Touching Superman would instantly absorb a sizable fraction of his superhuman powers (it was established early on that he is not capable of acquiring the whole of Superman's powers). Any time he touched someone, he could absorb their physical and mental properties. Wrongly believing that the company payrolls were hidden in storage containers, Jensen opened one and was bombarded with energies from biohazard materials (which was actually waste collected by Superman when he traveled into outer space), which transformed him into a purple skinned, parasitic entity, and thus he became the Parasite. Raymond Maxwell Jensen was a lowlife who got a job as a plant worker for a research center.
