Armadillo (Antonio Rodriguez) is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Publication history Created by Mark Gruenwald, Paul Neary, and Dennis Janke, the character made his first appearance in Captain America #308 (August 1985). Gruenwald recounted that Armadillo "is just a silly monster I wanted to throw in as kind of a joke on the old Marvel armadillo thing in the letters page". Fictional character biography Antonio Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas. He was given superhuman strength and durability by Dr. Karl Malus. This process involved having his human genes combined with the genetic material of an armadillo which gave him the appearance of a humanoid armadillo. The Armadillo's original motivation during his criminal career was to get enough money to be able to pay a doctor to discover a way to cure his girlfriend Maria of an unspecified terminal illness. When she was cured from her treatment, Maria abandoned him because of his appearance. Since that time, his motive has been to secure enough money to pay the Power Broker or some other scientist to reverse the process which transformed him. As part of the Armadillo's first encounter with superheroes, he was dispatched by Dr. Karl Malus to break into the West Coast Avengers Compound and free Goliath. There, the Armadillo battled Captain America who released him after learning of the sacrifice he made for the comatose Maria. The Armadillo later joined the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation. While on tour with the UCWF, he battled Captain America and Hawkeye atop the Empire State Building. He had apparently gone berserk after discovering his estranged wife Bonita with another man, and was intending to commit suicide. Captain America tried to talk him down, but the Armadillo jumped off the building. He survived the fall, but was arrested. He was later seen incarcerated in the Vault. Having been talked out of a criminal career by Captain America and his allies, he surrendered to Vagabond to avoid further prosecution. Armadillo only wished to serve out the remainder of his sentence. To this end, he fought against various supervillains who wished to engineer large-scale breakouts, including Venom, and later various supervillains released by the Thunderbolts as they broke out Moonstone. After being released from the Vault, Armadillo became the regional champion of the Ultimate Fighting League. After his defeat by Daniel Axum (formerly the villain Battler), Armadillo was