Carl « Crusher » Creel, alias l’Homme-absorbant (Absorbing Man), est un super-vilain évoluant dans l'univers Marvel de la maison d'édition Marvel Comics. Créé par le scénariste Stan Lee et le dessinateur Jack Kirby, le personnage de fiction apparaît pour la première fois dans le comic book Journey into Mystery #114 en mars 1965.

C'est un ennemi récurrent du dieu Thor.

Biographie

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 a magic potion. Discovering that he could absorb the properties of anything he touched, Creel escapes prison by absorbing metal from the guards' bullets and goes on to battle Thor. When he escapes, he takes with him the ball and chain to which he was shackled, and uses the ball and chain as a weapon. 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 tries to bury the Hulk under a mountain, but when the Hulk turns back to human form, the Absorbing Man is unable to support the great weight and was buried.

However, Creel he goes on to battle many other heroes, such as the Avengers, Daredevil, Dazzler, the Hulk, and Spider-Man. He is one of the villains who participates in the Secret Wars, and also develops a romantic relationship with the superstrong villainess Titania. The pair also join the reformed fourth version of the Masters of Evil. Creel has several more battles with Thor (and the Eric Masterson Thor) and a skirmish with cosmic hero Quasar. Although he assisted Crossbones in a plan to attack Captain America, when Creel learned that Crossbones intended to detonate a bomb in New York, he absorbed the properties of Captain America's shield to contain the blast, declaring that he was not a murderer.

Creel is later incarcerated in New York's experimental "Ant-Hill" prison called the Big House, where all prisoners are reduced in size via Hank Pym's "Pym particles". An escape attempt is thwarted by She-Hulk.

The Absorbing Man escapes prison and allies with the Owl as an enforcer, but finds himself opposed by Spider-Man and new hero Ethan Edwards (later revealed to be a disguised Skrull). He is briefly trapped and converted into a new form of cocaine by one of the Owl's operatives when they become frustrated with his unprofessional approach, with the new drug briefly giving those who snort him a degree of his powers, but he eventually manages to reassemble himself in a sewer and goes after the Owl for revenge. Spider-Man manages to defeat Creel by tricking him into running a gauntlet where he absorbs multiple objects thrown at him, culminating in Creel absorbing two different chemicals that cause him to explode.

The Absorbing Man later battles and is apparently killed by the hero Sentry during the events of Civil War. However, he 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.

During the Heroic Age storyline, Creel is revealed to have regained his powers. He storms Avengers Tower to recover his ball and chain. He is defeated by Avengers' coordinators Maria 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 (at the time a teacher at Avengers Academy) joins the fight. As the fight progresses, Creel begins to make cruel taunts to Pym, 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.

During the 2011 "Fear Itself" storyline, Creel and Titania encounter two of the divine hammers that contain the essences of the Worthy, generals to Odin's brother and adversary, Cul Borson (AKA the Serpent). Coming into contact with the hammers, Titania and Creel were transformed into Skirn, Breaker of Men, and Greithoth, Breaker of Wills, respectively. and went on a rampage depicted in a number of "Fear Itself" tie-in books, most prominently Avengers Academy #15–19 and Iron Man 2.0 #5–6, as well as that storyline's core miniseries.

During the AXIS storyline, Absorbing Man appears as a member of Magneto's unnamed supervillain group during the fight against Red Skull's Red Onslaught form. He is briefly converted to heroism when everyone on the island experiences a moral inversion as Doctor Doom and Scarlet Witch attempt to bring out the Charles Xavier in Red Skull, joining the new Astonishing Avengers assembled by Steve Rogers and Spider-Man to oppose the inverted heroes. Absorbing Man later reverts to villainy when the inversion is undone.

When Absorbing Man and Titania were robbing an armored car, the female Thor appeared to thwart their plans. Upon meeting the female Thor, Creel mocked her for being a woman and for having taken Thor's name for herself, which she answered by breaking his jaw. Titania then appeared to confront her. But in respect for what she was doing, she knocked out her husband with his own weapon and surrendered.

During the Secret Wars storyline of 2015, Absorbing Man is among the villains attending Kingpin's viewing party of the incursion between Earth-616 and Earth-1610.

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