Marvel Comics 2021
Written by Ralph Macchio
Illustrated by Tom Reilly
Coloured by Chris O’Halloran
Lettered by VC’s Ariana Maher
MORBIUS, THE LIVING VAMPIRE, FACES A GHOST FROM HIS PAST: HIS FIRST KILL! Emil Nikos was Morbius’ research partner…until the bloodlust made Emil the first victim to Morbius’ vampiric urges! Now, Emil’s son is dying from a new rare blood disease and only Morbius can save him! But at what cost?
Honestly I picked this up on a whim as I was curious as to what was going on with Michael these days. He’s been an enigmatic character since his creation and with a decidedly unique origin, for a vampire that is, and his desire to rid himself of his affliction he’s found himself on both sides of the laws coin. So you might say I am attracted to complex characters that can be hard to pigeonhole into a specific category and Morbius is definitely in the midst of characters just that like. I am really impressed with what we see within these pages and how Ralph manages to make him likable and relatable to despite the kind of man he is perceived to be. So yeah if you want something out of the ordinary from Marvel, that isn’t tied into any larger ongoing event which is the whole out of the ordinary point, then you need look no further.
I am enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. If you aren’t all that familiar with the character it does serve as a fantastic jumping on point and catches you pretty much up to speed so you won’t feel as if you’ve been missing out on anything. The character development that we see is sensational! How we see the story itself and how Michael acts and reacts to the situations and circumstances he encounters really does a marvellous job in fleshing him out as a man. The pacing here is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing the story and its twists & turns we’re treated to a really good story.
I like the way that we see this being structured and how it’s a one-and-done issue at standard length. It’s not easy to do any more and Ralph shows that it can be as delightful as any oversized or multi-issue arc. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow is really nice to see.
The thing with Morbius is that I want to see his vampiric visage in some really good, strong and tight linework to really bring out the horror aspect that is inherent with the character. So the more cartoon style of his face isn’t something I am enjoying and those huge red eyes just seem so out of place. In general I don’t tend to find myself a fan of this style of illustration, and that could be me and my preferences but when it comes to certain characters and certain books I think classic is better than stylised. Kudos at least to putting in as many backgrounds as we see, though when the young woman is running away with a yellow background that seems totally out of place given it’s nighttime in New York City. Otherwise at least the attempts are made even if they aren’t as successful as I’d like to see. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work we see is fantastic and how we see the various techniques utilised to lay the colour down is nicely done. The various hues and tones within the colours utilised to create the shading, highlights and colour work definitely bring some nice atmosphere to the book.
I’m not sure what’s up at Marvel and if they just hire artists based on pay rates or if they should be on a certain title or not but I think better choices need to be made. The success of Aja on Hawkeye started a slew of artists who shouldn’t be working on titles getting them. For me it doesn’t work here and thankfully Ralph’s story and the way that this is being written more than makes up for any detractors I may have.