Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode Reviews

Morbius
Review by Stu, Media by Kolbar

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Episode #19 - Morbius
Original Airdate: October 28th, 1995

Spider-Man's mutation is now turning him into a monster. Luckily for Peter, Dr. Mariah Crawford has developed a possible cure for the disease. But before the cure could be implemented, Morbius steals a sample of Peter's blood. While experimenting on the sample, a vampire bat bites Morbius and causes a mutation that will change him forever.

Credits:
Story By: John Semper
Written By: Brynne Stephens and Lydia Maranor
Music Composed By: Shuki Levy and Kussa Mahchi
Animation Services By: Toyko Movie Shinsha (TMS)
Guest Starring: Christopher Daniel Barnes as Spider-Man/Peter Parker, Liz Georges as Debra Whitman, Nick Jameson as Michael Morbius and Susan Beaubian as Dr. Mariah Crawford

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Review: This is where the censorship kicked into a ridiculous gear. Despite the fact Morbius was an interesting character, both before and after his transformation, from his origin episode up until his joining Blade to fight vampires in later season, it was incredibly difficult to take Morbius plasma draining seriously. He's a vampire and vampires drink blood. Any child knows this, and so should the censors.

It was successful in continuing the bigger story, Spider-Man fighting his disease, in fact, the following 3 episodes where a big part of it. I always liked Spidey feeling responsible for Morbius' condition, and especially liked how Morbius was bitten by the neogenic vampire bat. I've always found Morbius to be pretty boring in the comics, but his character here was pretty interesting. It's just it's completely dragged down by his plasma sucking ways. Bloody Fox.

Some parts seemed too rush to have any lasting effect, such as Spider-Man's speech about moving away to spare his friends and family, but overall it was an interesting episode ruined by censorship. The unfortunate part is, this laughable plasma storyline took over the majority of the "Neogenic Nightmare" story. This three-part tale is it's high point, but this paticular episode doesn't live up to the following episodes.

The ending, however, was in a class of it's own. I'll never forget watching it as a child, seeing my hero scream as four extra arms ripped through his sides. I wasn't aware that the six arms were coming, and seeing them on the screen just shocked me. To an eight-year old, this show was wildly unpredictable. But hell, as cool as this ending was, the next episodes' finale topped it.

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