Adventures into Fear #22

Dawn over Los Angeles! Morbius the living vampire is in the clutches of Balkator- a cat creature summoned via mystic forces- and things look grim! The mad cultist who summoned the cat creature has commanded it to kill Morbius- but before it can do so, it receives another command- from a higher power that it must obey. And so Balkatar disappears with  a captive Morbius- taking him to the realm of the cat people, where the cat king has his own plans for our hapless vampire. And given that this is 70's Marvel I'm getting definite Cat People vibes here. 

The cat king wants Morbius to be a form of population control for his kingdom- after all, the population has exploded, and since the cats have eliminated violence in their society, they need someone from the outside- someone like Morbius- to deal with their overpopulation. I sometimes wonder what the writers at Marvel were smoking in the 70's. Anyway, Morbius balks at this and seeks to flee, but his bloodlust soon overtakes him and he kills a cat woman. This pisses off some of her fellow cat people and they whale on Morbius until he manages- through no act of his own- to escape the cat realm for- where? 

This series is batshit as so much of 70's Marvel is. I am struck by a few things though. First of all the theme of distrusting science seems eerily relevant to now.  I'm intrigued too by the fact that Martine- the lost love of Morbius- is linked with the sinister cult that tried to use him against the Caretakers.