WARNING – MAJOR plot SPOILERS for Morbius.
By Griff Roberts
As we near the 28th of January 1st of April a 9ft tall looming figure is residing in the shadows - Morbius.
Sony doesn’t seem to be doing much press or promotion for Morbius, maybe in the hope, the fans do their job for them, as we most recently have for its universal counterpart - NHW. Wait, did I say ‘universal’? That’s right folks, as per our 'top-secret-sources-that-definitely-isn't-but-might-be-the-FBI' surely declares we now know Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is set in the same universe as Morbius.
Before we go any further, while we are almost 99% certain these reports are true, there is a slight chance they might not be! Now onto the good stuff...
Now, Adrian Toomes - Michael Keaton - is confirmed to appear alongside Jared Leto, reprising his role as The Vulture. So, didn’t this already prove the continuity-based-ness of it all? Yes, it did (sort of, if we ignore the Raimi Spider-Man murderer graffiti from the teaser trailer), but we’ve more information to back it up indefinitely.
According to the source, the film opens with Michael Morbius being awarded a Nobel Prize for his progress in medical research, after which he faints. From this cut we see a young Michael being bullied at school for his disability, which Emil Nikos (Jared Harris), a doctor at the school, breaks up. The plot beats lead to Michael and Nikos discussing the illness and the desperation of a cure, both flashbacks and in present time; in these scenes, they seem to be playing chess, at which Nikos leaves and Michael carries on playing, by himself.
Cut to Michael in hospital treating a young cancer patient and Loxias Crown (Matt Smith) mysteriously appears, who Michael doesn’t know, handing him a bat-filled-briefcase and his card – mentioning that it may help him find a cure. Martine Bancroft (Adria Arjona), Michael’s wife, appears and discusses the severity of his disease, conclusively reaching a verdict of radical experiments; with one hazardous call from Crown, Michael is spurred on to explore a Brazilian cave, to which he slices and exposes his palm to a swarm of bats, concurrently killing his hired company and transforming Michael himself into the first stages of a Living Vampire.
Once Michael reaches New York city on the cargo ship, as seen in the official trailer, he crawls into a bar and tells the bartender to call an ambulance. Whilst he’s resting, none other than J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah. Jameson surfaces on TV, reporting dead bodies found on a cargo ship. We can only conclude that this either sets Morbius in Raimi’s Spider-Man universe or the MCU, or that Simmons is a common denominator between all realities.
I’m not going to delve further into every plot point, but I am highlighting the fact that Morbius will laugh off the look of the classic Morbius suit, only to wear it after fighting a skeleton – yes, that’s correct, he scarcely wins in a fight against a skeleton, but proves to be one of the most entertaining scenes of the entire film.
Crown possesses Morbius in order to kill Simon Stroud (Tyrese Gibson) as he suspects Stroud will prevent his plan from coming together; because of his gauntlet, which is namedropped to be an Oscorp product, Stroud is able to put up a fight against Morbius which ultimately results in Nikos’ death, and Morbius comes to his senses and surrenders to the arrest.
Now, he’s sent to San Quentin State Prison where his inmate is the one, the only, Adrian Toomes! Keaton reprises his role and mentions that because he ‘blipped’, technically, he got served a shorter sentence. So, multiple references that Morbius is directly tied to the MCU.
It turns out that Loxias Crown needs Morbius for a ritual, so that he can become immortal, a standard comic book trope. They come to a disagreement, fighting ensues where Morbius defeats Crown by reading one of his ancient tattoos. The police monitor the flying battle but arrive after Morbius flees; here we see him taking off the comic accurate suit where he passes the ‘MURDERER’ Spider-Man graffiti, only this time the picture resembles the Homecoming suit, and not the Raimi suit. The final shot is of Morbius above a billboard, showing a Peter Parker 'wanted' sign.
The cumulate consensus from this is that Morbius almost definitely is tied to the MCU, but with the multiverse blown wide open, isn’t everything? An interesting proposition is that it takes place before the events of NWH, due to the wanted sign, but with its now 7th inevitable delay, they could be altering small details such as this.
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