The director of Sony’s Morbius thinks he could beat Marvel’s Doctor Strange

Morbius, main character of disease, is an oddball supervillain from the jump: a tormented scientist who’s bestowed vampire-like abilities – and vampire-like desires – on himself and often needs a Marvel superhero to keep him in check. But there was a story that disease Director Daniel Espinosa (child 44) used to show executives why his Movie Morbius Was More Than Just Spider-Man’s Mad Enemy:

Back then, Morbius nearly killed Doctor Strange.

“I love the moment where he drains Doctor Strange’s life energy,” Espinosa told Polygon via Zoom. He didn’t mention an issue number, but we think he was probably talking about 1993 Doctor Strange, Supreme Wizard #53, in which the villain Nightmare Dr. Michael Morbius and Dr. Stephen Strange compete against each other, and not in an operating room.

Image: Geof Isherwood/Marvel Comics

“I’ve said this to all the executives over and over again, like You do not understand it. This guy was about to defeat Doctor Strange! This isn’t nobody. And we don’t really know the ends of his powers. I wanted to get the point across – comics introduced the idea of ​​the spider totem 15 years ago.”

In the early ’00s, J. Michael Straczynski introduced a class of godlike characters to the Spider-Man comics – the Spider Totems – that mortals throughout the multiverse chose to carry their essence. In short, they’re why so many universes in the Marvel Multiverse have some sort of Spider-Man (or woman or pig). In 2015, Dan Slott took this idea and used it to create the multiverse hopping spider-person team event spider versewhich eventually became the inspiration for 2018 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

But the comics also hinted that there could be other animal-themed totem cabals, and Espinosa chooses to believe that like Spider-Man, Morbius is a mortal avatar for god-like powers.

“I always felt that the reason he defeated Doctor Strange was because he’s actually the bat, like the totem. So, just like the spider, they have an infinite amount of cosmic power to draw from.”

If that sounds far-fetched, well, it’s the same kind of spitting creativity that was fueling comics at the time Morbius was created. In 1971, the Marvel Comics Universe ended its first decade in a very different national mood than it had in 1961. A new generation of creators drove the bullpen, and the relaxation of American comics’ self-imposed content restrictions meant that stories were told, both new and old became more were available to tell.

“Comics didn’t know exactly where to go,” Espinosa mused via Zoom. “Do you want to get into blaxploitation? Or maybe an older way of saying things? Would they instead retire to the ’60s, which was much more representative? […] When Morbius came [to be invented] you didn’t know exactly if that was it [a return to] the Twilight Zone

The idea of ​​making a Marvel monster movie appealed to them clearly Life Director.

Image: SonyPictures

“That’s why it’s a horror score when you start listening to the score,” he said. “If you go to Spotify and just listen to the score, it is,” he imitated dramatic and menacing orchestral thumps. “I liked playing with those things.”

Another thing the longtime Marvel fan has enjoyed? Increase in the Daily Bugle from the New York Post to the New York Times.

“I was a kid in the ’80s, okay? So for me the Daily Bugle is a good newspaper. Ben Urichis the best journalist in the world for me, and he doesn’t work on just any trash – and Robbie Robertson is the proudest editor-in-chief in the world, and he’s a good guy, and he’s trying to do good journalism. So I changed the design of the Daily Bugle to look more like a real newspaper.”

And while I might have the opportunity for a “MORBIUS? THREAT OR THREAT?” Headline, well, I respect that. Ben Urich is a good journalist.