Calvin Morse

Origin

Calvin was raised in an abusive foster home in New York City. One day, he finds a leather jacket hanging in his closet. Believing it to be left from a prior foster child, Calvin took it as his own. He admitted he felt more powerful wearing it. After it was revealed to be magical, he was able to get enrollment at Dr. Strange's new school of magic, The Strange Academy.

Creation

Calvin made his first appearance in Strange Academy #1 by Skottie young and Humberto Ramos

Major Story Arcs

The Hollow

Calvin Morse was playing a game of door tag with the other students. This is a regular game of tag using the doors to far away locations that are around campus. Calvin went through the wrong door and found himself in the nearby Louisiana swamp, where a magic cult of tree people, The Hollow, resided.

The Hollow had been keeping an eye on the academy. They believed the students were wasting and spoiling Earth's innate magic. They were planning to feed off of the students. Calvin's jacket escaped and crawled back to the academy to round up Calvin's classmates for a rescue mission.

Mister Misery

When Calvin's classmate, Toth, was found dead one morning, the student body was interviewed by private investigator, Howard the Duck. Howard accounted for everyone's whereabouts, including Calvin, but still connected Calvin by an enamel jacket pin found at the crime scene.

Calvin was innocent, but his jacket wasn't. It was revealed his jacket was actually Mister Misery, attracted to Calvin's emotional pain as a foster child. Now that he was found out, Misery absorbed Calvin and attacked the student body. Attacking him seemed to make him stronger, so they contemplated starving him to save Calvin. Dessy had a different idea. She overwhelmed Misery with her despair until he was going to burst. Misery freed Calvin and begged for her to stop. So, Dessy ate Misery.

A now revived Toth had a warm welcome but saved the biggest hug for Calvin, forgiving him for whatever part he may have played in his attack.

Gaslamp

To lift Calvin’s spirits, the gang decide to take him on a haunted walking tour of a graveyard in New Orleans. There, Zoe Laveau explains her origins and her family lineage, including a pusher of dark magic, named Gaslamp, that she once used to try and enhance her own magic. Calvin, who is now without magic, is tempted to reach out to this Gaslamp.

Against all instructions, Calvin does anyway, and Gaslamp gives him his first wish for free. He wishes to be competent at magic, and during a sparring session the next day, he gets too aggressive with Alvi. Eventually, Calvin needs more wishes, but he has no way to pay for it. So, Gaslamp turns him into a dealer at the school.

Doctor Voodoo finds him out almost immediately and is forced to expel him. On her way to the dance, Emily finds Calvin packing. Feeling bad for him, she stays and comforts him. This causes her to leave Doyle alone at the dance, which he takes pretty hard.

Finals

After Calvin was expelled, rather than return to New York, he decided to stay in New Orleans. He got a job with Gaslamp selling drug magic on the streets. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite a good salesman and ended up losing money for Gaslamp. To pay his debt, Calvin was forcefully hooked into a machine that would torture him for the magic wish drugs that Gaslamp sold.

Lucky for him, his classmates refused to give up on him. They strategized a way from some of them to distract Gaslamp and his goons so that the others could save Calvin. Unfortunately, pulling Calvin from the machine caused a massive explosion of magical energy. While the local magic users scolded Doctor Voodoo for losing control of the students, Calvin and his classmates threw a carnival fundraiser to pay for the damages.

Some time after, as the school got back to normal, Iric returned, having rejected Emily's ways when she made a deal with Dormammu. He tried to convince the students to leave, but Calvin and the others decided to protect the school. When Emily and her forces show up, Doyle receives most of her attention. A fatal blow was shielded by Iric. Upon losing his friend, Doyle embraced his true nature and absorbed the Dormammu power from Emily, causing her to retreat. He began feeling the power corrupting him and demanded his fellow students and faculty run away. Instead, Hoggoth appears and saps him of his power, returning him to normal.

Variants

Doyle's Time Hop

When Doyle travels to an alternate future, he sees a showdown of adult Strange Academy students over a prophecy where either himself of Emily Bright would destroy the world while the other opposes them. Calvin sided with Emily on the heroic side.