X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

Morbius #1 – Skottie Young variant

Review: Morbius: The Living Vampire #1

I admit I only bought X-Treme X-Men for the cover and that turned out to be a really smart move as it has been a top-notch read. I may have done it again with Morbius: The Living Vampire, which I only picked up for the Skottie Young variant. It’s so cute!

I never heard of Morbius as I’m not a Spider-Man follower, nor am I really big into what is now the ‘modern vampire’, but I decided to read it because hey, I have it, might as well, right?

This literally hooked me from the first page.

I love this writer’s style, the first page is black with only a single line of text. He continues this trend by using either a blank black page or set apart white text with things like “Advantages of being Vampire-ish”. It’s different, it’s fluid, quirky, I love it.

Also, and this is of major importance, the writer understands that this is a first issue of a solo series for a character that is not mainstream. Like I said, I had no clue who Morbius is/was before getting this issue… now I do. Joe Keatinge, the writer, walked the fine line of telling us who Morbius is without either becoming a massive info dump, assuming too much of the reader, or assuming too little of the reader. He also gave us just a taste of action and ending on a moderate cliffhanger.

Basically, this is what has been missing from of a lot of the relaunches, especially solo series launches. Too many of the writers act as if they literally are still in the middle of a title which makes it more difficult to capture new readers. Just because readers have a general idea who Tony Stark/Iron Man is doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give us at least a run down of the major things that have happened up to this point. (side note: read the new Iron Man #1 and as a non Iron Man reader I found it very unapproachable)

Sure, the story in Morbius #1 is a tad on the cliché side and a bit tropey, but the single fact that not only does Keatinge mix things up in style but also successfully introduces you to a character is something that can not be ignored. I had this put on my pull list and we’ll see where it goes from here.