Jared Leto’s new film may look like another comic-book origins story – but it gives a glimpse into the thorny corporate politics behind Hollywood’s most marketable franchise
Who’s that muscular, ripped, pasty-looking fellow wrenching the dregs of his comic-book movie career from the deathly places of despair? Why it’s Oscar-winner Jared Leto, who played Joker in 2016’s misfiring Suicide Squad turned Marvel’s latest big-screen antihero. The first
trailer for Morbius has arrived online, apparently designed to confuse the bejesus out of any viewer not intricately acquainted with the corporate politics that lies behind
Hollywood superhero flicks.
Morbius (full name: Morbius the Living Vampire, also known as Dr Michael Morbius), is not part of the established Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). But he is a graduate of the Marvel comic books, having debuted in 1971 as a villain in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 before morphing into a more sympathetic figure who ended up with his own series. Yet it’s not so simple, because through a maze of corporate shenanigans, the character does exist in the same world as Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the rest.