First Appearance: (as Davis) Daredevil #1; (as Carl
Creel) Journey Into Mystery #114Origin Issue: Journey Into Mystery #114
ABSORBING MAN
First Appearance: (as Davis) Daredevil #1; (as Carl
Creel) Journey Into Mystery #114
Origin Issue: Journey Into Mystery #114
Real Name: Carl
"Crusher" Creel
Aliases: Rocky Davis, Lightningbolt
Height: 6' 4"
Weight: 365lbs
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Bald
Distinguishing Features: none
Occupation: Professional
Criminal, former boxer
Citizenship: United States of America
Place of Creation/Birth: New York City
Known Relatives: Mary
MacPherran (aka Titania, wife)
Known Allies: (former) Loki, Masters of
Evil IV, They Who Wield Power
Known Enemies: Thor, Hulk, Thor II, Avengers, Quasar,
Odin, Spider-Man, Dazzler, Black Bolt
Intelligence: Normal (4/10)
Strength: Variable
Speed: Variable
Stamina: Variable
Durability: Variable
Agility: Variable
Reflexes: Variable
Fighting Skills: Excellent hand-to-hand combatant, uses street
fighting
techniques
Special Skills/Abilities: none known
Superhuman physical powers: Ability to magically
duplicate in his body at will the physical properties of anything he touches or that
touches him. This power extends to both animate and inanimate objects and to various
forms of energy. He retains his human sentience, mobility, and power of speech in
these forms. He can also absorb specific properties relating to the form of an
object: hence, he can assume the height of a skyscraper or the spikes of a mace.
He can also absorb mystical properties such as those of Thor's hammer. If his
body is broken or dispersed somehow while in a non-human state, the Absorbing Man can
re-assemble himself over a period of time and return to human form.
Superhuman Mental Powers: Recently, the
Absorbing Man developed the ability to take over people's minds, even across
vast distances.
Special Limitations: There are undefined limits to the
amount of power that the Absorbing Man can absorb. He once overloaded his powers and
exploded in attempting to absorb the power of the entire planet Earth.
Source of Superhuman Powers: Magic
Personal Weaponry: Prison ball and chain, which he was
wearing at the time of his original transformation, which magically transforms with his
body while he touches it.
Origin: While serving time in prison for aggravated assault committed while a member of an extortion racket, Creel was selected by Loki, the Asgardian god of mischief, as his unwitting agent in a scheme against Thor, god of thunder. By adding an enchanted potion composed of rare Asgardian herbs to Creel's drinking water in the prison commissary, Loki granted the brutal convict a bizarre power he hoped would enable him to defeat Thor.
The initial meeting between the Hulk and Absorbing Man was after Odin had hurled Creel into space. Creel happened upon a comet and steered it toward Earth. Bruce Banner piloted a rocket to divert the comet, unaware that he had picked up a deadly passenger in the process. Banner was soon forced to become the Hulk when Creel attacked, and the savage Hulk failed to understand the nature of his foe's powers; he was soon at the villain's mercy as the Absorbing Man latched on and absorbed his strength. However, the Absorbing Man was defeated when he continued to absorb the Hulk's power during his transformation into Bruce Banner while holding a large boulder in his other hand. Without his strength to support the boulder, Creel decided to absorb the properties of the rock, but it was not enough, and he shattered under the boulder's weight.
Later, the Absorbing Man followed a mysterious summons to a house in Vermont, only to discover it was Loki calling him. He battled Thor once more, but was knocked into a lake and washed away.
After another conflagration with the mighty Thor, Creel was contacted by the mysterious They Who Wield Power and offered a chance to kill the Hulk. He readily accepted and tested his might against the Hulk a second time. Again the Absorbing Man's amazing power was ultimately his undoing. When he was thrown from a building, he reached out to absorb the properties of the steel the building was made of, but instead grabbed glass and was shattered on the ground. After this defeat, the Absorbing Man decided to leave the country with a hostage in tow. However, he was opposed by the Avengers; at the end of their battle, he absorbed the properties of the water in the ocean to escape. Creel found it very difficult to control this form and washed out to sea, the experience of having his body and mind nearly dispersed leaving him just a little insane.
He eventually washed up on Easter Island, still insane and paranoid from his experience. The Hulk later found himself there was well after swimming for days following an adventure in Japan. Once on the shore, Hulk reverted into Bruce Banner. Creel found Banner and his paranoid mind convinced himself that Banner was one of "them" - beings he barely remembered but who had opposed him in the past. Creel took Banner and held him captive until he lost control and the Hulk emerged. In an effort to overpower the Hulk, the Absorbing Man soon tried to absorb the entire island, but was punched into the air by the Hulk i mid-transformation. The shock of the disruption of his absorption process made Creel lose what little grip on reality he had left, and he floated there in the water, becoming an island himself. Eventually recovering, he returned to America only to be defeated by the Dazzler.
The Absorbing Man was one of the many villains taken by the Beyonder to his artificial planet, Battleworld, and was involved in the so-called "Secret Wars," pitted against a group of heroes. It was during these events that he met his future wife, Titania. After returning to Earth, he and Titania joined Baron Helmut Zemo's Masters of Evil, fought Spider-Man, and then took over Avengers Mansion until the team rallied and ousted all of the villains.
Later, the Absorbing Man was used in a scheme by Loki to destroy Thor. Loki used mortals and enchanted them to look and act as foes from Thor's past. When Thor confronted the Absorbing Man, he thought he was another enchanted mortal so he held back, only he was the real thing. Thor was also under Hela's curse, so his bones could be broken easily, but he would never die. The Absorbing Man did tremendous damage, and Thor sought to transport himself to another dimension. The Absorbing Man instead absorbed the vortex and was himself transported to the limbo realm.
Following this encounter with Thor, the Absorbing Man fought with the Hulk during the Hulk's stint as "Mr Fixit". Creel had been hired to take Fixit out due to the threat he posed to all of his employer's competitors. They fought their way across a casino, their struggle eventually taking them to the Hoover Dam. Creel absorbed the properties of the Dam's electricity, but was tricked into swinging his ball and chain into some water while in his electric state. To avoid a severe electrical shock, Absorbing Man immediately absorbed the properties of concrete. Once he had done this, the Hulk quickly shattered him.
After a string of defeats against the likes of Quasar, Thor, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and even Speedball, the Absorbing Man was one of several others who received a bogus invitation to - and attended - the wedding of Rick and Marlo Jones. Perhaps tiring of his repeated defeats, the Absorbing Man then appeared to be trying to live a crime-free life, but it was not easy, as his girlfriend Titania was still very much into her criminal life. The two had confrontations with Thunderstrike, some friendly, some not. The two did manage to develop at least a mutual respect, as Absorbing Man later went to Thunderstrike's grave to pay his last respects to the hero. One of the most major events in the Absorbing Man's life followed when he married Titania before a gathering of super-villains.
Unfortunately, Absorbing Man's non-criminal life was not to be, and he soon returned to his criminal ways, possibly because the police would always assume he was in the process of committing a crime even when he was doing something as innocent as buying his wife a present. He was contacted by the New World Order to stop the Hulk, who had been empowered even further by Apocalypse as the horseman known as "war". Creel fought the Hulk, but quickly found he was no match for his new powers and was defeated with unprecedented ease. Around the same time Creel found himself fighting many heroes, from She-Hulk to Daredevil to the Fantastic Four to Captain America, sometimes for money and sometimes for no more reason that the crime itself. He was defeated each time.
Absorbing Man's life took a turn for the worse when his wife Titania contracted cancer, and he was powerless to help her at all because they'd be arrested if they went to a hospital; in addition, they had no money for medical care. After kidnapping Doctor Jane Foster and fighting with Thor, Absorbing Man eventually agreed to let Titania be treated by professionals. Creel later became a loyal follower of his former nemesis Thor after the Asgardian moved Asgard to Earth and started righting all of humanity's wrongs, regardless of what humanity wanted.
Around the same time, as a result of a temporal warp, Creel was incarcerated in a prison that nullified his power. After prolonged isolation he developed the ability to take control of a person's mind. Using this ability, he took a hostage and forced the Hulk to free his body from its prison. The Hulk did so and then fought the Absorbing Man. This time the Absorbing Man had much greater control of his powers and defeated the Hulk. However, Absorbing Man ultimately lost the day when he was tricked into taking over the mind of a corpse, and his own body decayed as a result. Creel was incarcerated at the Pym Experimental Penitentiary Number One, aka the Big House, a miniaturized super-villain prison.
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