He started the Marvel’s Horror renaissance of the early 70’s. Introduced in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (1971) by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, Michael Morbius was a brilliant biochemist that was diagnosed with a rare blood condition. Wanting a cure, he experimented on Vampire bat and electroshocks. His experiment however caused him to mutant into a pseudo-vampire, with similar powers to vampire including craving an urge to consume blood. Since he wasn’t a undead creature like Dracula, he gained the moniker “The Living Vampire”. Fearing his craving, he fled to the US where he encountered Spider-man and the Lizard. Spider-man at the time was suffering from gaining 2 extra set of arms but a battle with Morbius, cured Spidey of this. He would later battle the F4 and X-men.

Morbius would eventually began using his curse to fight crime. He would eventually encounter Blade and Hannibal King and the three would form a new team of the Nightstalkers. This team would eventually join with the Darkholder Redeemers and the Spirits of Vengeance to form the Midnight Sons, under Dr. Strange’s leadership to battle Lilith. He would also join the Legion of Monsters, eventually leading the team for a while. He would gain a temporary regain his humanity but would return to being a Vampire again. He would joined up with ARMOR, SHIELD’s mystic branch and reformed his own Midnight Sons. When went undergorund soon after and became a protector of the monster underworld with Frankencastle. At some point he approached his old friend Max Modell of Horizon Lab to find a cure for himself. However he would eventually be discovered by Spider-man and was later captured and imprisoned. He escaped and found himself in Brownsville, where he battled the Rose and found a cure for himself.

Morbius is quite a popular character. This is because he played a major role in the 90’s cartoon. (Note the reason he was after “plasma” in the cartoon instead of blood is because of stupid censorship.) He received a figure in the Toybiz, but this was under articulated and had a rubber face for it’s action feature of a moving mouth. Nowadays that face has pretty much melted off of many figures. Hasbro eventually made a new version in the Absorbing Man wave as his classic version. He would receive a new figure in the Venom Venompool wave in his Midnight Sons costume to promote the Morbius Movie that unfortunately got delayed.