Though likely meant as a misguided tribute to fans, Marvel Comics has done the unthinkable and made the egregious Morbius-inspired “It’s Morbin’ Time” meme a part of its actual storied universe. Begun as a cruel joke on internet social media boards to mock the abject failure of one of its film properties, Marvel Comics has now decided to embrace this dubious honor in a recent video celebrating Halloween, an official reference by the company that ostensibly includes the insulting meme in its grand multiverse. In doing so, Marvel might be taking the old adage “all publicity is good publicity” a little too far.
The “It’s Morbin’ Time” meme originally appeared in April 2022 in response to the failure of the Marvel property Morbius film adaptation starring Jared Leto, which infamously flopped with a mediocre $163 million worldwide take at the box office and was met with widespread derision by the fandom. Though claimed to have been spoken by the titular Morbius by many duplicitous fans, the phrase, a play on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers’ catchphrase “It’s Morphin’ Time,” does not actually appear in the film. The meme sprang up as a jeer against Sony Pictures to reflect that nobody had seen the film, and therefore wouldn’t know if it was actually in the film or not. The popularity of the meme then led Sony Pictures, which produced the film rather than Disney due to owning the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise, to re-release the film in hopes of profiting off the sensation. This would turn out to be a vain hope, and the paltry $300,000 it earned garnered only further derision from the fandom.
It appears that Marvel’s marketing team may have also fallen victim to the false belief that the “It’s Morbin’ Time” meme signified endearment from the fans. Released just in time to celebrate Halloween, Marvel Comics has created an admittedly mostly charming stop-motion video featuring toy versions of its heroes celebrating Halloween by giving out candy and partying, including an overly litigious She-Hulk, a health-obsessed Vision and “grandma-candy” purveyor Captain America. In the final sequence of the Robot Chicken-influenced promo, however, the tone takes a turn for the unfortunate, as Morbius appears as the disc jockey at a dance party and utters the infamous phrase.
Laughing With You Vs. Laughing At You
While Disney did not directly suffer financial or critical loss as a result of the negative reaction to Morbius, its lack of ownership of the Spider-Man franchise film rights has been a point of contention, and perhaps this is what motivated its use of the meme. Though likely meant as a bit of light fluff, the reference serves as a bitter reminder for fans of what is surely among the company’s greatest pop culture embarrassments. Similarly, the Marvel marketing team’s decision to include the meme, while likely demonstrating a lack of appreciation for the meme’s unabashed denigration of the property, also inadvertently elevates the meme to Marvel canon, due to the multiverse’s inclusion of all Marvel properties, satirical or no.
Halloween is traditionally a time of great mystery, wonder and fun, as children and adults alike discard their everyday persona and take on the roles of their marvelous dreams, be them heroic or terrifying, if only for a day. While in the past this has proven opportunistic for the proud publishers of comic-dom to flex their fantastic creative engines, this year Marvel Comics seemingly decided to forgo this tradition with dignity and instead dredged up Morbius and its greatest humiliation of 2022, the “It’s Morbin’ Time!” meme, in a failed attempt at humor.
Source: Marvel Comics