This article contains spoilers for both Morbius and Spider-Man: No Way Home.One of the aspects of Sony Pictures’ Morbius that was most heavily advertised by the film’s marketing campaign was the appearance of Michael Keaton, reprising his role as the Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming. But in the film itself, his role is much less extensive than the trailers would have you believe.

The Vulture, aka Adrian Toomes, only appears in the film’s two post-credits scenes, which are both so brief that it’s unclear why they weren’t just combined into a single scene. Before Morbius was released, many fans were confused as to how and why Vulture was even in a movie that wasn’t set in the MCU. But now that the film is actually out, the answers it provides only serve to raise further questions.

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A Multiversal Mess

Morbius

The first post-credits scene begins with a rift in space opening in the sky above New York City: an image that will look very familiar to anyone who’s seen Spider-Man: No Way Home. Indeed, it seems that this is the very rift caused by Green Goblin’s destruction of the Macchina di Kadavus, which threatened to pull in everyone throughout the entire multiverse who knew that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. But of course, Spidey managed to close the rift by having Doctor Strange erase Peter Parker from the memory of everyone in the world. After that, everyone who came to the MCU because of Strange’s magic returned to their original universe, from Green Goblin to Doctor Octopus to the two Spider-Man variants — and even Tom Hardy’s Venom, as seen in the film’s post-credits scene.

However, Morbius portrays the opening of the rift as having some unforeseen consequences. Adrian Toomes appears in the middle of an empty prison cell in Morbius’ New York, seeming confused but not too distressed by this occurrence. The scene then cuts to a news report of Toomes being released from prison, due to the fact that he isn’t from this universe and thus has no criminal record there. The first post-credits scene then comes to an abrupt end.

The second post-credits scene depicts Michael Morbius (played by Jared Leto) being approached by Toomes, who has somehow managed to perfectly replicate his Vulture suit despite having no access to the Chitauri technology that he originally used to create it. However, that soon becomes the least of the questions this scene raises. Vulture tells Morbius that he’s heard of his exploits, and wants to form an alliance of some sort. “Not sure how I got here,” Vulture says. “Has to do with Spider-Man, I think. I’m still figuring this place out, but I think a bunch of guys like us should team up to do some good.” Morbius calls Toomes’ offer intriguing, and the scene is over.

One of the first questions that comes to mind is how exactly Vulture wound up in Morbius’ universe in the first place. The only people who were transported out of the MCU at the end of No Way Home were the multiversal travelers, who were sent back to their original worlds. As such, it’s unclear how or why Strange’s spell could have caused Toomes to travel to another Earth. It could possibly be explained that this was just a quirk of the spell, an accident with no real reason. This is hardly an airtight justification, but magic is mysterious by its very nature, and the MCU already plays fast and loose with the rules of the mystic arts. However, the real problem with this post-credits scene is how it affects Vulture’s characterization.

Clipped Wings

Michael Keaton as Vulture

Michael Keaton’s Vulture quickly became one of the MCU’s most acclaimed villains following the release of Spider-Man: Homecoming back in 2017. Keaton’s charismatic yet chilling performance earned him a place among the ranks of past big-screen Spidey villains like Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin or Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock. But underneath his ruthless demeanor, Vulture was also portrayed with a level of humanity that made him more nuanced than the average supervillain. He only turned to crime in the first place in order to support his family when Tony Stark put him out of a job. And while he’s still a dangerous arms dealer with little regard for human life, Toomes is also shown to be a loving father and husband, who genuinely cares for his family. Vulture is that rare antagonist who strikes the perfect balance of sympathetic and threatening — it's easy to understand why he became a villain, but there’s never any doubt that he needs to be stopped.

In the end, Vulture even comes to respect Spider-Man after he saves his life in the film’s climax. Homecoming portrays the Vulture as a multifaceted character who goes from dismissing Peter’s moral code as naive to protecting his secret identity from Mac Gargan (played by Michael Mando) out of gratitude. As such, it feels almost disrespectful to reduce him to a generic supervillain who just wants revenge on Spider-Man. Again, one could defend this regression in characterization by arguing that Vulture has lost his memories of Peter Parker, and thus doesn’t remember the specific events of Homecoming. However, even if he has no recollection of Spider-Man’s secret identity, Toomes would likely remember that Spider-Man saved his life.

Finally, there’s the question of why Vulture wants to team up with Morbius at all. To be frank, there’s no logical reason why Vulture would approach a random superhuman and expect him to cooperate with his mission to get even with Spider-Man. Bringing up Spidey to Morbius feels particularly egregious, since Tom Hardy’s Venom clearly didn’t recognize the web-head during his short stay in the MCU. Even so, Morbius doesn’t bat an eye at the mention of Spider-Man. This is a scene that makes no sense whatsoever from a characterization standpoint — these characters have no reason to want to team up, especially not against Spider-Man. And yet, it happens anyway, because this scene isn’t meant to further the character arcs of Vulture or Morbius. Its only purpose is to build hype by hinting at the possibility of a live action Sinister Six.

The obvious problem with this is that there’s no point in building towards the Sinister Six if they have no Spider-Man to fight. And while No Way Home teased the MCU getting its own Venom in its post-credits scene, there was no sign of a future Sinister Six plotline, making this new development feel like it’s coming out of nowhere. There’s always been a harsh divide between the Sony and Marvel Studios sides of the Spider-Man franchise, and that’s only becoming clearer now that both studios are sharing characters. The actual Spider-Man films do one thing, while Sony’s spin-offs do another. And now that Vulture’s jumped universes, Sony’s influence threatens to interfere even further with the MCU and its characters. Right now, it’s unclear exactly what Sony is planning, and that in and of itself is part of the problem. But if Vulture’s Morbius cameo is any indication, MCU fans have reason to be worried.

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