This is "Provide Some Answers," which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved.

Today, we look how Marvel dealt with the whole "Isn't Morbius a mass murderer?" situation from Morbius' early appearances.

Morbius, the Living Vampire, debuted in Amazing Spider-Man #101 (by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia), as the always astute Roy Thomas quickly took advantage of the relaxed Comics Code Authority rules on stuff like vampires and werewolves by introducing a vampire antagonist called Doctor Michael Morbius, who received his vampire abilities through an experiment that he and a fellow scientist did on Morbius to help cure the doctor of a rare blood condition that he suffered from.

When we first meet Morbius, he is being hunted by the crew members of a ship that had picked him out of the ocean and now their captain is dead. They try to kill Morbius, but instead, he ends up slaughtering every last one of them and then jumps off of the ship and swims to New York City...

In the next issue, we see how he became a living vampire...

Obviously, he failed in killing himself, as he got saved by the ship whose crew he later devoured. Caught up to the present, we see that Morbius is just killing people left and right in New York City...

As a dude who did not want this fate, Morbius was a compelling character, as he actively tried to keep himself from killing people but it was always to no avail.

He eventually got his own feature in the series Adventure of Fear (re-titled just Fear) and Don McGregor wrote most of the issues. In the final issue, though, Bill Mantlo wrote the story (with art by Frank Springer) where we see Morbius and his reluctant ally, CIA agent turned monster hunter Simon Stroud, deal with Morbius' former fiancee, Martine, who has been turned into a vampire herself. Morbius had worked up a cure and Stroud wanted him to get it but Morbius wanted to give it to Martine. Finally, Stroud injected it into Martine, but then Morbius started feeding on HER!!!

As you can see, in 1975, it was very much an open question of, "But wait, what about all of those people that he killed?"

Morbius bounced around titles for the next five years, including briefly joining a team of monsters in Marvel Premiere...

And fighting Spider-Man a few more times. Finally, in Spectacular Spider-Man #38 (by Bill Mantlo, Sal Buscema and Chic Stone), Morbius is still struggling to keep himself from killing people...

At the end of the issue, though, we get one of the most classic Deus Ex Machinas in literary history, the random bolt of lightning and it strikes Morbius and somehow cures him of being a vampire! He still has the taste for blood, though...

So he soon moves to Los Angeles, where he gets a job at UCLA and he is asked by a friend of She-Hulk's to examine her blood in Savage She-Hulk (by David Anthony Kraft, Mike Vosburg and Danny Bulanadi). She is dying!

Can Morbius help cure She-Hulk? And can she help him out in return?

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As it turned out, UCLA didn't seem to clear the whole "hiring a mass murderer" bit with the public and they freak out in Savage She-Hulk #11 (by Kraft, Vosburg and Frank Springer), where She-Hulk's sheriff dad (who doesn't know his daughter is She-Hulk) is a real jerk about it all...

Morbius has worked out a serum to cure She-Hulk, but since it is made with her blood, he really wants it...

A father of one of Morbius' victims tries to kill him. He fails.

The next issue, not knowing that she is visiting Morbius to get his help with her condition (which Morbius cures), She-Hulk's lawyer "friend" leaks to the press that she is planning on defending him on murder charges. This was meant to dissuade her from doing it, but instead ends up compelling her to actually do it.

And she successfully argues him down to involuntary manslaughter...

Wow, her dad is such a jerk.

So that's how Marvel finally resolved the whole Morbius as murderer stuff, almost a decade after he started killing people.

If anyone else has a suggestion for a plot that was resolved after a number of years, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!