Emil Blonsky was a Communist Croatian Yugoslavian spy who infiltrated the U.S. Air Force base in New Mexico that was commanded by General "Thunderbolt" Ross and where Dr. Bruce Banner, the nuclear physicist who became the Hulk, conducted many of his experiments with gamma radiation. Blonsky made three attempts to sabotage missiles at the base that were vital to the defense of the United States. Although each attempt was narrowly thwarted, the Air Force still did not know who the saboteur was until Blonsky's transformation.
The enigmatic alien known as the Stranger decided that the people of Earth were not responsible enough to use their nuclear weaponry wisely. They therefore presented a threat to the other civilizations of the universe. The Stranger put the Hulk under his control and intended to use him to destroy humanity. However, the Stranger's control did not extend to Bruce Banner's persona. When the Hulk next changed back into Banner, the scientist decided to commit suicide in order to save the world from a Stranger-controlled Hulk. Banner made his way into his laboratory on the Air Force base and prepared to activate a machine that would bombard him with enough gamma radiation to kill him.
Unknown to Banner, Blonsky was hiding in the laboratory, where he had been photographing Banner's gamma radiation equipment. Security officers burst in and carried Banner off. Unaware of the nature of the machine that Banner was about to use on himself, Blonsky stood in front of the machine and activated it. It bombarded him with a more concentrated and intense dosage of gamma radiation than Banner himself had received from the Gamma Bomb explosion that had first turned him into the Hulk. Like Banner, Blonsky had some unknown genetic factor in his body that saved him from being killed by such a great dose of gamma radiation. Instead, the radiation had an immediate mutagenic effect upon Blonsky, transforming him into the green-skinned, Hulk-like monster whom General Ross's daughter dubbed the Abomination.
The Abomination gained greater strength than the Hulk at the latter's "normal" level of strength, and, unlike the Hulk, the Abomination retained his full human intelligence. However, the Abomination could not transform back into a normal human form. Infatuated with his newfound power, the Abomination beat the Hulk nearly to death and kidnapped Betty Ross. General Ross was so fearful for his daughter's safety that he ordered that the Hulk be revived in order to pursue the Abomination. When Banner's confidante, Rick Jones, pleaded with the Hulk for help, the Hulk broke free from the Stranger's mental control and reverted once more to Banner. Acting with General Ross' cooperation, Banner activated a powerful gamma radiation generating device he had invented directly upon the Abomination, thereby causing the Abomination's strength to diminish rapidly.
However, Banner grew so excited that he became the Hulk and smashed the weapon's controls, causing it to shut down before the Abomination's strength had been reduced below superhuman levels. The Abomination's strength was left at the level that he has possessed since, which was greater than that normally possessed by the Hulk, but which the Hulk could exceed upon becoming sufficiently enraged. The angry Hulk attacked and defeated the Abomination. The Stranger, watching from afar, was so impressed by the heroism of Banner/the Hulk that he decided that there might indeed be hope for humanity. The Stranger transported the Abomination to his base on another planet, intending to use him as an agent in future endeavors.
In Space
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 the Silver Surfer and hoped to summon a "tool" that was capable of doing so. Blonsky refused to obey the coven's commands, however, and left with plans to subjugate and rule the world. The Silver Surfer similarly escaped the coven and battled Blonsky. Eventually defeated, Blonsky was returned to the witches and returned to the Stranger's planet.
Back on the Stranger's planet, 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 Blonsky and left him there.
The Stranger came up with few missions for the Abomination. Eventually, the Abomination was rescued from the Laboratory World and taken aboard an alien starship, the Andromeda, where he became first mate. After many months, he was returned to Earth. He battled the Hulk several more times but, in the outcome, was beaten soundly each time.
After one of these battles,[16] the Abomination was saved from defeat by the Galaxy Master, a powerful non-humanoid being which enslaved civilizations and forced them to produce the energy that it required to exist. The Galaxy Master employed the Abomination to precede it in attacking civilizations that might offer particular resistance to conquest. Empress Daydra of the Sagittarian race recruited the Hulk to defeat the Abomination, who had become known as the "Ravager of Worlds." The Hulk eventually succeeded in both killing the Galaxy Master and defeating the Abomination.
Somehow, Blonsky made his way to a drifting asteroid, where he was rescued by the alien Xeron the Starslayer and conscripted to be one of the oarsmen of Captain Cybor. Blonsky quickly beat his way into becoming first mate to Cybor, who was searching for the monstrous Klaatu. 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. The impact to Earth buried the Abomination in the desert and he was in a coma-like for two years. Revived, he again fought the Hulk and later other super-heroes.
M.O.D.O.K.
After yet another defeat by the Hulk, a U.S. space shuttle found the Abomination frozen in ice, once again in suspended animation, in orbit around Earth. He was brought to the attention of General Ross, and revived by former A.I.M. leader M.O.D.O.K., with whom Ross had formed a treasonous alliance. The Hulk, temporarily possessing Banner's intelligence, had been granted a presidential pardon. Ross, who disagreed with the pardon, made a deal with M.O.D.O.K. that the latter would revive the Abomination and take him as a servant in exchange for having the Abomination kill the Hulk. However, the revived Abomination, as a result of having been defeated by the Hulk in the last few times that they had encountered each other, had a pathological fear of facing the Hulk. M.O.D.O.K. subjected the Abomination to painful psychological conditioning to make him more afraid of M.O.D.O.K. than of the Hulk, and sent him against the Hulk. The Abomination failed to defeat the Hulk, however, and so M.O.D.O.K. used his Mind-Beam to disintegrate the Abomination.
Tyrannus
Despite his seeming destruction, the immortal man known as Tyrannus reconstructed the Abomination, who had continued to exist as a cloud of free atoms. Tyrannus, who was in a similar state, decided to merge his atoms with those of the Abomination. He transferred Blonsky's consciousness into a human body. The former spy finally found himself able to lead a normal life, albeit briefly. Trapped in the Abomination's form, Tyrannus attempted to switch bodies with Blonsky. The process failed and the Abomination became a savage, mindless beast. Tyrannus, as the Abomination, kidnapped Betty, now Banner's wife, in order that Banner might use the special nutrient bath that had separated the Hulk from Banner on the Abomination to make Tyrannus whole once more. The Hulk and the government agency known as S.H.I.E.L.D. stopped the process, but in doing so they seemingly destroyed Blonsky's consciousness.
Tyrannus' allies, the Deviant Ghaur and the Lemurian Llyra, arranged for Tyrannus to be freed, and the Abomination became a savage, mindless beast. The heroes She-Hulk and Spider-Man confronted him, and the Abomination escaped.
The Sentinels
Somehow making his way to Philadelphia where Blonsky had previously lived, Blonsky's personality suddenly returned. Almost as suddenly, Blonsky was kidnapped by the robotic Sentinels. The Sentinels hoped to use the Abomination (and gamma-powered scientist Doc Samson) in a test to see if they could sterilize human beings and thus end a perceived mutant menace. The Abomination helped the similarly-kidnapped mutant heroes the X-Men defeat the Sentinels but was confronted by their creator, Dr. Cynthia Chalmers. Promising Blonsky the Sentinels after she has used them to destroy the mutants, the Abomination helped Chalmers rebuild the Sentinels but was ultimately betrayed by her and both he and the robots were defeated by the X-Men.
Stalker
The Abomination again clashed with the Hulk, this time as a pawn of the gamma-spawned super-genius called the Leader. The Hulk doused the Abomination in toxic waste, melting the Abomination's epidermis into mush. When he next surfaced, Blonsky had begun stalking his wife, Nadia, who believed that he had died. A miniaturized Hulk, now possessing Banner's intelligence, convinced him to move on with his life.
Homeless Community
Blonsky remained in the sewers of New York, and began to attract followers of misfits and outcasts, both humans and mutants.[citation needed] One of these mutants included, at one point, the one called Threnody, who was a victim of her own recently-emerged mutant powers. The misfits called themselves the Forgotten (later, the Abominations), and created their own community underneath New York. Blonsky served as their protector more than once; for example, when the New York sewers became a focal point between the police and drug traffickers, with the Abomination's homeless community caught in the middle. The Hulk arrived to help the police and battled Blonsky. The Hulk was unable to defeat the Abomination and Blonsky killed most of the police and news reporters before escaping.
Threnody returned to Blonsky's sewers when escaping Mister Sinister. She was followed by her boyfriend at the time, X-Man, and Blonsky fought him, seeing this as a betrayal of his community. X-Man used his psychic powers to allow him and Threnody to leave.
Later, travelers arrived from an alternate future ruled by a villainous Hulk named the Maestro. The travelers helped the Forgotten against the police, and revealed the Abomination's fate in their reality.
The Murder of Betty Banner
Blonsky had come to regard his relationship with the Hulk as one of equal status - they were ugly, psychologically scarred and alone. However, when Blonsky learned of Banner's marriage to his life-long love, Betty, Blonsky felt that now he was worse off than the Hulk was. Blonsky learned that Betty was hospitalized, and he killed her by injecting his gamma-irradiated blood into Betty's dialysis machine, although the world thought that the Hulk was responsible. Betty's father, General Ross, discovered this fact by tracking the Hulk and instead, found Blonsky. Blonsky, apparently having abandoned his homeless community, had gone on a rampage, destroying a town before being confronted by Ross. The Hulk had somehow tracked the Abomination as well, and Blonsky revealed that Nadia was "gone" to him as well. The Hulk walked away from a confrontation with Blonsky, knowing that his forgiveness would be the one form of retaliation that his enemy could not endure. The Abomination could not comprehend and endure his enemy's absolution, and his moment of triumph was twisted into crushing defeat. Blonsky realized he had become what he abhorred the most - it was he who was the rampaging, inhuman monster; not the Hulk as he had religiously believed all these years.
Incarcerated
Months later, Blonsky was working as a creative writing teacher, although he soon quit the job. After revealing to Banner his late wife's cryogenically preserved corpse, the still-grieving General Ross manipulated the Hulk into attacking and almost killing Blonsky. He convinced his son-in-law that it was time to bring Blonsky to justice. The no-holds-barred battle between the Hulk and the Abomination destroyed a town and ravaged the surrounding countryside, finally resulting in the Abomination's being placed in military custody. As punishment, Blonsky was forced to watch a film loop of himself and his wife prior to his transformation, making his incarceration a constant reminder of what he had lost.
Home Base And A Wife's Vengeance
When 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 and made with him 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 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 that she had suffered in a physically abusive marriage to him. In the confrontation, Banner transformed into the Hulk and the two beasts battled, with the Hulk emerging victorious.
Facing the She-Hulk
Sometime later, the Hulk was launched into space, and it did not take long for Blonsky to realize that his nemesis was missing. Feeling that no one on Earth could stop him now, he figured that he was free to do whatever he pleased, starting by taking over a small establishment and forcing all the waitresses to serve him enormous amounts of food. S.H.I.E.L.D. quickly got to the scene and the She-Hulk was tasked with facing the Abomination. She was clearly more agile and the better martial artist of the two, but that was not enough to overcome the Abomination's strength and endurance. It was not until the Abomination momentarily let his guard down that the She-Hulk managed to throw a decisive punch and knock him out.
He was then place under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s custody and was experimented on alongside other villains so that S.H.I.E.L.D. could develop nanotechnology that was capable of controlling them.
Death
The Abomination eventually ran afoul of the Red Hulk (actually a mutated Thunderbolt Ross) in Russia who, after savagely beating the Abomination within an inch of his life, subsequently shot him dead in retaliation for his hand in Betty Ross' "death." During the Chaos War, Blonsky was resurrected by the Chaos King and sent alongside Zom to locate and revive Death and defeat the Hulk Family. After combating the group, who were unprepared for his new power-set, and severely injuring Rick Jones, he found Death's host, Marlo Jones. After being beaten by the Hulks and their resurrected allies, Emil summoned Brian Banner. After Brian Banner's defeat, Blonsky was killed by Marlo when she became empowered by Death.
Mindless Rebirth
The remains of the Abomination were recovered by the Ancient Order of the Shield, after Bruce Banner had escaped their captivity. Using gamma blood and gamma glands that were taken from Banner, the agency managed to rebuild and reanimate the Abomination's corpse, although now no longer with a mind of his own, to use him to hunt down the Hulk. The Abomination tried to track the Hulk, but he ultimately lost track of him. The Abomination was later sent to retrieve the Hulk when the Hulk went on another rampage, but the Abomination found interference from the Avengers. Iron Man aided the Hulk using technology left behind by Ancient Order of the Shield agents to finally defeat the Abomination by teleporting him into outer space. Iron Man estimated that the Abomination was sent into the orbit of the planet Jupiter.
Project Green Spring
As part of their efforts to capture the Hulk, the covert Shadow Base recovered gamma-activated tissue from Blonsky's corpse. While initially bonded to Rick Jones, the tissue was ultimately co-opted by Shadow Base's leader, General Fortean, turning him into a creature similar to the Abomination. Following Fortean's death at the hands of the Hulk, Blonsky resurrected into Fortean's mutated body, presumably through the Green Door, gaining Fortean's memories as well as the ability to switch back and forth between his original look and Fortean's Abomination form. Posing as Fortean, Blonsky established the insurrectionist Project Green Spring. He allied himself with gamma expert Dr. Aliana Alba, who used slivers of Blonsky's skin to make grafts that turned test subjects into gamma monsters. Project Green Spring's efforts also included the distribution of low-level gamma grafts to the population of Thomasville, Texas, which were marketed as a supplement called Fortify.
Two of Green Spring's test subjects were the Hulk's son, Skaar, and Fortean's daughter, Dionne. She ran away when she learned of Project Green Spring's experimentation on the townspeople, and crossed paths with the gamma-focused task force Gamma Flight. Blonsky sent Skaar after her, but she escaped with Gamma Flight. Joining the team, Dionne helped raid Thomasville, where Gamma Flight hijacked Project Green Spring's Cathexis Ray to reverse the effects of Fortify on the townspeople. The Abomination confronted Gamma Flight and Skaar, who Dionne turned against Blonsky, but he was driven away following Dr. Alba's defeat.
Thunderbolts
The Abomination joined New York Mayor Wilson Fisk's Thunderbolts during Fisk's campaign against New York's super-heroes. Blonsky participated in the capture of the Purple Man's children, but his whereabouts after this event are as of yet unknown.