Adventure Into Fear #23 (Marvel/1974)

Adventure Into Fear #23 (Marvel)

Steve Gerber (w) Craig Russell (a)

I have to confess that up to now I had not taken much interest in Morbius as the only stories I read were in a couple of the black & white horror magazines that Marvel were flooding the market with in the seventies. I wasn't that impressed with his appearances there so picked this comic up with a little trepidation.

This time I wasn't disappointed. The story which appears to be part of a long running epic wasn't bad. In fact I'm inclined if able to complete the run, at least the story line featured here. It's one of those weird cosmic tales that used to make me a fan of The Defenders. In fact Morbius would have made a good addition to the team. Perhaps he did and I missed it. Never mind.

Morbius finds himself on an alien world and needs to feed but his chosen victim, a warrior turns out to be an android and inedible as a result. The girl however is human so he feeds, just the once so he does not kill her. For those of us who have missed earlier issues there's some "catch up panels" something not often seen in today's comics but I digress.

Under the spell of the riest Desmond he's sent on a mission of murder but bumped into The caretakers who have apparently been nudging mankind's development for thousands of years. Join the club there's so many taken an interest in humanity's development. Didn't all these aliens know of each other's interference? Answers on a postcard to the Celestials...

Off Morbius wanders and finds the city of Arctus whereupon he is greeted by a one eyed alien with no mouth but who talks incessantly and reveals his people's fate under the so-called caretakers and enlists the living vampire to fight back against these villainous aliens.

To be continued....

As a bonus there's a short story The Last Stop reprinted from World of Fantasy #10 (1958)



First and last appearances of Morbius The Living Vampire in Adventure Into Fear. Morbius went on to have his own comic something I'll get around to looking at one of these days.....