The A to Z of Villainy!

Today I am beginning a new feature here on "If This Be Doomsday...!" I will be going down the list and spotlighting a villain for each letter of the alphabet.

Naturally, since today is the first day of this feature, I'm going to begin with a character most everyone should be familiar with. This well-known ne'er-do-well began his career as an enemy of the Mighty Thor, but has also prominently squared off with the Incredible Hulk, and was even featured (albeit in a slightly altered form) in Ang Lee's ill-received Hulk film adaptation.

That's right; it's Absorbing Man.

This is Carl "Crusher" Creel. What a bag o' donuts. Like many of Thor's enemies, he was granted his marvelous powers by Thor's dickweed half-brother, Loki. The big difference though is that Loki gave Absorbing Man his powers on purpose. I'm not sure what Crusher here did to deserve such a gift, because usually to get powers from Loki you have to steal his hat, or at least be friends with the guy who did. In any case, while in prison for racketeering (not a surprise) Loki slipped him some magic asgardian herbs, which gave him the ability to adopt the physical properties of any material with which he came into contact.

"Dude... I'm seriously like... like one with this chair. Like we're brothers and the whole universe is connected. I need to become one with some Doritos, next..."

Anyway, maybe Loki just figured that this guy was born for a life of crime and bestowed on him these wonderful gifts which allowed him to escape from prison and never change his pants again. Seriously, I guess those prison scrubs are comfortable. Oh, you know what? Actually his pants look like they change into stone or electricity or whatever along with him, so it's probably best that he just keep those on, because I don't think they sell matter-transmuter Dockers at the Gap, and I honestly fear what the other options might be.

Absorbing Man is actually a really cool villain, though, and his powers are pretty original. Much better than your standard "accidental super-strength" which was typical of many villains of the day. He gave Thor a run for his money a pretty good number of times, too, because all he had to do was absorb the properties of Thor's hammer, and he was pretty much unstoppable. Most fights between Thor and Absorbing Man ended with Thor tricking him into changing into something useless like water or flowers or something. Once, he even tricked him into turning into cancer.

That's right, cancer.

Absorbing Man also once challenged Odin, the Lord of the Norse Gods himself. Odin summarily launched him into space because, hello, Odin. An ex-con with a skin condition is no match for the King of the Gods. After catching a ride back to Earth on a comet (!), he went on to challenge the Hulk a few times, and even tried to flee the country after getting sick of being tricked into turning into glass or cancer or whatever, but he accidentally took a hostage and the Avengers tricked him into merging with the ocean. A while later he married a female villain named Titania and they both joined the Masters of Evil, earning my respect and fearful adoration in the process. Unfortunately he also lost a fight with the Dazzler.

Absorbing Man's last known whereabouts include being turned into cocaine by the Owl and sold off.

And that is really gross.