Eli Morrow

"Took a lot longer than i had hoped, but...all those years in jail, I had to plan very carefully. Yeah ,he was a lot tougher than he looked. I beat the hell out of him. He never gave up where he hid that book! Listen. If i were you ,i'd get the hell out of here."

- Morrow to Phil Coulson

Eli Morrow is the main antagonist of the fourth season of ABC's Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. He is the uncle of Robbie and Gabriel Reyes, and the mastermind behind an experiment at Momentum Labs involving the Darkhold.

He is portrayed by Jose Zuniga.

Past
Eli was an engineer who was assigned to work with Joseph and Lucy Bauer at Momentum Labs after becoming aware of an ancient book known as the Darkhold. After the Bauers built a matter-generating machine in Los Angeles inspired by the Darkhold, Eli was seemingly concerned that Joseph had become obsessed with the machine and tried to warn Lucy, but when Lucy dismissed Eli's concerns, Eli realized that Lucy was just as insane as her husband was. Joseph hired the Fifth Street Locos, a street gang, to kill him in the middle of the night; however, they went after Robbie and Gabriel instead, which resulted in Robbie being turned into the supernatural villain-hunter known as the Ghost Rider and Gabriel being put in a wheelchair.

After Eli revealed that he'd gone power-hungry, trapping the rest of his team in strange boxes and turning them into ghost-like beings, he told Lucy, who'd witnessed him at the moment, that he wanted the book's power for himself. He locks Lucy in the laboratory chamber and traps her inside one of the boxes. He later tracked down Joseph and beat him repeatedly in an attempt to find out what had become of the book, seeking to find it and use its power for himself, but was arrested later on for attempted manslaughter and sent to prison. Joseph was rendered comatose.

Seeking to get the power of the Darkhold and the Momentum Labs technology, he began orchestrating events to lead up to his eventual escape from prison. He tipped-off the Chinatown Crew, a local gang, about the location of one of the boxes he trapped his partners inside of, leading to them finding it and opening it, releasing the incorporeal form of Lucy from it.

Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire
He first appears when Agent Phil Coulson visits him in prison to alert him of Lucy's return and reign of terror, but he doesn't believe Coulson at first, but when Robbie visited him on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s behalf, he told him everything that happened with Joseph and warned Robbie to steer clear of the Darkhold.

Lockup
Later on, Lucy arrived at the prison and kidnapped Eli and took him to the long-abandoned Momentum Labs. She then forced him to read the Darkhold while she finished building the machine.

The Good Samaritan
Once the machine was built inside an underground lab, as S.H.I.E.L.D. was onto them, Eli talked to Lucy and learned from her that Joseph sent the Fifth Street Locos after his nephews. S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived at the scene to rescue Eli and stop Lucy, as the amount of power from the Darkhold experiment could potentially result in the deaths of thousands of people in Los Angeles. Lucy was later burned to death when Robbie, as Ghost Rider, grabbed her and used his supernatural powers to reduce her to a pile of ash. Eli, having replicated the matter-generator from Momentum Labs, enters it as Phil Coulson arrives on-scene to "rescue" him. He had the Darkhold taken away, but Eli had already gotten what he needed. Coulson, realizing that Eli was the one who was after the power all this time, gets him to admit that he nearly killed Joseph to learn where the book was. Eli entered the matter-generator chamber, sealing himself inside. The machine turned on and a blast wave was sent through the base, hitting Coulson, Fitz and Robbie and sending them into a pocket reality. Eli exited the chamber and gained the ability to create matter from nothing, generating a rock-like solid from his hand and standing victoriously.

Deals with our Devils
Eli walks through the base with his newfound powers, eventually confronted by four S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in the halls, who aim at him with their machine-guns. Robbie, having been sent into a pocket reality by the shockwave, tries to talk to Eli, but he doesn't hear him, and watches helplessly as Eli kills the agents by making spikes of pure carbon protrude from the agents' bodies. Eli forms a carbon wall in the hallway to block off the rest of the advance and escapes from S.H.I.E.L.D. with ease. While in the other plane of existence, Robbie offers the Devil the chance to stay bonded to him for as long as he wants if he is allowed to use the power to find and kill Eli; they both return to the physical world through a portal made by the android AIDA and go with Agent Mack to find Eli and stop him from using his powers for further evil.

The Laws of Inferno Dynamics
Edits begin Dec. 6th, 2016

Powers

 * Matter Creation: After using the Darkhold in conjunction with the Momentum Labs machine, Eli discovered that he could generate matter at will. He has been shown to be able to make formations out of pure carbon, from sharp icicle-like blades to a pure-carbon wall that blocks off pursuers. He is also able to create ice at will even in room temperature, suggesting a connection with the elements.

Abilities

 * Master Engineer: Eli was able to successfully run the Momentum Labs experiment to generate matter with the help of Lucy Bauer and several other collaborators.

Trivia

 * In the comics, Eli's angry spirit fused with his nephew Robbie, turning him into Ghost Rider. Before this, he had been a Satanist and a serial killer.