In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss Thor’s battle with Crusher Creel, “The Absorbing Man”. Thor has used his own power against him by turning Crusher into helium and banishing him into outer space for an indefinite period of time. Thor claims that there are special laws and enforcement for “powerful people”. Who gets to decide who is powerful, and what the consequences are? Have we put too much trust in our heroes?Behind the issue:This is the first appearance of Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man. His powers as demonstrated in these issues allow him to gain the strength and abilities of whimever he is fighting. That power will later be retconned into just the ability to gain the strength and abilities of the materials he touches. Also, don’t worry about Crusher - he later escapes from his life as an amorphous cloud of helium floating through the solar system, returning the bedevil our heroes again and again.In these issues:Journey into Mystery #114:The issue opens with Thor battling another super-science criminal. While in the midst of battle, Thor’s brother Loki cast a kind of spell to harm Thor, although Thor spoils his plan, not knowing that his own brother was trying to kill him. Enraged, Loki comes up with a new scheme. He searches the Earth and finds a brutal man named Crusher Creel, who has been imprisoned for his vicious crimes. Loki adds an enchanted potion to Creel’s drink, which gives him the amazing power of being able to assume the properties of anything he touches. He uses this amazing power to escape prison. Thor learns of the prison break and confronts Creel, who proves to be incredibly powerful, and potentially a match for Thor, all witnessed by a newspaper reporter. Thor is spirited away in the midst of battle to Asgard, as Loki has kidnapped the woman he loves, Jane Foster.Journey into Mystery #115:The issue opens with Thor battling Loki for the life of Jane Foster. Meanwhile back on Earth, Crusher Creel has broken into the house of a young couple, and is basically terrorizing them. Back on Asgard, Odin breaks up the fight between his two sons, and after some back-and-forth, Odin agrees that Thor can leave the battle to finish his fight on earth with Creel. Thor returns to Earth and engages the villain once more. Crusher Creel again proves to be a potential match for Thor, using his powers in creative and effective ways. Thor is finally able to defeat the villain by tricking him into absorbing the quality of helium gas, causing him to leave the planet in the ethereal form of an amorphous cloud of helium.Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering if superheroes have assumed too much power and authority after learning that Thor acted as judge, jury, and executioner of the villain Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man.This episode takes place:After Thor has banished Crusher Creel to his own personal hell, floating in a ghostly form through space for an indeterminate period of time.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, I wanna start off today with a quote. Can I do that? We've never done this before.Micheal: Proceed.Edward: Okay, Thor recently battled a new villain. This new villain that's just popped up called The Absorbing Man. And after he defeated the villain, he was speaking to a reporter, and I'm just gonna read it verbatim what he said to the reporter.He said that this absorbing man person, "Crusher Creel has become lighter than the air and is swiftly being drawn into the atmosphere as I planned. In this gaseous state, he can survive indefinitely. I shall allow him to drift through space until the unearthly power he possesses is about a useless forgotten memory. Only then will he return to earth and assume his rightful form." So that seems really terrible.Micheal: That's a chilling quote because we know that Crusher Creel is the absorbing man, and he was a bad dude who's in prison, but suddenly he got these powers and Thor's solution to him is to let him. So I guess people should know, I don't really know thi