ABSORBING MAN

 

ABSORBING MAN

Real Name: Carl Creel

First Appearance: Journey into Mystery (Vol. 1) #114, March 1965; Daredevil (Vol. 1) #1, April 1964 (As Rocky Davis)

Powers: Carl "Crusher" Creel was a prison inmate who was given the power to mimic the physical properties of anything he touches after ingesting an Asgardian herb potion which was mixed into his drinking water by the Asgardian god Loki.

As the Absorbing Man, he has assumed any number of different compositions in the past including various forms of metal, plastic, glass, wood, stone, etc. Absorbing materials stronger than flesh and blood can give him superhuman strength and durability. Creel's transformations are instantaneous, enabling him to absorb the durability of bullets on contact faster than they can penetrate his body. He can assume non-solid states like water, ammonia, or gases, but finds it more difficult to maintain his astral presence in such as state, slowing his thinking and reflexes sometimes. The Absorbing Man is capable of reforming himself if injured in his different states. For instance, he can have a stone arm severed, but by touching the severed arm to his shoulder and returning to normal, he'll be whole again. Creel has frequently returned from being blasted to bits or being dispersed over a wide area, given time. The Absorbing Man can take on additional properties from contact with a specific object: He has adopted weather-summoning power from touching Mjolnir, the quantum power from the Quantum Bands, thermo-chemical production from a ship's engine, etc. He also seems to be occasionally capable of increasing his mass when touching something substantially larger than he is, matching its size as well as its properties, such as the height of a building or the spikes of a mace.

His wrecking ball acts as a mystical extension of his powers, changing composition just as he does. Loki once enchanted it to act like Mjolnir, giving the Absorbing Man the power of flight by hurling the ball through the air and grasping the hammer, but this seems to have been forgotten in recent years. Later, Creel demonstrated morphing abilities when in his altered forms, allowing him to shape his concrete or metal limbs into hammers, blades, or other such offensive shapes, or flattening himself out into a non-humanoid sheet of material. He is also not limited to one property of an item, but can become changed into its many different substances. For example, when absorbing a city building, his form can simultaneously include glass, wood, cement, metal, and even flesh.

His most powerful transformations have been into energy states such as cosmic, nuclear, thermal, or light. He has transformed into Adamantium, Uru (Thor's hammer), and the unique alloy of Captain America's shield. He's also absorbed the strength and power of individual beings such as Odin, the Hulk, the Sentry, and others. Though not inherently possessing superhuman strength or energy powers, he can gain virtually unlimited power depending on the properties of the materials he's adapted. There are unrevealed limits to the amount of power that he can rapidly absorb, and he has met defeat by either absorbing energy too quickly or absorbing energies that disrupted the powers that he already held. For a brief period of time, the Absorbing Man had the ability to overtake people's minds, even across vast distances. Aside from his superhuman powers, the Absorbing Man is also adept at boxing, street fighting techniques, and burglary strategies.