| “ | My name is Henry Morgan. My story is a long one. Something happened nearly two centuries ago and I was transformed. My life is just like yours...except for one small difference. It never ends. Every time I die, I always return in water, and I’m always naked. Now you know as much about my condition as I do. Over the years, you could say I've become a student of death. You see, I need to find a key to unlock my curse. So, I currently work for the New York City Medical Examiner's office. It holds the largest collection of slightly-chilled corpses in the world. If your game is death, you go where the action is. | „ |
| — Henry | ||
Henry Morgan is an immortal human being. He is also a recurring character in the series as well as New York City's best medical examiner. No one is aware of his immortality, except for his adopted son, Abraham Morgan, Oracle, Rayne, a few members of the Order of the Church, and the serial killer called Adam, who is likewise immortal. Though he does police work, Henry also, from time to time, does medical examination of supernatural cases.
Born in 1779, Henry is a New York City medical examiner who studies the dead for criminal cases and to solve the mystery of his immortality. His first death was in 1814 while trying to free slaves as a doctor aboard a ship in the African slave trade. Since that time, Henry disappears each time he dies and returns to life naked in a nearby body of water. He has been married twice; his first wife Nora, whom he married before he became immortal, had him committed to an asylum, and his second wife, Abigail, whom he met during the Second World War and remained with until 1984, when she left to find somewhere they could be together without being judged for Abigail's apparently greater age. He abandoned his original career as a doctor in 1956 after he and a butcher were shot; Henry chose to crawl away and die instead of trying to save the other man because he feared others finding out his secret.
Although knowledgeable about many topics, Henry demonstrates a general lack of knowledge about modern popular culture. He also dislikes cell phones but will use one if necessary.
History[]
Early Life[]
Henry Morgan was born September 19, 1779, and experienced his first death at the age of 35 on April 7, 1814. He was a doctor aboard the slave ship called "The Empress of Africa". Henry was murdered by the crew with the captain's flintlock pistol while trying to help free the slaves and prevent the murder of an ill captive. His body was thrown overboard, which may explain why he reemerges in water. Henry believed that he was cursed because he failed to free the slaves when the "Empress of Africa" foundered. However, Henry later learned that one of the slaves got the key, led a revolt against the crew and were able to make their way to freedom in the North.
Personality[]
Henry is very perceptive, which aids him in solving homicides and unexplained deaths. This often causes him to be quite blunt in social settings which, when people are instead looking for a comforting pat on the back, can result in awkward situations. He is very serious at times and has few friends. This is likely because he has grown so fed up with people aging and dying around him that he not only has to deal with loss, but also has to find trustworthy people in whom to confide his secret if they should remain acquainted for an extended period of time. This does not, however, cause him to take up Adam's path of finding excitement in murdering others.
Henry is loyal and is dedicated to his work to the point where, when he was a doctor, he actually quit because he chose to protect his own secret over saving someone's life. Henry viewed this as a serious violation of the "Do no harm" oath that all doctors are required to take, and changed his field of specialty as a direct result. Regardless of this, he is still empathetic and understanding.
Henry knows little about what happens when he "dies" except that everything on him disappears--his clothes and personal belongings--and he reemerges in a body of water, naked. The story has yet to elaborate on the cause of this phenomenon in either Henry's or Adam's cases.
Powers[]
- Immortality - Henry Morgan is completely immortal and does not physically age even a single day, no matter how hard he tries. He hasn't aged since his first "death" in 1814. In addition, whilst he can (in a sense) "die", every time he dies, he always comes back, no matter how many times he dies and no matter how it is he dies: whether he is stabbed, shot, hung, poisoned, suffocated, hit by a car, electrocuted, gets his throat sliced, drowns in water, falls from great heights, even caught in an explosion, etc.