Absorbing Man

Carl "Crusher" Creel was a boxer and jailed criminal who becomes the Absorbing Man when he drinks a liquid which the Asgardian god Loki laced with rare Asgardian ingredients. Discovering that he could absorb the properties of anything he touched, Creel escaped prison by absorbing metal from the guards' bullets and went on to battle Thor. Although he is only mortal, Creel's fantastic abilities make him a worthy opponent for Thor, who is later forced to end the battle due to Loki's kidnapping of Jane Foster. Creel then breaks into a house and attacks the occupants. Thor comes to the rescue and tricks Creel into changing his atomic structure into pure helium. Thor accomplishes this by using his hammer's powers to transform the ground's molecular makeup. As Creel is acquiring additional mass from direct contact with the Earth when this happens he ends up drifting harmlessly into the atmosphere.

A short time later, Loki retrieves Creel from space using Asgardian technology after he has knocked out an Asgardian warlock and sends Creel back to battle Thor. After Creel is nearly beaten due to Thor's fighting skill, Loki transports him to Asgard and reveals the true source of his "absorbing" powers. After being humbled by Loki, Creel agrees to act as his agent, and he is directed to take over the city. The Absorbing Man defeats the Asgardian legions without too much trouble and eventually confronts Odin himself. Creel absorbs Odin's attacks and then the properties of Asgard itself, hoping to rule the Universe, and he towers over Odin as Loki arrives to gloat. Thor is ordered by Odin not to keep attacking. Loki and Creel are then beaten by trickery; once given Odin's Rod of Rulership the two quarrel over it, the Absorbing Man trying to absorb the rod, and the two find they cannot let go. Odin then advises them that his power lies not in a mere object, but deep within himself. The pair are then banished to space.

The Absorbing Man eventually returns on a comet and battles the Hulk. Bruce Banner had been sent to divert the comet, as it was feared it was radioactive, but the Absorbing Man leapt aboard and began absorbing the Hulk's strength. He tried to bury the Hulk under a mountain, but when the Hulk turned back, the Absorbing Man was unable to support the great weight and was buried. But he goes on to battle many other heroes, such as the Avengers, Daredevil, Dazzler, the Hulk, andSpider-Man. Creel is one of the villains who participates in the Secret Wars, and also develops a relationship with the superstrong villainess Titania.

The pair also join the reformed fourth version of the Masters of Evil.[11]  Creel has several more battles with Thor (and the Eric Masterson Thor) and a skirmish with cosmic hero Quasar. Creel is later incarcerated in New York's experimental "Ant-Hill" prison, where all prisoners are reduced in size via Hank Pym's "Pym particles". An escape attempt is thwarted by She-Hulk.

The Absorbing Man later battles and is apparently killed by the hero Sentry during the events of Civil War. Creel, however, later appears at the funeral of the villain Stilt-Man.

Creel and Titania later come into conflict with the heroine She-Hulk and her Skrull partner Jazinda after they attempt to arrest Creel's cousin Rockwell "Hi-Lite" Davis.

During the events of Dark Reign, Creel joins a new version of the Lethal Legion led by the Grim Reaper. After a defeat, Creel escapes prison and absorbs a shard of the artifact the Cosmic Cube.

The Absorbing Man suffers a setback when villain Norman Osborn uses an enchanted sword—provided by Loki—to remove his absorbing powers completely.

Creel is also revealed to be the father of the hero Stonewall.

In the Heroic Age, Creel is revealed to have regained his powers. He storms Avengers Tower to recover his ball and chain. He is defeated by Avengers' coordinatorsMaria Hill, Sharon Carter, and Victoria Hand after absorbing the latter's cold. Creel is sedated while the Avengers Academy escorts him to his prison. He manages to control his wrecking ball telekinetically and uses it to break himself free. He fights the Avengers Academy and begins to prevail. Hank Pym, (one of the teachers for Avengers Academy), joins the fight. As the fight progresses, Creel begins to make cruel taunts to Hank, saying what a bad Avenger he is and how he always breaks under the pressure of handling too much responsibility. This provokes Hank to grab Creel and make them both larger, outgrowing each dimension at a time, which almost drives Creel insane. So he decides to surrender before going any further. Creel then begs Pym not to take him back to prison, because the prison guards constantly keep him sedated, so he can't absorb any material to escape. He hates being trapped in his own body in that type of manner. Pym, displaying compassion, decides to build him a specially-made prison cell that would eliminate the necessity of keeping Creel under sedation.



Powers
Omni-morph Duplication: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 Man's body magically a material and physiological change so that his body actually 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 as the rest of him. Among the more ordinary materials he has been transformed into include steel, stone, wood and glass. More unusual have been his transformations into water, fire, snow and silk. His most powerful transformations have been into energy-states such as cosmic, nuclear, thermal or light.

The Absorbing Man has learned through practice to only absorb the properties of objects that he wishes to absorb. Originally he could be tricked into absorbing the properties of objects that would render him relatively vulnerable. There appears to be no time limit to how long he can retain a given property. When he is rendered unconscious or in a coma, he retains the form which he last consciously assumed. There would also not appear to be a minimum amount of time he must retain one form before assuming another. He can even become more than one substance at once.

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 spikes of a mace. He can also assimilate mystic properties of objects or beings. He was able to mimic the properties of Thor's Hammer and the strength of Thorhimself, and the power of OdinForce itself.

The Absorbing Man can alter the molecular structure of his body, his clothes, and his wrecking ball to mimic the properties of any material he touches. This process also gives him enhanced strength, endurance, and in most cases, resistance to injury. If the object touched holds some form of energy, such as a battery or a blast furnace, Creel absorbs these properties as well. He also has limited shape-changing abilities when absorbing certain objects, such as forming hammer-like fists when touching a hammer or growing to enormous size when copying items of massive power or strength themselves. http://marvel.wikia.com/Absorbing_Man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorbing_Man