Say what fans, critics and internet trolls who claim to be fans will say Morbiusbut there are many ways to stay true to the source material of Marvel Comics. Dr. Michael Morbius may have failed in cinemas and the hearts of most, but there are places where he managed to follow the original comic book villain/antihero arc.
While many aspects remained true, there are a number of ways the comic book character had to be changed in order to fit into a modern big-budget movie.
6 Emile Nikos
The Morbius The origin remains surprisingly similar to what originally happened in Marvel Comics. Dr. Michael Morbius, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist with a rare blood disease, went to try an experiment involving vampire bat DNA and electricity on his private yacht. Unfortunately, he turns into a living vampire and kills his best friend Emil Nikos, who has become a scientist with him in an attempt to cure Morbius of his illness.
In the film, the character of Emil Nikos does not exist. Jared Harris plays Dr. Emil Nicholas, a similarly named but very different character who is more of a father figure to Morbius and Lucien, who is more like the character of Emil Nikos. In the film, Morbius turns into an experiment on a boat and goes on a rampage, but only kills shady mercenaries before escaping. Made to ease the burden of such a heavy death on his conscience, the film still doesn’t shy away from showing that Morbius feels guilty for those he killed.
5 Hunger
Hunger or Loxias Crown is a Marvel Comics villain who was a frequent opponent of Spider-Man, Blade, and Morbius himself. Matt Smith’s character Lucien appears to be an adaptation of Hunger, which Smith was originally set to play. Changes have been made to the character, however, making him a character more similar to Morbius himself.
While many have praised Matt Smith and his performance in the film, the changes to Hunger are significant. In the comics, Hunger was originally a HYDRA agent with dark force manipulation armor. Eventually he was gutted by Morbius and became another living vampire, but the film skips much of the original run he had with HYDRA, as well as his time living in the New York sewers.
4 His relationship with bats
Another notable change to Morbius is his unique relationship with bats in the film. In the comics, Morbius does not have the power to control bats, but this was added for the film in a number of scenes, as an important aspect of his powers.
In the movie, Lucien doesn’t have a similar power, and the bats in the lab avoid him altogether. There was no explanation given for this, the most likely scenario is that since Morbius was the only living vampire created by the initial genetic process, he is the only one the Bats will listen to.
3 Transform its victims
Another major aspect of Morbius’ power is that he doesn’t appear to turn his victims into vampires after draining them in the film. Not only is that a huge part of his powers in the comics, but it’s also the very way Hunger was created as a villain.
Instead, the film eschews the nature of what happens to most of his victims, often unclear if he’s drained all their blood, until the end when Dr. Martine’s love interest Bancroft is revived with his own vampiric powers. So far, the movie hasn’t explained why only some of its victims turned around, but hopefully if there’s a sequel attempt, it will be explored further.
2 Dracula’s lack of dialogue
Many dialogues are used throughout the film. But a certain kind of dialogue is missing, and maybe it’s for the best that it wasn’t included. In his original comic in particular, Morbius used dialogue akin to old vampire movies, even the original Book of Dracula, like the excerpt below from one of his earliest comic book appearances:
“Night! Only then can I bear the thought of – what I am. Daylight saps my will – dead men’s faces glare at me – lifeless fingers point – hoarse voices say: “I accuse!””
It’s not necessarily a problem to miss this type of dialogue in the movie, but it’s definitely a change from the comics.
1 The suit
This is another point that was a particularly necessary change. The comics Morbius The costume featured a high neck, v-neck, and red wings which gave a particularly unique look. Although Jared Leto hasn’t worn anything similar so far, it’s not impossible that we’ll see something similar to this look in the future.
Morbius’ look in the film is a lot more low-key, usually sporting a hoodie and slightly less pale skin than the comic book character, who doesn’t turn into a super ripped dude when he’s had the proper amount of blood. That day. Nevertheless, whether Morbius was a great movie or not, there were both positive and potentially negative changes made to its original run in wonder Comics.
Morbius is now available on Amazon Prime Video