REAL
NAME: Carl "Crusher" Creel
KNOWN ALIASES: Rocky Davis, Lightningbolt
OCCUPATION: Professional criminal, former boxer
IDENTITY: Publicly known
PLACE OF BIRTH: New York City, New York
CITIZENSHIP: U.S.A.
MARITAL STATUS: Married
KNOWN RELATIVES: Mary MacPherran (Titania,
wife)
GROUP AFFILIATION: Former member of both Baron
Zemo’s and Dr. Octopus’ Masters of Evil; part of
the unnamed team of super-villains on Battleworld, former agent
of Loki and of They Who Wield Power
BASE OF OPERATION: Mobile
EDUCATION: High school dropout
FIRST APPEARANCE: (as Davis) Daredevil Vol.
1 #1 (1964); (as Creel) Journey Into Mystery Vol. 1 #114 (1965)
PORTRAYED BY: Brian Patrick Wade, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
HISTORY: Prior to becoming superhuman, Creel
had a history of violence, first as a boxer, and then as a
brutal criminal. While in prison, “Crusher” Creed
had his amazing powers bestowed upon him by the Norse god
Loki in an attempt to create a pawn to use against his brother,
Thor. The Absorbing Man battled against Thor on several occasions
before his first meeting with the Hulk.
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.
After two more conflagrations 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 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 as 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 on 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 in 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 involve
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
Tatiana joined Baron Zemo’s Master of Evil, fought Spider-Man,
and then took over Avengers Mansion until the team railed
and ousted all of the villains.
Following another 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 like 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 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 than
the crime itself. He was defeated each time.
Absorbing Man’s life took a turn for the worse 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 a doctor 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 here his body from 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 real body decayed as a result. Creel was incarcerated
at the Pym Experimental Penitentiary Number One, also known
as the Big House, a miniaturized super-villain prison.
HEIGHT: 6 ft. 4 in. (variable)
WEIGHT: 365 lbs. (variable)
EYES: Blue
HAIR: Bald
STRENGTH LEVEL: Variable, when he is not
absorbing the properties of anything, the Absorbing Man possesses
the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and
build who engage in regular exercise. Depending on what he
absorbs and how long he can remain in contact with it, his
strength can increase to the Class 100 range (able to routinely
lift 100+ ton).
SUPERHUMAN POWERS: The Absorbing Man possesses
the ability to bodily duplicate at will the physical properties
of anything he touches or that touches him. This power extends
to both animate and inanimate objects and certain forms of
energy. The matter of the Absorbing Men's body magically undergoes
a materiel and physiological change so that his body becomes
composed of the matter or energy with which he is making contact.
While he is in this altered state, he still possesses his
sentience despite the fact that his brain is now composed
of the same material all the rest of him. Among the more ordinary
materials he has been transformed into include steel, stone,
wood, and glass. More unusual have bean his transformations
into water, fire, snow, helium, and silk. His most powerful
transformations have been into energy-states such as cosmic,
nuclear, thermal or light.
The Absorbing Man can also absorb specific properties relating
to the form or mass of an object he touches. For example,
he can assume the height of a skyscraper or the spike of a
mace. He can also assimilate mystical properties of object
or beings He can mimic the properties of Thor's hammer as
well as the strength of Thor himself.
If the Absorbing Man's body is broken or dispersed somehow
when he is in nonhuman state, his sentience is capable of
reassembling himself over a period of time end returning himself
to human form. For example, he was able to return to normal
after being shattered in glass form and dissipated in liquid
form. During the first "Secret War" his arm was
severed while he was in non-human form, but the Absorbing
Man was able to reattach it to himself by holding the severed
arm to its correct position on his body and then transforming
it and himself back to human form.
LIMITATIONS: There are undefined limits
to the amount of power that the Absorbing Man can absorb.
He met his first defeat when he exploded upon attempting to
absorb the power of the entire planet Earth.
WEAPONS: The Absorbing Man's prison ball
and chain, which he was wearing at the time of his original
transformation, magically possesses the same properties of
transformation as his body, providing he is in contact with
them.
SIGNIFICANT ISSUES:
Given powers by Loki, fought Thor for the first time (Journey
into Mystery Vol. 1#114, 1965)
Cast into space by Odin (Journey into Mystery Vol. 1 #123,
1965)
Fought the Hulk (Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #125, 1970)
Fought Thor again and absorbed his hammer (Thor Vol. #235-236,
1975)
Hired by They Who Wield Power to kill the Hulk (Incredible
Hulk Vol. 2 #208-209, 1977)
Driven insane upon turning into water, washed out to sea (Avengers
Vol. 1 #183-184, 1979)
Fought Hulk on Easter Island (Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #261,
1981)
Fought in the Secret Wars, met Titania (Secret Wars Vol. 1
#1-12, 1984-1985)
With Masters of Evil (Avengers Vol. 1 #273-275, 1986-1987)
Fought the Grey Hulk in Las Vegas (Incredible Hulk Vol. 2
#348, 1988)
Married Titania (Avengers Unplugged #4, 1996)
Fought Hulk/War (Incredible Hulk Vol. 2 #456-457, 1997)
Discovered that his wife had cancer (Thor Vol. 2 #25, 2000)
Became a follower of Thor (Thor Vol. 2 #55, 2002)
Utilized new psychic power against Hulk (Incredible Hulk Vol.
3 #55-59, 2003)
NOTE:
Updated from The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe:
Hulk 2004

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