| Hydro-Man | |
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 ' | |
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Real Name: |
Morris Bench |
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Gender: |
Male |
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Color: |
Blue |
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Element: |
Water |
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Type: |
Brawler |
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Series: |
The Amazing Spider-Man |
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First appearance: |
The Amazing Spider-Man # 212 |
Hydro-Man is a recurring supervillain in the Spider-Man mythos of Marvel Comics. He was created by John Romita Jr. and Dennis O'Neil. He is voiced by Rob Paulsen in the 90s Spider-Man animated series, Brad Garrett in the Fantastic Four 80s animated series and Bill Fagerbakke in The Spectacular Spider-Man.
Character Overview[]
Morris Bench was formerly a human crewman working on the U.S.S. Bulldog. His life changed forever when he was accidentally knocked off the deck by Spider-Man during a battle with Namor. Plummeting into the depths below, he became infected by the bacteria dwelling in the ocean and was transformed into a being made of water. Blaming Spider-Man for his transformation, he takes up a life of crime and vows to defeat Spider-Man as payment for his shame.
Appearance[]
Hydro-Man appears the typical muscular supervillain, having short blond hair and blue eyes and usually wearing a blue shirt and brown pants
Personality[]
In the comic continuity, Hydro-Man is a man only in his job for the money above all else. While this is usually a weakness for supervillains, for Hydro-Man however, this is more of a strength as he becomes both a more competent foe as well as a much better team player.
In the Spider-Man TAS, he has developed a stalker-ish obsession towards Mary Jane and values her opinion above all else and does all he can to win her romantic approval, even at the expense of others.
Special Abilities[]
Hydro Man possesses the basic slime abilities of liquefying and shapeshifting. Being made out of water, Hydro Man has a large array of powers to use, but due to his ignorance on the knowledge of water, he displays very little of its true use. He usually fires streams of water to blast opponents from afar or overwhelms them as a raging wave of water. He is also able to increase his power and mass by submerging himself in larger bodies of water, potentially becoming indestructible if he were to combine himself with an ocean. However, he also possesses the weaknesses of a water being and can be evaporated if exposed to too much heat or incapacitated indefinitely through colder temperatures. Spider-Man had also developed a special web fluid that would harden his overall body structure, holding him in place for a while.
Synopsis[]
In the 90s Spider-Man animated series, Hydro-Man is a different entity. He used to attend the very same school as Mary Jane, whom he had fallen head over heels with. However, his misconduct resulted in him being expelled where his parents subsuquently enlisted him in the Navy to better himself. Due to his complaints, it seems like it did not work out for him, when all of a sudden, an accident snags his leg in a rope and he plummets into the ocean where he is then exposed to released chemicals in the ocean floor and re-emerges as a being of water. He returns to New York City where he embarks on a crime spree, his newfound powers making him rather elusive to the police (and of course, giving J. Jonah Jameson reason enough to blame Spider-Man). A recent heist holding a valued necklace contained within a highly pressurized water tank nets him a very brief skirmish with the webslinger and escapes.
He later spies on Mary Jane, whom is currently dating Peter Parker and drops her a worrying call to come to him, preparing himself by stealing a jacket from a nearby store. He makes a surprise appearance and gives her the necklace he stole. Unfortunately, his past history with her causes Mary Jane to leave. He later follows her to the park and shows off his powers, proclaiming that he would give him anything as a sign of affection, but his attitude makes her back away in fear. Spider-Man suddenly jumps in and attempts to do battle with him, but Morris's powers prove too much for him and nearly drowns him in a water tank, but Spider-Man manages to break free and temporarily incapacitates him.
The next morning, Bench decides to take action immediately and kidnaps Mary Jane after sneaking in and taking a peek at her credit card information before Peter can act to protect her. They end up underground in a cistern where he reveals to her all of the money and gold he had accumalated. However, she reminds him that his so-called love is mere obsession. Stung by this truth, he begins to go mad and plans to flood the city and force everyone to run. He suddenly goes on a rampage and begins throwing chests all over the place. Spider-Man then shows up and quickly holds him in place with a special web fluid designed for his liquid body. While Spider-Man explains the situation to MJ, Hydro-Man quickly leaks through the hardened shell and reconstitutes, blasting the webslinger into a nearby corner. In the confusion however, Mary Jane has already made her escape and so he chases her through the pipeline, reconstituting through a fire hydrant at the surface. He tracks her down to a warehouse where he is then ambushed by her, throwing a hook at him before dumping a ton of heavy paper on him.
The struggle of reconstituting slowly takes his toll on him, growing increasingly furious. She makes another surprise attack where she throws cement on him and trips over into a furnace and begins to liquefy. By the time he corners her to a rooftop, he is already in complete water form, visibly exhausted. Seemingly victorious, Spider-Man appears one last time, but Hydro-Man, in spite of his state, readies himself to fight him once more. He then tells him that Mary Jane has already beaten him now that he is weakened and deprived of the water that fed his power with the unblocked sun rays slowly eating away at him. He then begs for compassion from MJ but she then criticizes his obsession. He then goes insane and attempts to vent his rage at Spider-Man by lunging at him by he misses and splashes with his body quickly evaporating under the heat. Though he is implied to have died, Spider-Man reassures Mary Jane he will return someday due to his watery body.
He later reappears in Season 5 to take Mary Jane away again, this time apparently as his wife. For most of the episode, the two are missing until Spider-Man is able to pinpoint their location to an tower in the middle of an ocean where he is again incapacitated by Spider-Man's special web fluid. After Mary Jane leaves, he stops holding back his power and crushes the support beams of the tower, trapping Spider-Man in between the girders. With the webslinger seemingly doomed, he heads out to the ocean and just spots Mary Jane being taken into custody by the authorities for stealing a boat. He later appears at the HQ and chases Mary Jane away. The chase ends at an oil refinery area. Mary Jane tries to hold him off as best she can until Spider-Man can arrive, at one point mixing and igniting chemicals to set off a powerful blast that would assuredly weaken him, but he claims that it would not work and that he has plenty of water to utilize, especially with the sprinkler system now activated. However, the fumes let off by the chemicals do create a large enough colored gas to signal Spider-Man, now accompanied by Black Cat. The two find Hydro Man and immediately does battle with him. Hydro Man proves to be too much of a match, knocking out Black Cat before finally trapping Spider-Man. When it seems that victory was finally within his reach, a surprise attack comes out of nowhere in the form of another water jet blast, coming from none other than Mary Jane herself, which causes him to retreat.
He appears in the next episode in a lab, reconstituting before a professor and complaining that he has a significantly harder time reforming than last time. The professor is unsure, stating it at this point it was still "experimental" at this point. However, Hydro-Man is still anxious and frustrated letting Peter near her but the professor retorts that she is unimportant as of this moment and goes to do a few blood tests after getting a sample with a syringe. Hydro-Man however, would have none of it and immediately returns to the surface via a drain. He appears at the Parker residence in the form of a watery eyeball where he eavesdrops on May Parker, Peter's aunt and learns of Peter's and Mary Jane's location, discovering that they were at the London Bridge where Mary Jane had first mysteriously disappeared. He is able to intercept them and manages to capture MJ again and takes them back to the lab. He begins speaking cryptically, stating that he didn't want her to visit this place again and stating that they were "made for each other". As Hydro-Man approaches her, he is immediately stopped by Spider-Man but he brushes him off. Before he can advance forward, Mary Jane uses her newfound watery powers to smash him into submission, begging for her to stop in her assault and soon enough, she relents.
The professor then makes his reveal as Prof. Miles Warren and states himself to be Mary Jane's "father" to which Spider-Man states that he was infamous for his cloning experiments, being banned by the government soon enough. He found it necessary to go incognito where he could safely continue his experiments. He then reveals to them that through a series of events, both Hydro-Man and Mary Jane are clones of their originals, using the original Hydro-Man's DNA as the template to sustain their bodies far longer than his failed experiments did. Hydro-Man stated that he did not come after her until his powers could return to their prime, purposefully withholding the information that they were clones, thinking that Mary Jane would not act like the real one if she knew. Despite her hatred of him, he relished in the fact that she was made from a part of him. However, in their argument, Warren revealed the grim news from the test that their bodies were growing unstable and that their bodies would soon fall apart and die just like the rest of their clones, only it had taken longer this time because of Hydro-Man's powers. Bench, consumed by despair by his imminent death, begins to thrash about, causing considerable damage to the lab. He soon weakens quickly and he begins to evaporate, reaching out to Mary Jane before finally vanishing into nothing.