HYDRO-MAN

 

HYDRO-MAN

Real Name: Morris Bench

First Appearance: The Amazing Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #212, January 1981

Powers: Morris “Morrie” Bench was a cargo ship crewman who fell overboard on a ship with an experimental energy converter. The energies of the converter, combined with gases from undersea volcanoes triggered a mutagenic change in Morrie, causing him to absorb the properties of the water around him. He thereafter developed the ability to transform into an organic liquid substance resembling water, beginning a criminal career as the Hydro-Man.

The Hydro-Man can transform all or part of his body into animated water. He could project his body mass outwards as a highly pressurized blast of water, and envelop an opponent to drown them in his mass. He could manipulate the surface tension of his body to make his watery form feel as solid as necessary, effectively increasing his size and strength by creating massive watery fists to strike opponents. His mass could be displaced and reform itself easily, and he could absorb outside sources of water to increase his mass. This allowed him to merge with other bodies of water or rapidly dehydrate opponents once he got his hands on them. In later stories, he had developed hydro-kinetic abilities allowing him to manipulate water from a distance, dehydrating opponents remotely or causing water pressure to build up in their veins or tissues. Certain events have suggested he is capable of controlled state change, becoming animated ice or vapors, but he has not demonstrated this ability consistently.

The super-powered criminal known as the Sandman and the Hydro-Man once merged together as the Mud-Thing, a large animated mass of mud with neither of their full intelligence.