Mort Graves (Earth-616)

Mort the Dead Teenager
Name	Mort Graves
Current Alias	Mort the Dead Teenager
Affiliation and Relationships
Relatives	Grandparents: Digby Graves (grandfather) Parents: Bruce Graves (father); Wendy Graves (mother) Siblings: Cyndi Graves (sister); Kyle Graves (brother)
Marital Status	Single
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Height	5′7″ (1.7 m)
Weight	145 lbs (65.77 kg)
Eyes	Irises: Green
Hair	Strawberry Blond
Unusual Features	Pale skin, detached head
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Human
Living Status	Ghost
Reality	Earth-616
Place of Birth	Mistake Beach, Long Island, New York
Cause of Death	Decapitated by Teen Death riding a train
Personal Information
Identity	Public
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Student, slacker
Education	High school student
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Larry Hama, Gary Hallgren
First	Mort the Dead Teenager #1 (October, 1993)
First	Mort the Dead Teenager #1 (October, 1993)
Death	Mort the Dead Teenager #1 (October, 1993)
Death	Mort the Dead Teenager #1 (October, 1993)

Oh, well...at least I don't have to worry about hitting my head on the rafters anymore!

—Mort Graves[source]

History

Mort Graves was born to Bruce and Wendy Graves and the middle child between his siblings. He lived in Mistake Beach, Long Island where he had quite a pathetic life as his family didn't care much about him and his only friends were Slick, Weirdo and Maureen Redding. He developed a crush on the beautiful Kimberly Dimenmein, but at the time she was in a relationship with a jock by the name of Lance Boyle. Hoping to impress Kimberly, Mort agreed to race against Lance on his father's Studebaker after the two had an argument. Unfortunately for Mort, during the race he got near an incoming train named Babylon Express that struck his head so hard he got beheaded, dying in the process.

Following his death, Mort went to the underworld where he was met by Teen Death, the son of Death whose job was to take in dumb teenagers who had died in ridiculous ways. Teen Death told Mort that Hell was already full and Heaven was temporarily closed for repairs, which forced Mort to go back to Earth as a ghost tasked with haunting people. Back home, he saw that his death hadn't affected his family that much, though he was pleased that Kimberly was genuinely upset at his death. Maureen, however, berated Kimberly for not having cared enough for him before his death, clearly showing that she had feelings for him, but this fact was lost to him. After his funeral, he tried to haunt his family, only for them to get used to his presence and be annoyed that they were stuck with him again. Mort also also revealed his return to his two friends Slick and Weirdo after scaring their would-be girlfriends away.

Mort continued his attempts at haunting, but after failing to get the proper reaction from people in a movie theater, he was dragged back to Netherworld for youth casualties where he was confronted by a processing division. He was told that his haunting wasn't satisfactory and had to do better. He was sent to his high school to haunt it, and back to his school he learned that he was unpopular and disrespected. After a argument between Maureen and Kimberly, Mort attacked the school's grief psychologist Dr. Caligari by using her hearing aid to shock her. Slick and Weirdo decided to start a garage band and held up auditions which Mort was invited to. Back to his home, Mort was tormented by his family, and later that night he went to attend the band tryouts. He and his two friends were soon joined by Maureen and Kimberly, but when Kimberly and Slick began growing close a jealous Mort attempted to sabotage the music equipment. To his dismay, the music produced was loved by Weirdo's father who offered to become the band's manager.

The newly formed band was named Positive Feedback and was set to perform to a former major club names ABCD. As they set up the performance, Weirdo demanded Mort not to mess things up, since to finance the band his father had to take out loans that if not paid his family would get evicted. Mort then went to the bathroom where he was again dragged to Netherworld by Teen Death. Death told Mort that he should quickly improve his haunting, or else he would forever be trapped in purgatory. To avoid this fate, Mort began causing paranormal phenomena, just as the band was about to start the performance. Unfortunately for Mort, no one was present to attend the performance, except for Weirdo's parents.

Mort returned home where he again confronted Teen Death. Death decided to reveal to Mort three possible outcomes his life would've went if he had lived. In the first one, Teen Death showed Mort working at a car wash before he was drafted to a war with Canada which caused him to go into a coma. In the second one, he was married to an overweight Kimberly while all his friends went to have successful lives. In the third and last outcome, Mort would quit his menial job, travel the world, gain a bag of gold, and buy a NASCAR race car, but as he partook in the car's inaugural race he would've been attacked by the Uranians.

After that Mort returned to his current present state, seeing that his family still disrespected him, Weirdo became homeless, Slick got into science fiction, Maureen got together with Lance, and Kimberly became a beat poet. He went to attend her latest performance, only to laugh at her failure, but soon remembered that this wasn't like him. Suddenly, Mort went back in time before he died in the accident, making it seem it was all a dream, though he was in fact given a second chance at life to learn from his mistakes and do better. Mort dismissed that entire experience and once again began driving his father's car to meet with his friends and Kimberly, failing to see Teen Death directing the Babylon Express to kill him all over again to restart the loop.

Attributes

Power Grid

Powers

As a ghost, Mort, composed of ectoplasm, could remove his head, divide into multiple apparitions and otherwise reshape himself. He could become invisible and intangible, fly or levitate in place, generate "electoplasmic shock" of several hundred volts, see others' daydreams, and "enter" a film to interact with its characters. He could apparently create objects out of excess ectoplasm.

Notes

• Mort the Dead Teenager was originally envisioned as a movie that was being developed in the late 90s. It was adapted in comic book form to spark interest in studios willing to adapt it, but barely any progress had been made since then.

Trivia

• Mort's name could refer to the Latin word mortis which meant death.

See Also

• 4 appearance(s) of Mort Graves (Earth-616)
• 1 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Mort Graves (Earth-616)
• 5 image(s) of Mort Graves (Earth-616)
• 2 quotation(s) by or about Mort Graves (Earth-616)