Characters / Morbius

Title Character

Morbius the Living Vampire

Morbius the Living Vampire

"I am not a vampire. I am not a super villain. I am not a super hero."

Alter Ego: Doctor Michael Morbius

Team Affiliations: Midnight Sons, Sinister Six

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man #101 (October, 1971)

" If I must drink blood, let it be the blood of the corrupt — of those who deserve to die. The blood of the guilty."

Once a world-renowned biochemist, after being diagnosed with an unknown fatal blood disease, Michael Morbius desperately searched for a cure. He found that cure, but, in turn, it afflicted him with a curse far worse than any possible disease: the curse of the blood-sucking night-beast; the curse of the Living Vampire.

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• Abled in the Adaptation: Both of his animated counterparts to date don't have the same disease that plagues the comic character — though the '90s Spider-Man cartoon Morbius is still trying to cure one.
• Aborted Arc:
  • The Strange Tales story where Morbius goes to New Orleans to help Martine's niece. It is left on a cliffhanger, too.
  • The 8-page story in Amazing Fantasy vol 2 #17 sets up multiple plotlines that were never followed up on, such as Nikos being found by real vampires and turned into one after Morbius killed him so he could seek revenge, the vampires saying they will meet again because Morbius has to pay for poisoning the pure bloodline of true vampires, or the implication that every person Morbius ever bit without killing them turned into a living vampire as well.
• Adaptational Villainy: In Ultimate Spider-Man, he works for HYDRA.
• Alliterative Name: It runs in the family apparently: his father is named Makarioa Morbius. There is also the alias Morgan Michaels.
• Always Save the Girl: Some of this in the earlier comics, both Martine and Amanda. He's also responsible for She-Hulk's current condition, it being the side effect of a potential cure he was going to use on himself.
• Anti-Hero / Anti-Villain: In his original '70s series. He later got turned into a '90s Anti-Hero. He is fundamentally a good guy... when he's not hungry.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: "Michael Morbius" is far from a Greek name. On at least one occasion it's questioned why his first name is not Michalis (the Greek version of Michael), the answer simply being that "[his] mother preferred Michael".
• Bad Ass Long Coat: Michael "borrows" one from a man on the subway during his fight with Noah, and is seen wearing it later on.
• Bat Out of Hell: An Exiles story arc features an alternate universe Morbius who was transformed into a monstrous bat creature when a sorcerer used magic to bring out the worst in him. He's also turned into a giant half-man/half-bat in Spider-Man: The Animated Series and Ultimate Spider-Man.
• Bat People: Morbius is an Anti-Hero who became a genetically modified vampire, with bat genes and an Orlok-like appearance. However, in his 3rd solo series and some alternate universes — like in an Exiles story arc and in animated series — he was transformed into a half-man half-bat monster, looking more like an anthropomorphic bat with wings.
• Blessed with Suck: His superhuman powers come at the cost of overwhelming bloodlust along with a mental desire to kill. His powers are actually dependent on the amount of blood he has ingested: he grows weaker the longer he goes without a "fix".
• Blood from the Mouth: Inverted in Morbius v2 #2. Morbius coughs up blood just as the wound from a shotgun blast to the chest heals, and gets back up.
• Bolt of Divine Retribution: In Vampire Tales #10, Morbius meets a woman who cares for him and tries to instill him with faith. After she is killed and Morbius has slaughtered those responsible in revenge, he yells that the only faith he'll believe in is that which strikes him dead where he stands. A bolt of lightning strikes at his feet, exploding the body of one of the woman's killers.
• Butter Face: He had a weird-looking face even as a human; being turned into a living vampire made it more extreme, while it did wonders for his physique.
• Came Back Wrong: After he is killed by Switchblade, Morbius is resurrected without his soul, which has remained behind in the afterlife. On top of that, he hadn't been brought back to actual life, but instead was revived as an undead being.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: Artist Gil Kane based Morbius's appearance on actor Jack Palance when he created the character.
• Creepy Shadowed Undereyes: He is often drawn like this.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His (and Doc Ock!Spider-Man)'s battle with Nikoleta Harrow is easily this, with both of them being taken out twice and Nikoleta managing to beat the hell out of Michael and leave him in a burning building before disappearing.
• Curse That Cures: Michael was dying of a blood disease. He found a cure, but that cure turned him into a "Living Vampire," forced to drink the blood of others to remain alive.
• Dark Is Not Evil: He looks terrifying and he regularly causes huge messes for others when he loses control, but at the end of the day he's a good dude with a lot of serious problems who tries his best to make the most of his situation and mitigate the impact of his feral spells when they do happen.
• Daywalking Vampire: Zigzagged. Since he's not a traditional vampire, Morbius is not killed by sunlight. However, his eyes and skin are very sensitive to it, so he prefers to avoid it.
• Death by Origin Story: Nikos
• Deadpan Snarker: Shades of this in a few of his appearances, especially in the Marvel NOW! Series.
• Dehumanization: When he is captured by HYDRA he is referred to as a "thing" and an "it" multiple times, likely because they only see him as a piece of equipment that can be used to achieve their goals.
• Delinquent Hair: Noah St. Germain, the guy at the top of the criminal world in Brownsville, has a blue mohawk.
• Destined Bystander: In TAS Morbius appears several times before becoming a living vampire.
• Disappeared Dad: Morbius grew up without his father, whom he does not recall ever seeing in person, and does not recognize his voice when speaking to him over the phone. It's shown his parents had some kind of an agreement that Morbius's father would stay out of his wife and son's lives, probably because he was involved in crime.
• Don't Look At Me: On occasion Morbius is shown to be ashamed of his appearance, such as in Marvel Preview v1 #8, where he hides his face from his friend Ronson's daughter and wants her out before she sees him. He does this again in Morbius v1 #1 and says these exact words when he is confronted by his ex-fiancée Martine.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: His origin story in Amazing Spider-Man 699.1 shows he fit this trope even before becoming a living vampire, having black hair and a pale complexion due to his blood disease. Becoming a vampire made it more extreme.

• Evil Makes You Ugly: When possessed by the Lilin Bloodthirst, Morbius gets even uglier than normal.
• Evil Versus Evil: When he first showed up, he fought the Lizard as well as Spider-Man.
• Flying Brick: Can fly and is strong.
• Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: At times.
• Full Moon Silhouette: Occasionally used when Morbius flies at night. For example, an issue of Exiles introduces a further mutated, alternate universe version of Morbius like this.
• Fur Against Fang: The first couple of times Morbius the Living Vampire and Werewolf by Night's paths cross, they end up fighting, but it's nothing personal: Morbius is subject to Horror Hunger and the werewolf will attack anything that moves when it's a full moon. Over the years they grow to be best friends, although they still occasionally fight.
• Genius Bruiser: He was a brilliant scientist before his transformation, which gave him considerably enhanced physical abilities.
• Genius Cripple: Before being 'cured' and turned into a vampire at least. In his rewritten origin story he won a Nobel Prize, but didn't attend the ceremony because even lifting a tea cup broke the bones in his fingers.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Woman!: Applied to Amanda in Vampire Tales #7, though she suspects it was more because she insulted Morbius by calling him a vampire.
• Greater Need Than Mine: Gives the cure he was going to use on himself to She-Hulk to cure her fatal blood disease.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: The experiment that was supposed to counter his blood disease had some unfortunate side-effects.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: The soulpatch/chin tuft Morbius often sports is usually associated with villains or antiheroes.
• Hair Color Dissonance: Especially in earlier comics, Morbius's black hair is depicted as blue.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Started as an anti-villain, then became an anti-hero, and eventually got upgraded to a nineties anti-hero who constantly fought against Spider-Man yet would help people in need...unless he felt like eating them.
• High Collar of Doom: Has one when he is introduced as a Tragic Villain in the pages of Amazing Spider-Man. Later inverted when he becomes more of an Anti-Hero, sometimes a hero outright, but still wears the same outfit, with the collar often drawn even higher and more pronounced than it was in his first appearance.
• Horror Hunger: The main cause of all his struggles and his desire to undo his curse.
• Hospital Hottie: During his stint at St. Jude's, several characters think he's quite good-looking.
• Human Shield: Morbius did this once when facing off with the X-Men. He snatches Jean Grey and threatens to snap her neck unless Cyclops backs off. Scott just adjusts his glasses a bit and fires behind Morbius, striking a mirror and causing his eye-beams to redirect into the vampire's back.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: In the Ultimate Universe, Morbius is a true vampire and Vlad the Impaler's brother. He fights against vampires and prevents other people from being turned into them.
• Hybrid Monster: In Marvel Zombies 3 ,there's a zombie version of Morbius, who calls himself a vambie.
• I Am a Monster: Sometimes, though at other times he rejects it outright.
• I Have Your Wife: In his Marvel NOW! series, the Rose tells Morbius he has his mother, and gives him her wedding ring as a reminder he works for him now. Subverted when Morbius reveals his mother died years ago. The Rose's employer, who provided the ring, knows Morbius would know the threat was empty—so it was the Rose who was being conned.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: The single constant motivation throughout all of Morbius's appearances since his introduction is the desire to undo the scientific accident that made him a living vampire and become a normal human being once more.
• Iconic Outfit: The red-and-black bodysuit he originally wore as insulation against the electric shock during the experiment that transformed him.
• In Series Nick Name: Becky refers to Michael as 'Mike' when introducing him to members of Brownsville, and seems content to stick with that much to his chagrin. Him constantly correcting her becomes a bit of a Running Gag.
• Insanity Defense: Successfully argued by attorney Jennifer Walters, avoiding the death penalty for his crimes.
• Insistent Terminology: In Spider-Man: The Animated Series.
  Morbius: I borrowed this equipment from the ESU Science Department.
  Felicia Hardy: Pilfered.
  Morbius: ...Borrowed.
• In the Hood: The first few nights in Brownsville, Morbius wears a hoodie with the hood up after he's escaped the Raft and is laying low.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Jack Russell. Morbius was already an M.D. with at least one Ph.D. and a Nobel Prize under his belt before Jack had even turned 18.
• Interrupted Suicide: Due to overwhelming guilt and general inability to cope with being a living vampire, he has attempted suicide several times, but laments that each time someone has stopped him or brought him back.
• Kid Sidekick: Played with in his Marvel NOW! series with the teenager Becky, who keeps saying she's his sidekick but Morbius insists she's not.
• Last-Name Basis: He is almost always called by his last name, both in and out of universe. Only friends (sometimes) use his first name, "Or they would, if I had any."
• Limited Wardrobe: His black-and-red body suit. He's worn it for over 45 years now, and though he sometimes switches it up, he always goes back to it. Man must have one hell of a dry cleaning bill.
• Looks Like Cesare: He is often portrayed like this.
• Looks Like Orlok: When drawn by Tony Moore in the "Franken-Castle" arc, as well as by Paolo Rivera in Spectacular Spider-Man #14.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Lena falls in love with Morgan Michaels, but she hates Michael Morbius.
• Manly Tears: Cries when Marie Laveau turns him back into a living vampire against his will after he had been cured.
• Meta Origin: The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) reveals that the formula that turned him into a living vampire was actually created by a woman known as Madame Monstrosity, whose formula was also used to create villains like the Lizard, the Scorpion and the Rhino. The reason it didn't work is because she found out about it and altered it in revenge.
• Mook Horror Show: The 2019 series opens with this, as Morbius tears through a gang assembled by The Melter.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Depending on the Artist, of course, but sometimes Morbius has been depicted with a particularly toothsome jawline. In particular, a fanmade poster for the 2022 Morbius film depicts him post-transformation with ripped-off lips and cheeks, creating a toothy ear-to-ear Glasgow Grin barely hidden by his high collar.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Subverted in the '90s Anti-Hero comic, as this happens soon after Morbius has found a way to make himself human again, and thus is unable to defend himself against several robbers (but gets revenge later).
  • Played straight in other comics where people have tried to steal from a "corpse" or robbers have mistaken him for a harmless hobo.
  • Members of the Friends of Humanity attack him because they think he's a mutant. He would likely have killed them if Spider-Man hadn't stopped him. (Then again, this is far from the first time the Friends of Humanity have made this mistake.)
• Mutants: He started out as an ordinary human being, but was altered when an experiment involving vampire bats went wrong.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Blood-Tide, Death-Flame, Vic Slaughter...
• Nonhumans Lack Attributes: An Exiles storyline introduces an alternate universe version of Morbius who looks like a giant bat. He is constantly naked and lacks genitals and nipples.
• The Noseless: Though he's often drawn with an upturned or bat-like nose, some artists (such as Matthew Clark in Amazing Spider-Man 679.1) draw him with no nose at all.
• Obliviously Evil: A particularly tragic example in one of Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man stories, where Morbius hides in a Manhattan sewer and makes an agreement with a community of deformed, mentally ill humans living there: he protects them against their enemies and those who reject them, and they repay him by capturing bad people from the surface for him to feed on, thus sparing him the guilt of having to decide himself who deserves to be his victim. Unfortunately for him, their limited intelligence makes them see all people from the surface as bad, and they end up delivering him several innocent hobos. When Spider-Man gets involved in the case and reveals the truth, Morbius is horrified to realize he unintentionally caused innocents to kill other innocents, and runs away from the community.
• Odd Friendship: With Werewolf by Night.
• One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: He has all the physical abilities of a vampire, in part at least, including immortality, with none of the traditional weaknesses except for blood lust and sensitivity to sunlight, albeit not beyond discomfort.
• One-Man Army: Manages to take out all of Noah St. Germain's thugs as well as the people working for the Rose single-handedly.
• Opposites Attract: Morbius and his fiancée Martine are opposites in both looks and personality. Morbius himself even wonders aloud how "an out and about society girl" could fall in love with "a morose scientist who can't stand the sun".
• Our Vampires Are Different:
  • Besides himself being different (notice the "living vampire" moniker), he also inadvertently created another different vampire called Blade, though this was eventually retconned as Morbius's bite not changing him at all.
    • He also bites Nate Grey, and winds up sort of turning him. However, this was implied to be more thanks to Nate's vast Psychic Powers—essentially, he believed that since he was bitten by a vampire, he would turn into one himself, and since he believed it, his powers subconsciously made it happen. It didn't stick.
  • The '90s cartoon depiction makes him even weirder by giving him myriad small, leech-like mouths in each hand, causing him to feed by grabbing hold of victims and sucking out the blood through them, instead of biting necks. It was supposed to make him more "kid-friendly". Most would say it had the opposite effect. He spent a brief period of time as a hulking anthropomorphic bat version of himself as well.
  • In Ultimate Spider-Man he is transformed when Doctor Octopus injects him with vampire bat formula. It gives him the ability to drain people of their Life Energy, which he can do without physical contact.
• Painful Transformation: In his first solo series, Morbius can turn back into a human for short amounts of time thanks to a serum derived from Spider-Man's blood. The change from vampire to human and back is excruciatingly painful, and involves lots of screaming.
• Past Experience Nightmare: In his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #101-102, his backstory is retold through the nightmares he suffers, in which he keeps recounting the scientific accident and killing Emil. He is occasionally shown to be reluctant to go to sleep because he knows he'll have more nightmares.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Morbius uses this as a solution to slake his bloodthirst, figuring that if he needs to kill, he'll kill serious criminals.
• People Jars: Morbius has one in his Monster Metropolis lab in which he keeps Werewolf by Night after he is infected with the zombie virus.
• People Puppets: In the Spider-Man 3 video game, Shriek uses her powers to make him fight Spider-Man against his will. He repeatedly asks her to stop, to no avail.
• Pointy Ears: He initially did not have them, but later artists added them, after which they quickly became a standard part of his appearance.
• Power Palms: In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Morbius could suck human plasma through holes in his palms.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Though genetically he is not completely human anymore, Morbius still deeply cares about humans, such as when he runs a free clinic for the poor and when he defends the people of Brownsville from the criminals that run the town.
• Professor Guinea Pig: In his defense he was running out of time and had tested at least some parts.
• Rage Against the Reflection: In his first solo series, Michael uses Spider-Man's blood to develop a serum that changes him back into a human. While out on the street, he is attacked and beaten by a gang. Crawling out of the gutter where they left him lying, he makes his way across the sidewalk to look into a shop window and sees he has reverted to his vampire self. He runs off after punching a hole in the shop window.
• Real Award, Fictional Character: Won a Nobel Prize for his blood-related research.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Introduced as a Spider-Man villain but later turned an Anti-Hero, Morbius's Iconic Outfit is black and red. Originally his eyes were pink, but were later changed to red, making his color scheme white-black-red.
• Related in the Adaptation:
  • He's married to Shriek in the Spider-Man 3 tie-in game, while in the comics the two have no connection to each other and even fought against one another in the Maximum Carnage storyline.
  • His Ultimate Marvel counterpart is Dracula's brother—which in turn makes him a distant relative of Doctor Doom, who's one of Dracula's descendants.
• In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, he was mutated by being bitten by a vampire bat that he accidentally zapped with the Neogenic Recombinator while it fed on a sample of Peter Parker's blood on which he was testing it. This results in a twofer: not only is Spidey's blood stated to be the partial cause of his transformation, but they both transformed by being bitten by creatures exposed to the same biogenetics-altering radiation.
• Religion of Evil: Has battled against these more than once, which is ironic, seeing how he likes to remind people that he's a rational scientist.
• Resist the Beast: He usually loses.
• Serial-Killer Killer: For a time Morbius would only drink the blood of the guilty.
• Shirtless Scene: Both the '90s series and the Marvel NOW! run have quite a few of these.
• A Sinister Clue: When Morbius is shown writing on something like a clipboard in volume 1, he does so with his left hand.
• Sliding Scale of Beauty: Started out around XII as human, with people laughing behind his fiancée's back for being with someone as ugly as him, and his attorney Jennifer Walters saying he's weird-looking. Slides to XIII after being turned into a living vampire, with people describing him as looking like the back-end of a bulldog, and one of Spider-Man's first thoughts when face-to-face with him for the first time is "His face—-it's hideous!"
• The Soulless: After being killed by Blade, Morbius is accidentally resurrected as an undead, soulless being. He is later brought back to proper life, but is never shown to actually get back his soul. It doesn't really seem to change him at all; he mentions his emotions are numbed somewhat, but he is portrayed the way he always was: as a deeply flawed but fundamentally good person and caring doctor. The fact that he's soulless hasn't been mentioned in years, and most writers seem to have forgotten entirely.
• Staking the Loved One: Morbius staked (or caused to be staked) his ex-fiancée Martine after she became a true vampire and tried to convince him to let her turn him into one, too.
• Stock Superhero Day Jobs: Of the scientist variety. Morbius worked as a hemato(patho)logist during one of his stable periods, and worked for a pharmaceutical company during another.
• Tattooed Crook: Noah St. German is heavily tattooed, even on his face.
• Technically-Living Vampire: He's known as "Morbius the Living Vampire" for a reason. Unlike the other undead vampires of the Marvel Universe, Morbius is a pseudo-vampiric mutant who's still alive, his condition caused by genetic experimentation gone wrong instead of a supernatural curse.
• These Hands Have Killed: Morbius does this in his rewritten origin story after killing his lifelong friend Emil Nikos.
• Third-Person Person: At times, though it's not consistent from one appearance to the next.
• Totally Not a Werewolf: The Marvel Universe has plenty of vampires. Morbius differs from the rest by his scientific origin (combined with DNA of a vampire bat) and the fact that he is very much a living being. How much this trope applies varies depends on the writer.
• Tyop on the Cover: Morbius's name is misspelled as Moribus on the cover of Amazing Spider-Man #102.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: When he was engaged to Martine, he wondered how he got so lucky.
• Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: He didn't think highly of his appearance even as a human, and turning into a vampire didn't help at all. In contrast, quite a few of the higher members of the Hell-Fire cult are handsome and beautiful.
• Undeath Always Ends: Morbius was killed by Switchblade, but not much later was resurrected as an undead being. True to his name, he reverted to being a living vampire about a year later.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's a doctor who spent most of his life in laboratories doing research before his transformation into a living vampire gave him tremendous strength. He doesn't seem to have much of a fighting technique beyond punching, tearing, and biting his enemies, which gets even worse when he's in a blood frenzy that essentially reduces him to a mindless beast. But due to his strength he can hold his own against opponents such as Spider-Man, who on occasion even admits that he forgot how strong Morbius really is.
• Vampires Hate Garlic: Averted, as he himself points out. He actually loves garlic, "especially in a nice pesto sauce."
• Vampire Vannabe: There's a club full of them and they just love Morbius, who is freaked about by the idea that there are people who actually want to be vampires.
• Vampire Vords: His accent in Spider-Man: The Animated Series and the Spider-Man 3 video game.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Jack Russell a.k.a. Werewolf by Night.
• Weakened by the Light: Won't turn to ashes in sunlight like a regular vampire, but will quickly suffer burns due to his extremely pale skin, and so prefers to avoid it as much as he can.
• Wealthy Yacht Owner: Subverted. Martine thinks he's bought a yacht with the Nobel Prize money, but it turns out it's merely a rental.
• What Have I Become?: His exact words after being turned into a living vampire and killing his friend Emil.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: In Marvel Zombies, Werewolf by Night takes a jab at Morbius: "Ha! You're such a cliché. So emo all the time about the tragedy of bloodlust like some bad Twilight fanfic."
• Wig, Dress, Accent: In Strange Tales: Blade, Morbius disguises himself as human to meet with Martine's relatives, which stretches quite a bit to Paper-Thin Disguise. Though he does wear reasonably normal clothes as opposed to his leather wear, he does nothing to his white skin, fangs, pointy ears or claws, making everyone creeped out by him. While he's not recognized as Michael Morbius, one of the family soon starts to suspect him to be a vampire and goes straight to Blade for help. Truly a Nobel Prize-winning scientist at work.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: At the end of the day, Morbius is a decent human being given an extremely raw deal thanks to a terrible genetic dice roll, who then made an incredibly bad choice out of desperation (without really having any way to know just how bad an idea it was), and turned into an abomination as a result. He must spend every waking moment fighting off the call of the beast (which he generally does a good job at, but he can count on slipping or losing control in spite of his best efforts on a fairly regular basis), while also needing to feed and having his only means of sustenance be something that is usually fatal to the other party. Half of the reason why he is even a vigilante boils down to his need to feed and desire to at least have some good come out of it, and while he tries to be careful, he is all too aware that his efforts as a vigilante frequently lead to gigantic messes that he has to clean up because he lost control. While most of his allies are wary of him (for good reason) and he has caused a lot of problems for a lot of people, none of them can deny that his life sucks and he's making the best effort he can to help others and not wallow in misery.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: The only type of prey Morbius is rarely seen to attack. There is one child character who is rapidly aging and being reborn, and eventually demands Morbius to attack in her child stage; he tries his damnest to resist, but ultimately gives in this horrifically bizarre situation.
• You Sexy Beast: Mandy certainly thinks this; she just loves the fact that Morbius is a vampire and much prefers his vampire form over his human one.

Enemies

Agent Stroud

Agent Stroud

"Simon Stroud always gets his man!"

Alter Ego: Simon Stroud

Team Affiliations: S.H.I.E.L.D.

First Appearance: Creatures on the Loose #30 (April, 1974)

"Tonight I'll end the nightmares. Tonight they'll all see I was right."

Originally a CIA agent who participated in several missions alongside Black Widow, Simon Stroud eventually left the agency and joined the Special Police Task Force. Gaining a reputation as the Task Force's best monster hunter, Stroud is brought into investigate a series of vampire attacks attributed to Morbius... thus beginning a long rivalry with the Living Vampire.

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• Alliterative Name: Simon Stroud.
• Anti-Villain: A Hero Antagonist in his best moments, a Knight Templar during his worst.
• Arch-Enemy: Quite possibly the closest thing Morbius has to one.
• Badass Normal: Stroud has no superhuman abilities, but he is a versatile fighter capable of fighting superhuman opponents hand-to-hand.
• The Bus Came Back: After being absent for most of the '80s, Stroud reappears when Morbius gets another solo series in the '90s.
• Combat Pragmatist: A tactical fighter who often uses surroundings to his advantage.
• Expy: Like Doc Samson, Stroud was created to serve as a Van Helsing-style nemesis for a monstrous Anti-Hero. He starts out as a purely heroic character, but his obsession with his rival gradually takes him into Captain Ahab territory. Ironically, he becomes more villainous as his nemesis becomes more heroic.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Stroud gets hit by this hard. Initially an honorable man who only used lethal force on threats that were too dangerous to be kept alive, Stroud's obsession with avenging his previous defeats eventually turns him into an Ax-Crazy Knight Templar who compromises all his principles, and alienates most of his allies, in his increasingly psychotic obsession with destroying Morbius.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Stroud feels this way toward Morbius. He tends to engage in an Enemy Mine when a bigger threat arrives on the scene, because he doesn't want someone else stealing his kill.
• Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Initially an enemy for Man-Wolf. When Spider-Man cured John of his curse, Stroud became a nemesis for Morbius.
• Sanity Slippage: At his lowest point he is committed to an insane asylum, spouting rabid conspiracy theories. The other inmates were afraid of him.
• Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist: Stroud served this role for most of his appearances in the '70s. His transformation to Knight Templar coincided with Morbius becoming a '90s Anti-Hero.
• Villainous Breakdown: During a particularly pitched battle with Morbius, Stroud suffers a psychotic break, forgets his normal combat pragmatism, and futilely shoots at Morbius (who is immune to his bullets) until he runs out of ammo.

Hunger

Hunger

Alter Ego: Loxias Crown

First Appearance: Spider-Man #76 (November, 1996)

Originally a HYDRA agent, Crown had the misfortune of battling both Spider-Man and Morbius during one particularly fateful assignment. In the ensuing battle, Crown was bitten by Morbius and transformed into a "Living Vampire" himself. Taking the name Hunger, Crown set up shop in the sewers of New York, occasionally abducting surface dwellers and turning them into his cattle.

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• The Beastmaster: Could control flocks of bats.
• The Dragon: Toward the end of Howard Mackie's Spider-Man run, Hunger became one to Senator Ward (Mackie's Big Bad).
• Horror Hunger: He named himself after it.
• King of the Homeless: Has created his own personal fiefdom in the sewers.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Has the same powers, abilities, and weakness as Morbius.

Vic Slaughter

Vic Slaughter

Alter Ego: Victor Adam Slaughter

First Appearance: Morbius: The Living Vampire #6 (December, 1992)

"Now you have to die. For the deaths of my Hardcases, and just because I despise the air you breathe."

A former soldier turned mercenary, Vic Slaughter was originally the captain of a mercenary unit called The Hardcases. Hired by Simon Stroud to provide extra muscle against Morbius, Slaughter was bitten by Morbius in the ensuing battle and was transformed into a transgenic vampire not unlike Morbius himself.

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• Arch-Enemy: After Stroud, he's the strongest contender for the title.
• Ax-Crazy: Doesn't even try to hide it.
  "Being a vampire might not be as bad as all that after all! Ha. Got a major case of the munchies, though.
• Evil Counterpart: He has the same powers as Morbius, but none of the restraint.
• From Camouflage to Criminal: A former Marine.
• Guns Akimbo: Fond of dual-wielding submachine guns in battle.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As a vampire he has red eyes.

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