My Crazy Youth: The First Time Morbius was on 'Spider-Man: The Animated Series'

 With Morbius finally coming out (maybe, right?!?), let's look back at how he first appeared in Animation.

It's a '90s Flashback with the Soap Opera-laden Series called...

Given the Serial nature of the Show, it's important to know a few things before we cover Morbius...

* We had Lizard transform and be cured via Neogenics (which is real, but doesn't make Mutants- yet).

* Spider-Man suddenly starts to mutate more from his bite, turning into a Man-Spider.

He would be cured...but still leaving mystery about his recent absence.

During this period, another Student named Michael Morbius was experimenting with blood samples involving the story's MacGuffin- the Neogenic Recombinator (sorry, Spell Check).

He takes one of Peter's samples unknowingly and blasts it...but a bat flies in the way (as it does) and gets mutated.

Now he's just Morbius (beating Vince McMahon to the idea of removing people's first names) and he feeds on blood...I mean, plasma.

So, TV Standards & Practices will allow him to drain plasma (which is different, but not really) via holes in his hands...but you also can't show the act happen.

'90s TV was weird, no?

His attacks makes people question Spider-Man...for some reason and this brings in Blade, who thinks that Spider-Man is a Vampire...for some reason.

Heroes first meeting- gotta fight!

Stuck in the middle of all of this, you have Felicia Hardy (who Peter likes, but she likes Michael) and Police Inspector Lee (who ends up loving Blade).

To see how it all ends up, stream the Season 2 Episodes now.

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A fun pair of Episodes that introduce new elements and really push the bounds of TV Standards and Practices.  Aside from the aforementioned 'plasma' loophole, you have Blade who never uses a real gun, throws gas grenades and wields what seems to be a lightsaber.

No joke- an energy sword.

We also get Whistler, first appearing 2 years before his Film counterpart.  He's very British in this one (voiced by Malcolm McDowell), which is neat.  Morbius is also Eastern-European, which is no doubt a nod to Bela Lugosi.

The melodrama is quite rich here, so you take the good with the bad.  Peter monologues sadly so much that I fear for anyone reading his MySpace Page!  The Action and Story are strong enough here though, so I still recommend checking out this pair of Episodes.

As for Morbius, he will obviously (based on the fact that I put 'The First Time' in the Title) return...in Season 4.

Given how wrapped up in the Show's mythos THIS version of Morbius is and how murky Sony's mythos is here, these two are nothing alike.  

Why not check this one out then?