50 Greatest Super Villains In Comic Book History

49. Abomination

(Write-up by Nick Tylwalk, Bam Smack Pow Editor)

When you stop and think about it, the Marvel Universe is very fortunate that the accident that created the Hulk had Bruce Banner as a victim. Other people wouldn’t have shown as much restraint, or been as committed to battling the beast or trying to find a cure. Believe it or not, the Hulk is a best-case scenario.

Consider the Abomination the worst case. Emil Blonsky actually exposed himself to gamma radiation on purpose. Who does that?

As a result, he ended up a monster even bigger, uglier, and depending on who was writing him, sometimes even stronger than the Hulk (not a really, really mad Hulk though). The Abomination was created specifically by Stan Lee and Gil Kane to be a physical match for the Green Goliath, and let’s face it, he doesn’t have many.

The Leader might be the Hulk’s most persistent and enduring foe, but the Abomination is the one who can actually stand toe-to-toe with him. For that reason, he’s been hard to keep out of other forms of media, and his profile has received a boost from both film and animation appearances.

Even my 6-year old son has known who the Abomination was for quite some time. Like the rest of us, sometimes he just enjoys a good old-fashioned comic book slugfest — and this is a villain who can give you that. Blonsky’s intellect, which he retained after going green, might not have been able to pull off anything worthy of getting him further up this list, but being a self-made monster at least gets him recognized.

Next: No. 48: Quite the sparkplug