Adventure into Fear with the man called Morbius--the Living Vampire #28 picks up right where the previous issue left off: gliding away after being shot by ex-C.I.A. spook Simon Stroud, Morbius lands in a tree and passes out. Possibly in the front yard, Simon may not have bothered to check, since he's taken Morby's fiance Martine down to the police station; where the cops have captured a female vampire. While Simon still thinks the female vamp is one of Morbius' victims, Martine is still trying to explain his condition doesn't work that way. (And she's right, Morbius isn't contagious.)
And now Police Chief Warner makes a complete left turn, recounting the story of the allegedly haunted house Martine rented, with weird floating eyes. Martine latches onto that as the probable cause of the other vampires, even with nothing resembling evidence; and Stroud goes to check out Old Lady Mason at the nuthouse.
Meanwhile, Morbius wakes up in the tree, and finds his bullet wound has healed. He surmises that the living vampirism has some side effects like tissue regeneration, then remembers Martine, who of course was long gone. Until he sees her going into the cellar.
Martine doesn't answer as Morbius chases her, down to a door that opens onto a blank wall. Enraged and a bit insane, Morbius launches himself at the wall (probably not a good idea, since I think Morby had hollow bones) and flies through it:
Morbius then catches up to 'Martine:'
Meanwhile, Stroud interviews Mrs. Mason, who seems less insane than merely cranky that no one believes her industrial-strength exposition.
Even though this one only has one eye, Morbius wants his Martine, and runs to her; only to go flying through a giant eye. Which leads to water, then more giant eyes, then one-eyed monsters that come out of the eyes...and I'm now convinced writer Doug Moench, artist Frank Robbins, and inker Vince Colletta would have had a hard time passing a drug test this month in 1975.
The monsters say they are from Helleyes, and while Morbius kills them all; the last one says that fighting him was their punishment for trying to warn humanity of their master's coming. The long-winded thing explains that Morbius must kill Helleyes, or hell will spill onto earth, and he must pass through the one eye that will kill him. The rest lead to other hells. Morbius passes through the eye--
Outside the mansion, Stroud rushes in and chases 'Morbius' to the blank door. And about to be squashed by Helleyes, Morbius leaps into the eye on his palm. The wrong eye.
A weird, weird issue; but with some scary imagery, even if it's mostly set-up for the next one. I know I have it, but I have to dig up the conclusion--I think it was reprinted in the nineties, but I'm not positive. These last two were originals, although I didn't get them until a few years ago, from a yard sale. Happy Halloween!
1 comment:
Eye Caramba!!
Sorry.
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