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History

Early Life[]

Morris Maxwell was an antique dealer with a pawn shop in Manhattan.[1] He studied history and arcane knowledge. He later gained mystical shards of the Gathering of Five and kept the shard secret for many years. Norman Osborn learned of the shard and visited Morris' pawnshop. To Osborn's surprise Morris knew he was coming and told him about the ritual. He was fascinated that Osborn would risk his life in three-in-five chance. He then took Morris to his office where he revealed the rest of the pieces for the ritual.[2]

Gathering of Five[]

Gathering of Five from Amazing Spider-Man Vol 1 441 001

Gathering of Five

Morris attended the ceremony known as the Gathering of Five. The ritual with five arcane relics, where the people are granted either immense power or they pay the ultimate price. These relics, when brought together and the ritual performed, allow the five possessing them to each be blessed or cursed with power, knowledge, immortality, insanity, or death. But the catch is that these powers doesn't seem what they are at first: what first seemed like madness was in fact knowledge, what seemed like power was madness and death seemed like immortality. Morris received "Knowledge", Norman Osborn received "Insanity", Cassandra Webb received immortality, Gregory Herd received "Death", and Mattie Franklin was granted the gift of "Power".[2]

Spider-Woman[]

After the ritual, Morris learned that he now possessed enhanced knowledge, but his omniscience left him confused and secluded himself in his shop.[3] Mattie now known as Spider-Woman came to the shop, he helped find the shard which he stored at a high security bank, but it was being robbed by Flesh and Bones.[4]

He was visited again by Mattie who wanted help with Shadowcaster. Morris almost had a seizure when Jessica Drew tried to test his knowledge. He told them they needed to ask the right question to which they figured out; "where can we meet Shadowcaster?" a question he could answer.[5] Mattie returned to Morris and asked him to find a villain she could fight with an understandable motive. He told them to go to Death Valley where she could stop and impending alien invasion.[6]

Madame Web, along with Mattie, Jessica, and Spider-Man went to his shop for more answers. Madame Web had been losing her immortality and wanted to know if he had started to lose his knowledge, so Spider-Man tested him by asked "How could stop Charlotte Witter?" This caused him to seize. The only answer he could give them was they could do nothing.[7]

Attributes

Powers

Weaknesses

  • Information Overload: His human mind could not accommodate all that knowledge. The only way he could communicate is if a person asked a specific question. He would then receive the answer while have violent seizures.[4]

See Also

Links and References

References

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