Marcus Benson

Doctor Marcus Benson spent his career at Culver University, where he ran natural sciences and where Andrew Garner sat in his classroom before the two of them ended up colleagues and friends. His mind is the part of him that never dimmed: an IQ of 160 and a range that reaches across most of the sciences, which is why Melinda May put his name forward when S.H.I.E.L.D. went looking for a department head. The rest of the picture is harder. He lost his husband, Thomas, after a car crash, and the grief took him into depression and drink; his classes were cancelled one at a time and the university began steering him toward retirement. Alphonso Mackenzie asked him to run a department and build an academy for new agents. He said yes.