Review- Morbius The Living Vampire #4

Morbius The Living Vampire #4 (Marvel, cover date June, 2013)

Writer: Joe Keatinge

Artist: Richard Elson

Colorist: Antonio Fabela

Okay, I didn't see any of this coming. Did any of you see any of this coming? What the heck, where did this come from? This has been a pretty straightforward, street-level series for the first three issues. Aside from our pal Morbius, everyone has been a normal human. Now things bank hard to the left, and we have warring factions and a surprise villain who will delight longtime Spider-Man fans.

I'm really enjoying this series. It's very interesting to follow a comic in the single issue periodical format as opposed to the collected editions that I prefer these days. It doesn't require a lot of time to finish a comic book, as opposed to some of my 500-800 page collections that it take me months to work through. I honestly forgot the thrill of the serial, what do you mean I have to wait 30 whole days to find out what happens next?!? thrill of being a monthly comic buyer. I don't see myself returning to the land of the Wednesday addict anytime soon but I am enjoying this exercise.

This update of Morbius has been successful thus far, worlds better than the '90s series. I loved the reference to Helleyes from his '70s run. I look forward to Morbius encountering the Frankenstein Monster, Werewolf By Night, or any of the other classic Bronze Age monsters. I'd also be on board for any all relaunches of said characters if they were handled with the love and care that this series has had. I don't spend a lot of time watching sales charts, so I don't know if this series is a commercial hit or not. I do know that it is a hit in terms of readability, and that's all that I care about.

Junk Food For Thought rating: 4 out of 5.

The OCD zone- I still haven't tinkered with the Marvel AR app. Has anyone found that it adds anything to the reading experience, or is it like one of those annoying DVD features like the ones where the director talk over the movie while it's playing? Because those suck.