Morbius

[Rater202]

The former was indeed due to censorship, but honestly the lamprey hands made him scarier then if he just bit you like a normal vampire.

completely honest there's a hell of a lot of stuff that gets worse when you censor it.

Going back to the 90s Spider-Man cartoon... 90s Carnage was goofy as hell(to be fair, Carnage has been a really flat character until relatively recently and had only just been created in the comics shortly before the cartoon) but "he steals your souls and plans to destroy them with a ritual to summon Dormammu" is a bit scarier than him just killing people.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

The former was indeed due to censorship, but honestly the lamprey hands made him scarier then if he just bit you like a normal vampire.

Which raises an interesting point: do we, the movie-going public, prefer the lamprey hands? I don’t know if it’s likely for them to be included, but they did grab Venom’s origin from the 90’s cartoon rather than the comics.

[Rater202]

Which raises an interesting point: do we, the movie-going public, prefer the lamprey hands? I don’t know if it’s likely for them to be included, but they did grab Venom’s origin from the 90’s cartoon rather than the comics.

To be fair, most adaptions avoid Venom's comics origin due to the whole "dependant on a dozen other characters" thing.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

To be fair, most adaptions avoid Venom's comics origin due to the whole "dependant on a dozen other characters" thing.

But we’re in the same scenario here, more or less. Sony would have to go through lots of legal hoops to use someone who isn’t attached to Spider-man, but there are loads of characters who are and several cartoon adaptations that were Spider-man-only with no other major heroes appearing (or only appearing in cameos) they can draw on for inspiration if need be. Probably videogame plots too.

I take it you’re not in favor of the lamprey hands?

[Clertar]

Let's take the middle road and have Leto grow a lamprey mouth.

[Imbalance]

...though that highlights how weird this whole endeavor is. Making a shared continuity out of this is like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle when you've already lost the vast majority of the pieces, you're just cramming the few ones you have left and hoping they somehow make a cohesive image.

Remarkably like the early source material, eh? Publisher buys out publisher then shoehorns popular character into other popular character's universe, continuity patchworks, crossover events that need a Venn diagram, etc. Now it's film studios doing the same juggling act, but with more lawyers.

[Kitten Champion]

Remarkably like the early source material, eh? Publisher buys out publisher then shoehorns popular character into other popular character's universe, continuity patchworks, crossover events that need a Venn diagram, etc. Now it's film studios doing the same juggling act, but with more lawyers.

Kinda, but something the comics have the advantage of here is that they can just make new stuff up.

Take the whole thing with Todd McFarlane, Neil Gaiman, and Marvel over the IP rights to Angela. A sudden court decision means Marvel obtained this prominent character from a whole other comic universe which represented an entirely different era in the history of the medium. Still, Marvel was going to use the character, it was just something that was going to happen at that point. So they reinvented her in her entirety except for her general characteristics and visual appearance (the parts defined by her IP specifically), and thought of a setting where she'd be most applicable -- which turned out to be adjacent to Thor, apparently. They ultimately own a popular fictional universe of tens of thousands of characters and composed of multiple sub-genre with a huge degree of creative leeway to change their characters and figure these things out.

Now imagine if this same intellectual rights dispute was over Angela's film rights for some reason. That a film studio now had the rights to Angela but no other aspect of the Spawn-verse. There would be I think the natural question of "what would be the point?" as that's removed much of what defines the character even if you technically own them creatively, and unlike comics whatever idea they'd end up going with will costs tens of millions and a year or more of many people's lives. It's a big ask, especially as adaptational changes in movies tend to be designed to reduce expenses.

[Starbuck_II]

Let's take the middle road and have Leto grow a lamprey mouth.

Nah, butt.
He sits on his targets consuming them.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Now imagine if this same intellectual rights dispute was over Angela's film rights for some reason. That a film studio now had the rights to Angela but no other aspect of the Spawn-verse. There would be I think the natural question of "what would be the point?" as that's removed much of what defines the character even if you technically own them creatively, and unlike comics whatever idea they'd end up going with will costs tens of millions and a year or more of many people's lives. It's a big ask, especially as adaptational changes in movies tend to be designed to reduce expenses.

...that sounds more like Spider-man in the MCU (one character minus the context of their supporting cast) more than it does the SUMaC (the entire supporting cast minus the main character).

Nah, butt.
He sits on his targets consuming them.

I’m really glad I wasn’t eating or drinking anything when I read this. Mario the Living Vampire! Make it happen Sony!

More seriously, if I had to pick between the lamprey hands and the fangs I’m not sure I could; the fangs are traditional and is he really going to register as ‘vampire’ without the fangs? But the lamprey hands are, as Lord Vukodlak noted, scarier and creepier and would be easier to choreograph into a fight. (With fangs Morbie would need to pin the target in place well enough to chomp down on a major body part, which is only going to be happening regularly against people with no powers. Lamprey hands he just needs to grab hold and not let go until his opponent is a raisin.)

I do hope they have him drinking blood rather plasma though.

[SunsetWaraxe]

I think they should go with both lamprey hands and fangs.

[Rater202]

Kinda, but something the comics have the advantage of here is that they can just make new stuff up.

...A good number of MCU characters might as well be different people than in their comics.

****, you could replace Peter Parker with Riri Williams and there would be absolutely no significant changes to the MCU. It would honestly remove every complaint I have about the MCU Spider-Man movies.

The MCU makes things up all the time.

Movies are free to make things up all they want.

[Kitten Champion]

...that sounds more like Spider-man in the MCU (one character minus the context of their supporting cast) more than it does the SUMaC (the entire supporting cast minus the main character).

...A good number of MCU characters might as well be different people than in their comics.

****, you could replace Peter Parker with Riri Williams and there would be absolutely no significant changes to the MCU. It would honestly remove every complaint I have about the MCU Spider-Man movies.

The MCU makes things up all the time.

Movies are free to make things up all they want.

Not really, the MCU re-contextualizes and reinvents characters but for the large part they come from an existing IP.

MCU Spider-Man is largely a mix of Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man with Peter Parker's villains and a few other characters - like Aunt May - added to make some degree continuity with the concept of Peter Parker. Movies are free to reimagine all they want and shuffle their IPs around, what they can't do is use IPs for characters they don't own and what they really don't seem to do - generally - is create completely new ones, they almost always take X™ character from the source material but altered to fit their specific narrative and usually... budget.

If you want an example of what I mean, Harley Quinn, Renee Montoya, and X-23 were not established characters. They were created for the animated series in which they appeared and then introduced later back into the comics where they became lasting elements.

The only MCU character I can think of that wasn't originated in the comics in any way was Phil Coulson.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

But that’s what the SUMaC is doing. They don’t have to make any major characters up; they’ve got the rights to basically everything Spider-man, only Spider-man himself is heavily tied into the MCU and there are tons of characters associated with him even if we cut out his MCU-established classmates and villians.

For example, you mentioned it would be difficult for Sony to take Morbius in a horror direction later? They’ve got the rights to John Jameson (JJJ’s son) aka Man-Wolf; we know this because he was the astronaut Riot took over at the beginning of Venom. If they want to play up the doctor/scientist route, Morbius could rub shoulders with Curt Connors or Otto Octavious. He could be getting his funding from Wilson Fisk or Norman Osborn. Plenty of material for them to draw on.

[Psyren]

It would be interesting if they can use Fisk. These rights disputes are always so confusing.