Glob Herman

Glob Herman (Robert Herman) is a fictional mutant character, a supervillain and later superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. His first appearance was in New X-Men #117. Glob was created by Grant Morrison and Ethan Van Sciver.

Fictional character biography

Early life

The young mutant called Glob Herman has skin that is completely transparent and made up of bio-paraffin, or "living wax". Though he lives among other mutants, Glob Herman easily stands out. Herman is friends with Kid Omega, one of Professor X’s top students.

Omega Gang

Glob Herman enrolled into the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning after Professor X was publicly revealed to be a mutant. Herman joins the unsanctioned, teenage Omega Gang, led by Kid Omega, as they secretly take a hard line stance for mutant rights. With the Omega Gang, Herman attacks the humans who they thought had murdered Jumbo Carnation. He later participates in the slaughter of a group of U-Men. When the Omega Gang instigate a riot at the Xavier Institute, Herman has Redneck light him on fire. He then pursues a bus full of human civilians, chasing it at full speed down the highway. Cyclops, Xorn and Beast pursue. Beast saves the lives of two men in a sports car who cross Herman's way, which he turns into scrap metal without slowing down. When the chase nears a gas station with a cement mixer, the X-Men manage to surround Herman. They use the mixer to cover him with cement and the Beast uses water bottles from the station himself to put out Herman's fire. At that point, much of Herman's covering of bio-paraffin has burned away, and he is reduced to a skeleton with only a relative thin layer of wax. Later, Herman is seen, still covered in cement, being ferried back to the X-Mansion on a specialized truck.^[1] For his crimes, the X-Men send him to help the needy in Africa.

Post M-Day and after

After Herman served his time in Africa, he found out that he is one of the few mutants who retained their superhuman powers after M-Day. Glob Herman returns to the X-Mansion, relocated in San Francisco. After, he moves to Utopia Island, the new X-Men base with some other mutants.

During the event of Schism, Glob Herman chose to join Wolverine and became a student at the Jean Grey School. During an expedition with some other students and Wolverine in the Savage Land, Glob Herman was upset by the teaching methods of Wolverine, and he was proposed by Sauron to leave the X-Men. This plan was interrupted by the time-traveling villain 'Dog Logan', Wolverine's brother, who tormented the students Glob had been in the Savage Land with. He left them behind to seemingly face death at the hands of Dog, instead they defeated the villain.^[2] Glob agreed to join the Hellfire Club and becomes a recruit of the new Club's School: the Hellfire Academy.

Glob is back on friendly terms with his X-Academy teammates. He is allowed to rejoin as a student. As part of a remedial class he travels to New York with Spider-Man. There he's turned into a dinosaur and recovers. The entire class is kidnapped by Mojo, an inter dimensional villain.^[3] He is seen socializing with Kid Gladiator, Broo and Idie at a black-tie affair party. ^[4] As part of the self-proclaimed 'special class', Glob Herman now goes on weekly crime fighting patrols with Spider-Man. ^[5]

Herman is later seen volunteering to assist mutants and their family members in need at the school. ^[6] Glob graduates to official X-Men status during his efforts to fight off a demonic invasion threatening innocent civilians. ^[7]

As part of the X-Men he is on a squad sent after six hundred mutant embryos. This team and the embryos themselves are sent into the far future, in a world dominated by the villain Apocaylpse. Glob, Anole, Ernst and No-Girl become lost in this far-future and as a four-some travel for a full year among many dangers before other X-Men show up to bring them home. ^[8]

Powers and abilities

He has his skeleton and internal organs floating in bio-paraffin, a form of flammable living wax that increases his strength, speed and resilience to superhuman levels, and can be flicked off his body in small portions. This also allows him to absorb a great deal of heat, to the extent that he acted as a heat shield when the class were accidentally teleported up to S.W.O.R.D.'s main base and the only way to get back to Earth was an unshielded ship-to-ship pod that was ill-suited for travelling through an atmosphere.

In other media

Glob Herman appears briefly in X-Men: The Last Stand as a member of The Omegas, then later joined Magneto's Brotherhood Of Evil Mutants portrayed by Clayton Dean Watmough. He made a cameo during the attack on Alcatraz, getting shot by a cure dart that reverted him from his glob form to a normal person.^[9]

References