Abomination

Background

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Powers and Abilities

The Abomination is one of the most powerful known mortals – at least physically. He’s stronger than even a calm Hulk or the Thing. He is durable enough to survive events such as a fight with a furious Hulk or unguided reentry through Earth’s atmosphere and crash from low Earth orbit. Much like the Hulk, he can take on the military of entire planets and win.

Thankfully, the Abomination tends to be unfocused and psychologically very scarred. His low Hero Points  thus do not make him as major a menace as could be feared given his raw power. He generally has to be stopped by the likes of the Hulk, Thor, the Silver Surfer or the Avengers, however.

The Abomination is pretty good at clapping his hands to trigger a large shockwave (in DC Heroes terms that’s Superbreath).

History

Yugoslavian spy Emil Blonsky infiltrated the Air Force base housing the research of Dr. Robert Bruce Banner. Blonsky failed on several occasions to sabotage the base’s missiles, but always managed to conceal his involvement.

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As Blonsky pursued his covert objectives, enigmatic entity the Stranger deemed that mankind was not responsible enough to wield nuclear technology. The alien being possessed the Hulk, hoping to use the jade giant as his vehicle to destroy humanity. But the Stranger’s reach did not extend to Banner, who prepared to bombard himself with enough gamma rays to also kill the Hulk.

Not realising what was going on, Blonsky activated the machine in the scientist’s stead. He thus unwillingly subjecting himself to a more concentrated dose of radiation than that which had created Banner’s uncontrollable alter ego.

Perfect strangers

Blonsky found himself transformed into a grotesque, green-skinned monster. He retained his intelligence, but could not revert to human form. Infatuated with his newfound power, the Abomination nearly beat the Hulk to death. He then kidnapped Betty Ross — daughter of Thadeus ’Thunderbolt‘ Ross, implacable Army general.

Scientists and soldiers retaliated by sapping the Abomination’s strength with a powerful gamma-emitting device. However Banner transformed into the Hulk and smashed the machine before Blonsky’s power could be brought below superhuman levels.

The Stranger, witnessing Banner’s heroism, decided there might be hope for humanity after all. He transported the Abomination to his homeworld — intending to use him rather than the Hulk as an agent in future endeavours.

He’s a bad gamma jamma

The Abomination next appeared as a result of a spell cast by a coven of witches. The witches sought to prove their power by killing the alien Silver Surfer. They had attempted to summon an instrument capable of doing so. But Blonsky refused to obey the coven’s commands, and left with plans to subjugate and rule the world.

The Silver Surfer similarly escaped the coven, then battled Blonsky. Defeated, the Abomination was returned to the witches then sent back to the Stranger’s planet.

There, Blonsky tried to free the rest of the prisoners and unite them into a conquering force under his leadership. He succeeded in part by using the Stranger’s devices to transport the god Thor to the planet, but once Thor learned of Blonsky’s true motives, he defeated the Abomination and left him behind.

Somehow, Blonsky made his way to a drifting asteroid. He was rescued by the alien Xeron the Star-Slayer and conscripted to be one the oarsmen of Captain Cybor. Blonsky quickly beat his way into becoming first mate to Cybor, who was searching for the monstrous Klaatu. If Xeron was a cosmic answer to Captain Ahab, Klaatu was definitely a space-faring Moby Dick .

Klaatu made his way to Earth, and Xeron encountered and conscripted the Hulk as well.

The Hulk and Blonsky would continually clash until Cybor’s ship encountered Klaatu. During the battle with the beast, the ship was damaged and Blonsky and the Hulk tumbled to Earth separately. Both survived uncontrolled re-entry from low Earth orbit.

Pawn in the gamma life

Most often, Blonsky has been a pawn in others’ plans. He worked for General Ross in an attempt to kill the Hulk, along the Rhino. He later worked for Doc Samson and Ross. However, during that case he attempted to trick them and actually managed to side with the Hulk after tricking him, too.

Then the planet-enslaving alien known as the Galaxy Master used the Abomination as a soldier. Blonsky was sent to subjugate worlds whose life-sustaining energies he required, but the Empress Daydra of the Sagittarian race recruited the Hulk to defeat the Abomination.

When the man-monster resurfaced in a block of ice in Earth orbit, Ross and the living computer Modok manipulated him into yet another city-leveling battle with the Hulk. Again smashed, Blonsky was disintegrated by Modok as punishment for his failure.

Ils sont fous ces Romains

Incredibly, the Abomination was still alive – although as a cloud of free atoms. The subterranean Roman dictator known as Tyrannus also happened to exist as a cloud of atoms at the time, and came across Abomination’s atoms. Through unknown means, he managed to reintegrate the Abomination’s body – dominated by Tyrannus’s consciousness.

Tyrannus, as the Abomination, kidnapped Betsy, now Banner’s wife. His goal was to force Banner to use the special nutrient bath that had separated the Hulk from Banner, to separate the Abomination from Tyrannus. The Hulk and the government agency known as SHIELD stopped the process, seemingly destroyed Blonsky’s consciousness.

Actually, Blonsky’s mentality was transferred to a human body. The former spy finally found himself able to lead a normal life, albeit briefly. Trapped in the Abomination’s form, Tyrannus soon attempted to switch bodies with Blonsky. The process failed. The Abomination became a mindless, rampaging beast.

The creature eventually regained Blonsky’s faculties while he was passing in Philadelphia, where Blonsky had once lived. However, he was caught in a Sentinel operation against the X-Men. The Sentinels wanted to test gamma irradiation as a way to sterilize humans and prevent them from producing more mutants.

The Abomination fought along with the X-Men to free himself. He was then allied with the human scientist heading the Sentinels project, but was soon betrayed.

Underworld

The Abomination then again clashed with the Hulk – who was in his gray, Joe Fixit persona. This time Blonsky was a pawn of the gamma-spawned super-genius called the Leader. The Hulk doused his doppelgänger in toxic waste, melting the Abomination’s epidermis. The Abomination’s regenerative abilities allowed him to survive, but he was badly disfigured.

Seeking refuge in the sewers below NYC, the severely scarred and disoriented Abomination encountered the homeless crowds living under the city – including some Morlock mutants. Being just one more disfigured, lost soul among many, the Abomination found acceptance among the local communities. They gladly made him their protector against drug traffickers, the police and other intruders.

A small group of humans and mutants even named themselves the Abominations, and became “his” tribe. The mutant Threnody was for a time a part of this tribe, and the Abomination thus encountered her lover, X-Man.

Meanwhile, Blonsky’s wife, Nadia — who thought her husband long dead — had emigrated to the United States. She became a Broadway sensation. Blonsky obsessively stalked her, and eventually kidnapped her. He didn’t manage to raise the courage to tell her right away who he was, however.

The Hulk noticed the disappearance and was sent, miniaturized, in to the sewers. There he discovered that Blonsky had turned to religion for solace. The Abomination now had regular bouts of religious deliriums where he convinced himself to be a prophet. The inch-high Hulk started talking to his hear, passing himself was the “voice of God”.

After his debate with “God”, Blonsky accepted that the right thing to do was to released Nadia without ever telling her that her husband was still alive as an abomination. He agreed to accept his fate and the support of the underground communities.

Toxic

However, the bitterness of having lost the love of his wife (and indeed, of any woman) gnawed away at Blonsky until it became unbearable. He was further poisoned by his insane hatred of Bruce Banner. Finally breaking under the psychological pressure, the Abomination poisoned Betty Ross so that his nemesis would no longer have his wife either.

Greatly relieved by this revenge, Blonksy moved on and became a creative writing teacher.

He was first found by General “Thunderbolt” Ross, Betsy’s father, and then by the Hulk. However, the Hulk walked away from a confrontation with Blonsky, knowing his forgiveness would be the one form of retaliation his enemy could not endure. Blonsky’s triumph became an utter defeat. He could neither accept nor understand the Hulk’s gesture, and had a breakdown.

After revealing to Banner his late wife’s cryogenically preserved corpse, Thunderbolt Ross convinced his son-in-law it was time to bring Blonsky to justice. The green goliath had been aimed like a gun at his hated, dark twin — and when Ross pulled the trigger, the two gamma-spawned titans went toe-to-toe.

Their no-holds-barred battle destroyed a town and ravaged the surrounding landscape, resulting in the Abomination’s arrest and incarceration by military forces.

Home Base

More recently, Bruce Banner was on the run from the mysterious underground organization known only as Home Base. He unexpectedly encountered Blonsky’s wife Nadia living in an isolated desert home. Nadia offered Banner shelter and the two struck up an intimate friendship.

At the same time, agents of Home Base infiltrated Blonsky’s prison. They made a deadly bargain — the promise of release and reunion with his wife Nadia in exchange for the defeat and capture of the Hulk.

Despite the apparent betrayal of the agent S-3, Blonsky was inadvertently set free and he soon confronted Banner and Nadia. Nadia then revealed her true purpose for coming to the United States, to find her husband and to wreak her vengeance for the years suffered in a physically abusive marriage to him.

In the confrontation, Banner transformed into the Hulk and the two beasts battled, with Hulk emerging victorious.

Description

Emil is really big – although he’s officially 6’8”, he’s generally drawn as being a good 8’. His general looks are that of a formidably broad and muscular cross between the creature from the black lagoon and Killer Croc.

At one point his epidermis was horribly melted, much like Darkman. But his regenerative power have allowed him to heal such horrible disfigurement.

The Abomination’s usual outfit is a somehow indestructible pair of blue briefs. Occasionally he wears the biggest trenchcoat he can find in a futile attempt ton conceal his horrific countenance.

Personality

Emil Blonsky’s sanity has long since frayed away, although he desperately tries to retain a grip on it. Unlike Banner, he does not have the formidable mental fortitude needed to remain sane after having been turned into a inhuman, gamma-mutated monstrosity. This is in part because he doesn’t get to ever morph back into human form.

Despite his problems, Blonsky retains his full human intelligence. He’s not a simple and brutal primitive, nor does he employ “Hulk-talk”. He just happens to have severe psychological problems.

The Abomination tries to find ways not to fall into utter madness. Most of the time he finds in focus in his strong hate – his hatred for Banner is all-consuming. At one point he desperately turned to religion to find his own mental salvation. He also tried to be a good leader for the only community that would accept him.

However, his terrifying bitterness at having forever lost the love of his wife swept away those holds on coherence.

According to how much sympathy you have for him, he could be in a phase where he’s utterly lost, destructive and full of hate. Or he could have found a tenuous, weird grip on sanity and some measure of unstable, and doomed, peace. Or he could simply be a one-dimensional paw in the service of some powerful master, as has happened often.

One of the worst things about the Abomination is that he’s *stubborn*. He’ll almost never back away, give up or drop a fight, no matter what amount of punishment he takes, until he drops unconscious. He’s one of the very few to have repeatedly engaged an angry Hulk in hand-to-hand combat without a shred of hesitation or concern.

DC Universe History

When Lex Luthor first got hold of Kryptonite he designed a machine to bombard Superman with a massive burst of Kryptonite radiation. Unfortunately, anti-nuclear activist Emil Blonsky broke into Lexcorp’s main nuclear lab in attempt to sabotage their experiments on safer nuclear power plants.

Accidentally activating the machine, Blonsky was bombarded with an intense dose of Kryptonite radiation which, instead of killing him, transformed Blonsky into a monstrosity even more powerful than Superman.

Temporarily unhinged by the experience and his transformation, the Abomination then went on a rampage, easily defeating the Justice League and finally killing Superman. The Abomination was also critically injured in the fight and was sent into space before he could recover. Although he eventually did recover from his fight with Superman his stats were reduced to their current levels.

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Hulk comics (Marvel universe).

Helper(s): Z, Jay Myers, Peter Piispanen, Sean MacDonald, Dan and some others unfortunately lost to time… History based on the one formerly at marvel.com with various additions (including one from the Unofficial Handbook of the Marvel universe).