X-Man and Peter Parker just met, but here they are, teaming up again. While walking the streets of New York, X-Man is attacked by Morbius. He goes to Spider-Man for help tracking down Morbius, because Morbius’ attack has somehow made X-Man vampiric. Here’s the “scientific” explanation…
Meanwhile, Threnody is approached by Morbius, who notes that he is a blood vampire and Threnody is an energy vampire.
Spider-Man and X-Man arrive and scare Morbius off, but in the process X-Man reads Threnody’s past in her psyche, and becomes fully aware of the things she has done working for Mister Sinister. X-Man leaves her…
After he’s gone, the resurrected Madelyn Pryor shows up asking Threnody about X-Man.
These are some major developments in the X-Man book, but the story continues in Spider-Man #77, where the two title heroes continue to track Morbius. Actually, it’s mostly just Spider-Man (actually Mary Jane), who stops Morbius from eating a mutant-hating Friend of Humanity.
She even knocks some sense into him–getting him not to chase down Morbius so he can save an innocent.
And in the end, Jolly Jonah publishes more fake news…
Issue #78 is told with Mary Jane as narrator, which hasn’t been done before. It switches the point of view and makes for an interesting narrative device.
Issues #79 and #80 clean up the Morbius stuff.
He ends up being sold out by the doctor at the end of issue #78, and taken by Hydra–who want to use his blood for experiments. Spider-Man helps Morbius break free–but only because Hammerhead gets involved. Turns out, he thinks Hydra are a threat to organized crime in New York City.
Yeah, it’s pretty dumb.