Writer Brian Michael Bendis
Penciler Mark Bagley
Inkers John Dell and Jimmy Palmiotti
Colorist Richard Isanove
Letterer VC’s Cory Petit
Cover Dated July 2006
Morbius, Part One of Two
This issue takes place right after the conclusion of the Deadpool arc, which this is a two part story – so that makes six, which is a trade!
Months Ago. Spider-Man breaks up a would-be mugging but that isn’t what is happening. We see Ultimate Blade, and of course, Spider-Man thinks he is the heavy in the scene. The person Spider-Man thinks is being mugged, turns out to be a vampire and Spider-Man loses his mind and panics. Blade cuts himself out of the webbing and kills the vampire.
Today. Peter calls his girlfriend, Kitty Pryde. During the Deadpool arc, with all of the hidden cameras, the world has discovered that Shadowcat and Spider-Man are dating. So now the Internet is blowing up about the pair. Xavier has grounded all of the X-Men, so Kitty can’t hang out with him. Her being in Storm’s room implies they are good friends, but are any of them decent friends?
So now that the world knows Shadowcat is dating Spider-Man, and on such a huge stage – Kitty Pryde can’t date Peter Parker, so they have to keep hiding their real relationship.
For once, Peter gets to show that he is concerned with the relationship being over. Kitty assures him that they are still together.
What would their celebrity name be? Spider-Cat is way to obvious. As far as I know, the online community in RL never came them a name, like they did with Proper Kitty Pryde and Iceman (Bobkat) and Kitty Pryde and Peter Quill (StarKat). ShadowSpider is pretty cool.
Peter overhears Jameson shouting vampires at Ben Urich. Jonah is not going to run some silly story about vampires. Phil has the extremely excellent point that the world they live in as – mutants, Spider-guys, super soldiers and billionaires in flying tanks, vampires shouldn’t be too far fetch. Both Marvel Universes have not been the same since the 1940s.
Peter borrows a copy of the article and sees that Ben interviews Jennifer Grunwald, who is based off of the then head of the trade collections at Marvel. She was an active poster over on the JoeQuesada.com message boards. We get to read the article and see the images of Ben’s interview.
Later at school. Peter runs into Mary Jane, who is not happy. Peter didn’t tell her of his new girlfriend, she had to read about it in People. Did the Daily Bugle not want to cover the story?
Mary Jane is acting like there is some sort of betrayal here. He broke up with her as she wouldn’t stop getting herself almost killed. Now he has a girlfriend who can take care of herself. It was two weeks ago, that they broke up. Her calling Kitty, a gangly-girl, is pretty insulting.
Mary Jane asks a hard question, does he love Kitty?
There is an add for the MC2 Universe story – Last Planet Standing – which is fun with Secret Wars 2015 on the verge of coming out.
Peter says no, not yet – which is pretty honest. He and Kitty do have loads in common and are perfect together.
Mary Jane asks if he knew Kitty while they were dating. He did but they were not even friends.
Mary Jane walks away, Peter mistakenly suggests that she may want to start dating other dudes. She gets all weird about it, asking him if he is ready to see her making out with dudes and going out on dates – like it even matters to him. I do enjoy that her ‘revenge’ on him is all physical acts. As she walks away, Peter confirms that they are still friends – her reaction is pretty boss – Yay for me. Peter mutters to watch out for vampires.
Someone not taking that advice is Ben Urich. Jennifer is in the traditional slutty vampire gear and she bites him on the neck. Over at the Daily Bugle, Betty Brant (who never gets much play), tells Peter that Ben hasn’t been seen in over a day. She suspects that Ben was finally killed by the Kingpin.
There is an ad for X-Men Fairy Tales, it isn’t very good.
Spider-Man swings across town, he looked up Jennifer’s address and sees a cloud of bats and that cloud turns into wolf. Spider-Man has to fight off the wolf as the issue ends with Morbius telling Spider-Man that he can’t win this fight. I don’t own the next issue but I can tell you this, Ben Urich doesn’t die.
Inside back cover ad is for X-Men : The Official Game, the game that ‘bridges’ between X-Men 1 and X-Men 2. The Wolverine levels are fun, Nightcrawler’s are my favorite and Iceman’s are tedious.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 