Issue(s): Morbius #7, Morbius #8
Cover Date: Mar-Apr 93
Title: "Cemetery dance" / "The algebra of need"
Credits:
Len Kaminski - Writer
Ron Wagner - Penciler
Mike Witherby - Inker
Matthew Morra - Assistant Editor
Bobbie Chase - Editor

Review/plot:
Thanks to a dialysis treatment plus the serum that Morbius began using in the last arc, Morbius is ready to take on a role as a doctor at a hospital, at a job arranged for him by his friend Jacob Weisenthal. His executive assistant is Mandy Tyler.

After work, Morbius visits Martine Bancroft's grave, but the special forces guy Victor Slaughter that we saw Simon Stroud with last issue is laying in ambush there with a team of gunners. They try to shoot Morbius dead.

But of course Morbius is Morbius.

Morbius seemingly kills them all. Morbius bites Slaughter, but only after he's already filled up on his blood requirements from the other soldiers, so he just buries Slaughter alive. But Slaughter survives and drags himself out of the ground, and he winds up being brought to the emergency room the next morning, where Morbius just happens to have pulled a shift. Slaughter says the name "Morbius" while he's being worked on. Michael Morbius is currently working under an assumed name, but a pair of cops in the ER recognize the name as that of a "famous scientist that turned himself into a vampire" because he was the subject of a TV movie (which is news to Michael).

The police were in the ER because of another patient that was involved with a new designer drug called Jazz. Morbius later goes after people dealing the drugs.

But the guy that he drinks blood from has actually taken the drugs himself, which causes Morbius to get high. So beautiful!

He flees and goes home to sleep in his dialysis coffin, but has a nightmare.

Which indeed turns out to be the work of Nightmare.

This is setting up a Doctor Strange crossover.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: The scene of Dr. Strange waking up at the end is more or less repeated at the beginning of Doctor Strange #52, which continues directly from here. And see the considerations for Secret Defenders #1-3 as well.

In addition to Mandy Tyler, a few of the other people at Morbius' hospital seem to appear again in later issues, but i don't think they're ever named.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A