Professor Morris


 * Professor Morris is a human from the Marvel UK portion of the Generation 1 continuity family.

Once, Professor Peter Anthony Morris dreamed of flying. However, he instead ended up first as a robotics professor, then an employee of Roxxon Oil. While he apparently has the ear of the higher-ups at Roxxon, his unorthodox theories are given short shrift by his immediate superiors. Yet his greatest accomplishment is unmistakably a work of genius; the neural relay link which allows him to control machinery with the power of his mind.

Marvel Comics continuity
Professor Morris believed that the Transformers rampaging across Oregon were not warring aliens, as they claimed, but rather automatons, controlled by oil tycoon G.B. Blackrock. When he presented his theory at a meeting in Portland, he was shot down by Hemmings. Enraged, he retired to his laboratory where he took out his fury at both Blackrock and Hemmings by destroying dummies with his antiquated robots.

The next day, however, he discovered the inert form of Swoop (deactivated after his battle with Guardian) in Lake Dena. He quickly gained control of the Dinobot, and took him for a test flight. Morris found the experience exhilarating, and summoned him back to his Roxxon lab to prepare for his next mission. After the Autobot returned, however, Morris was discovered by a security guard, who attempted to extort money out of him. Lashing out with Swoop's claws, Morris accidentally slew the guard. Undeterred, Morris sent Swoop out to the Ark - to destroy Blackrock's robots once and for all!

The Morris-controlled Swoop tore through the Autobots, until Optimus Prime ordered him to stand down. Swoop's hatred for authority overwhelmed Morris' control, and the enraged Dinobot headed back to Morris' lab. Confronted with his now-freed pawn, Morris begged for mercy until he remembered the dead guard. Upon remembering the murder, Morris decided that he deserved to die. Swoop tore him out of his neural relay link and threw him at the feet of Optimus Prime, who had followed him. Morris attempted to explain himself, but was interrupted when Swoop went berzerk, forcing the professor to use the neural link to shut him down. As the Autobots left with their fallen comrade, Morris destroyed his devices and surrendered to the authorities.

Morris was charged with murder, but his trial was interrupted by a squad of masked gunmen from the Intelligence and Information Institute, who gassed him and spirited him away to their subterranean base, where an III tech named Grady had recreated his neural interface link. They had also constructed a massive combat robot for him to control - Centurion.

Grady explained that III had planted evidence in Morris' lab to clear him, but were forced to abduct him when reporter Joy Meadows came forward with evidence exposing Donny Finkleberg, the "Robot Master", as a sham. Morris' mission was to eliminate her and her news crew, and to deal with any Autobot escorts. As the professor was hooked into the machine, he Morris-controlled Centurion sprang to life, and erupted from its chamber into the streets of Portland - in the middle of a battle between Megatron, Mixmaster, and the Dinobots. His orders forgotten, Morris was filled with battle fury, and tore into the mighty Decepticon commander.

As his puppet was batted away by Megatron, Morris sealed himself in the bunker-like command centre, locking his III handlers out. Following a tracer beacon planted on Swoop, Morris commanded Centurion to track him down, seeing the destruction of III as redemption for his earlier failures.

Centurion located the Autobots again, where they once again were engaged in battle with Megatron and Mixmaster (now joined by Soundwave, Laserbeak, and the rest of the Constructicons). He smashed through Bonecrusher and was in the middle of a melee with Scavenger and Hook when Laserbeak destroyed Meadows' tapes, leaving both III and Robot Master in the clear. Meanwhile, back in the bunker, III informed Morris that all evidence of III's involvement with both him and Centurion had been destroyed, and that the authorities had been notified of his location. Safely ensconced in the bunker, and with enough provisions to last a year, Professor Morris swore vengeance on his captors...