduate studies and becoming a TA. Graduate school doesn't really require that much time if you're as smart as Peter is, so he'd have the freedom to continue as Spider-Man too. You know, something that highlights Peter's natural intelligence and tells us he could be more someday without dropping a multi-million-dollar lab in the lap of some guy who never even got a graduate degree, let alone published anything or gained any experience or credibility in academic science circles.

 

Yeah but they did the teaching thing pretty recently. Slott isn't the type of guy to rehash stuff. I like the Horizon job. He's been on the brink of losing it for a while. If the rumors of Pete dying in ASM 700 are true, he'll have to find a new career when he eventually comes back.

 

Teaching would be a cliché because he did it like 10 years ago when JMS took over, but killing Peter off wouldn't, even though they just did that a year ago in Ultimate Spider-Man?

 

Hey, it's only a rumor.....

I'm just saying that the teaching thing has been done but this scientist job is kinda new. Byrne tried to do it during the ASM 99 relaunch but he failed miserably. Howard Mackie took over, killed MJ, made Peter broke and he was living with Randy Robertson.

 

I remember. Still, make him a lab assistant or something if you want to go full scientist. Dropping an exclusive, well-funded lab on him seems to counteract the last ten or twenty instances of the ol' Parker luck running bad.

 

That's why I'm waiting for it to blow up in his face. He was on thin ice with his boss for a little while after Spider-Island and the right around Ends of the Earth, JJJ was trying to evict them from NYC. It's produced a setting for some great stories, the most recent being the Lizard arc.

 

Right, but whatever happens after the fact, he still got to be head of his own ridiculously amazing lab with virtually no prior experience as a bona fide scientist. I mean, how much pull could Martha Jameson have had to get Modell to be like, "Eh, sure, why the hell not?" when she suggested giving one of apparently only 7 exclusive, top-of-the-line labs at his disposal to some guy who used to snap pictures for her hubby's tabloid? Or were they "friends," if you know what I'm sayin'?

I'm saying she probably had sex with him.

 

Also, Peter has had some of his work published since working at Horizon Labs...

 

If that's true, I guess that's one she's taking to the grave.

But seriously, she felt bad for him losing his credibility trying to protect her husband, she just wanted to repay the favor. She only got him an interview. He still had to get quizzed by all the other geniuses about certain topics and Pete passed their little "tests" by applying his past adventures of Spider-Man. It was actually kinda neat.