The concept of blood-thirsty creatures called ‘Vampires often fascinates people’ and makes them wonder, ‘What if they ever existed’? Movies like ‘The Twilight’ and series like ‘The vampire diaries’ tried to portray this concept on screen. They both were based on the world of vampires and their powers and abilities and were appreciated. But not many of us know that in the world of Marvel Superheroes exists an anti-hero vampire, Morbius, a creation of Roy Thomas and Gil Kane who is a ‘Living Vampire’. He made his first appearance as a villain of Spider-Man in the world of comics in October 1971. It appeared in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ edition number 101.
Morbius, also known as Dr. Michael Morbius, is a highly qualified and Nobel prize-winner as a biochemist. He was born with a rare blood disease. And while researching devising a treatment for this, he accidentally turns himself into a pseudo-vampire. This failed experiment turns him into a monster that has blood lust. But unlike other vampires who are usually dead, Morbius is a living vampire whose special abilities and powers will be discussed in this article. So let’s begin!
He’s different from other Supernatural vampires
Vampires are usually afraid of a few things which disturb them and even kill them. They include direct sunlight that burns them, garlic whose smell drives them off, running water, some of the Christian implements like crucifixes (cross), and holy water. Since Morbius is a living vampire i.e., he still has some human blood running into his body and is immune to these weaknesses of supernatural vampires. This means he doesn’t get affected by any of these. Also, he stands strong even when he is exposed to them. He is also immune to the wood or silver logs driven through his heart and body.
As fast as the wind
Morbius can run at speed, which is often more than the speed of the fastest athletes. The credit for this superhuman ability goes to the presence of ‘Hollow bones‘ in his body which he developed when he was transforming into a vampire. The presence of hollow bones gives his body a lightweight and enables him to run as fast as the wind.
To a common man, it will look as if he’s flying but doesn’t flies in real. He has the ability of Psionic Gliding which means he can use his psychic concentration and jump over to places at speed without falling or failing. He can glide up to nearly a speed of thirty-five miles per hour over short distances.
Strength, Stamina, Agility, and durability
Morbius is one of the strongest and most resilient vampires characters from Marvel. He has got some superhuman strength with which he can uplift 1500 lbs which is 680 kilograms. Almost equivalent to Captain America but impossible for a normal human being. Isn’t it? He can fight for longer than his enemies without getting tired and balance his body in any form.
Heightened senses and sonar ability
DNA from the bat was injected into Morbius’s body, which turned him into a pseudo vampire. It not just only gave him the physical abilities of a bat such as fangs and its ears, but also gave him some enhanced sensing abilities, which are beyond the abilities of bats as well as human beings.
He has now enhanced hearing and smelling abilities which helps him to hear and smell his prey even from a distance. His night vision helps him to literally see through the dark and catch his enemies. He also has the power to echolocate people around him. Besides, being able to see in the Infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, he can figure out the living objects by their body heat.
Super Reflexes
Turning into a vampire, automatically transformed Morbius into a living superhuman. It gifted him the powers like speed, agility, and stamina, which get enhanced even more when they are combined with his superhuman reflexes. These reflexes allow Morbius to dodge even the attacks of bullets fired at him in a fraction of seconds. He can move and fight without getting hit and tired for long.
Control over bats
‘Morbius’ movie 2022 has an opening scene where Michael is seen standing inside a cave and trying to attract all the bats there. In the next few moments, the bats surround him in the group. It seems as if he is controlling them all. But according to the comics’ version, Morbius lacks some of the abilities possessed by supernatural vampires. This includes the shapeshifting and weather control abilities. He also lacks the mind-controlling powers on animals like bats, dogs, cats, mice, and wolves that supernatural vampires commonly have. Even then, he can hypnotize people with weak willpower.
Ability to create vampires
Morbius is a living vampire or we can say, a pseudo vampire. While other supernatural vampires turn their victims into a vampire, Morbius’s bite doesn’t have the same effect. His victims either die due to excess blood loss after his bite or get severely injured in the attack. But they don’t necessarily become a pseudo vampire.
Yet, there have been several instances from the comics stories where his bites do create Pseudo-vampires. For example, the first person to become a pseudo vampire by Morbius was Jefferson Bolt who was a young man from ‘Marvel Team-Up- 3rd issue’. Some of the other examples include Vic Slaughter from ‘ Morbius: the living vampire, Nate Grey from ‘ X-men’, Blade the Vampire Slayer from ‘Peter Parker: Spider-Man Volume-2, etc.
In the ‘Amazing Spider-Man‘, one of the comics issues, Morbius bites Spider-Man ‘ but his radioactive blood turns him back into his normal biochemical scientist avatar, Michael Morbius. Knowing this, he develops an anecdote based on Spider-Man’s blood that helped him delay his vampire transformation and therefore his constant urge to consume fresh blood. Why did he do so? Because after all, Morbius is a genius who just wanted to cure his disease and not become a headache for the whole world in the form of a blood-sucking vampire.
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Ability of Hypnosis
Morbius can hypnotize his enemies by looking into their eyes. But, this power only works on individuals who have weaker willpower. He can gain full control over their minds and body once they get hypnotized.
Supernatural also vampires have a mind-controlling ability called ‘glamoring’. But Morbius became a vampire accidentally and not by biting by any vampire. So the question arises here is, how come he has the hypnosis ability? Well, This is all because of the Lilin he had consumed during his experiments on bats. With this ability, Morbius had once hypnotized the wall-crawler, Spider-Man.
Healing abilities
Morbius, just like other vampires, owns accelerated healing abilities that help him in super speedy recovery during his combats and hence a quick retaliation advantage over the others. He can even regenerate the damaged tissues and recover severe injuries from bullets, burns, and slashes.
But despite having such a unique power of regeneration, he still can’t regenerate his lost body parts and organs. His ability to heal is as good as Wolverine’s, but the time taken by him to heal his wounds depends on the seriousness of the injuries obtained. For example, minor cuts will take a few minutes, whereas severe burns can take an hour. It may take several days to heal broken limbs and bones.
His Natural Abilities as a scientist
Even before turning into a living vampire overnight, Morbius was enjoying the prestigious image of a biochemist and neuroradiologist, and he gained it all by himself. Despite having a difficult life since his childhood, while fighting a rare blood disorder, he was able to continue his studies up to a doctorate level. His intelligence eventually gained him a well-known name as a scientist. It was his hard work and fighting spirit for which he received the most prestigious award in science, the Nobel prize for his research in the field of biochemistry.
Now, Morbius has his own Daniel Espinosa-directed movie running in theatres since its release on April 1, 2022. It is produced by Columbia Pictures and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It stars Jared Leto as Morbius, a living vampire, and is the third movie in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
The film is based on marvel’s comic characters even though it takes the privilege to modify some of the plots. For example, Morbius was a Nobel prize winner for his experiment on Bat’s DNA and his other scientific achievements as a biochemist, whereas, in the movie, he is seen declining his award and goes for an illegal method to conduct his experiments on real bats.
And here are all the powers and abilities of Morbius explained in detail. Hope this article helped you all to know the powers and abilities of this age-old protagonist of Marvel.
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