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Zoom (real name Hunter Zolomon) is a comic book supervillain in the DC Universe. He is primarily associated with the superhero Flash and is the third of the Reverse-Flashes. As Hunter Zolomon, he first appeared in The Flash: Secret Files & Origins #3 and was created by Geoff Johns and Scott Kolins.

Character history

Origins

Hunter Zolomon had a troubled relationship with his parents, who rarely spoke to each other or to him. On the day Hunter was to leave for college, he came home to find the police laying siege to his house. His father was a serial killer who had killed six young girls, and when his mother told the police, Hunter's father killed her. After refusing to give up, his father was killed by the police.

Hunter became obsessed with understanding the criminal mind to stop people like his father, studying psychology and criminology in college, then joining the F.B.I. along with his girlfriend Ashley, whom he later married. One case resulted in Ashley's father being killed (Hunter had thought the criminal they were after was incapable of facing his adult life, and thus would not use a gun). Ashley left him shortly thereafter, and the F.B.I. terminated his employment. Hunter was also left with a damaged knee due to the case, requiring a cane for walking.

After arriving in Keystone City, he got a job as a profiler, working with the police in their Department of Metahuman Hostilities. His work put him in constant contact with the current Flash, Wally West, and the two became good friends. His insight was critical in solving a number of cases, but he always resented being stuck behind a desk.

Transformation into Zoom

Hunter was severely injured in an attack by Gorilla Grodd in Iron Heights, when Grodd staged a mass break-out of the prison. The injuries left Hunter paralyzed from the waist down. He asked Wally West to use the time-travelling cosmic treadmill in the Flash Museum to prevent this from occurring, but West refused, saying that he could not risk damaging the timestream. Zolomon then broke into the museum and attempted to use the treadmill himself. The resulting explosion destroyed the museum and shifted Hunter's connection to time. He could now alter the speed at which he could move in time, giving the effect of super-speed.

Zolomon decided that West had refused to help because, unlike the previous Flash Barry Allen, West had never suffered personal tragedy, and thus didn't understand how terrible it could be. Zolomon decided that if he became the new Zoom and caused a great tragedy in Wally's life, this would help the Flash become a better hero. Flash succeeded in defeating Zoom, preventing his former friend from killing his wife Linda Park, but his attack caused a miscarriage of their twin children. Zolomon was forced into a temporal anomaly and ended up in a comatose state, continually watching the death of his father-in-law.

Zolomon's ex-wife, Ashley Zolomon, replaced him as profiler and spent a lot of time attempting to communicate with him. Due to a car accident, Ashley was hospitalized for some time. It is around this period that Zoom awoke from his coma, out of concern for Ashley. He cautiously chose to remain in his cell, however.

Rogue War

Zoom was driven out of his self-imposed imprisonment by Cheetah (a.k.a. Dr. Barbara Minerva) in an attempt to both harness super-speed and induct him into the growing Secret Society of Super Villains. The two shared a minor romance, but nothing serious happened as Zoom considered himself to still be married to Ashley.

Zoom later infiltrated the already-growing "Rogue War" between Captain Cold's Rogues, the Trickster's reformed Rogues, and the Top's brainwashed rogues. Quickly spiriting his estranged wife Ashley out of danger to the home of Linda Park, Zoom returned to the battlefront to dispatch Captain Cold, claiming that the "Man Who Mastered Absolute Zero" was wasting the Flash's time with his longstanding, self-aggrandizing methods of villainy.

As the Flash and Kid Flash (Bart Allen) attempt to contain the battle, Zoom throttles Kid Flash and threatens to snap his neck in a manner reminiscent of what Barry Allen had done to Eobard Thawne (Professor Zoom). Before Zoom can kill Kid Flash, however, Professor Zoom himself arrives on a cosmic treadmill, with Jay Garrick chained to the front end.

A battle ensues between the two Flashes and Kid Flash against the two Zooms, but in the end, the two Zooms accomplish what they intended. They grab the Flash and jump onto the treadmill. Zoom then forces the Flash to watch their first fight, in which Linda was severely injured and miscarried. Zoom feels that Wally West should be made to focus on the feelings of sorrow and loss from this experience and told Professor Zoom to rewind it so that he could watch it again. But as the scene starts to rewind, West's uncle and mentor Barry Allen appears, riding his own cosmic treadmill and saying that he had been looking for Professor Zoom.

Barry Allen removes West from immediate danger, telling West that he was here to return Thawne to his proper place in time, and that no matter how bad it seems, West could win this if he "just pushes himself a bit". He and Thawne then disappeared through time. Zoom, enraged, begins to run around the world, building up speed, with which he will kill Linda. Wally rushes to catch up, but he is a step or two behind. At the last minute, he realizes what Barry's advice means and puts on a final burst of speed, pushing himself, and hitting Zoom in the back. Zoom falls forward and is caught in the sonic boom which he himself used to kill Linda's babies (this ended up creating a “fissure in time” that restored Linda’s pregnancy, just in time for her to give birth). Zoom runs for the treadmill, but West forces them back to their mutual present. Along the way, they view scenes of Zoom's life. Zoom realizes his mistreatment of Wally and briefly apologizes before slipping into the timestream. He is later seen as a ghost-like figure apologizing to his wife.

Zoom returns in Infinite Crisis as the Society's chief speedster, but with his recent epiphany, a phase of his life as a character has ended. He was last seen saying sorry to Ashley, unknown to her.

Powers and abilities

Zoom has the ability to alter Time relative to himself, as opposed to utilizing the Speed Force like most of the DC Universe speedsters do. He can apprently use this ability to move at "speeds" rivaling those of even Wally West, fastest of the Flashes, and usually, "faster" than the speeds that even Wally can muster in most cases. Since Zoom isn't actually moving at superspeed (rather, he is greatly speeding up Time relative to himself, and can make himself so "fast" that even most of the Flashes look to him to be moving in slow motion), it remains unknown how he manages to avoid the usual problems encountered by other Flash-type speedsters (friction, seeing and hearing at such near-light speeds, et al), whose automatic and unconscious use of the Speed Force overcomes those problems.

References

• Action Comics #828, #831, Gail Simone (August 2005–November 2005)
• The Flash (2nd series) #181–200, #210, #211, #213, #217, #219–225, Geoff Johns (February 2002–October 2005)
• The Flash: Secret Files and Origins #3, "Rogues", Geoff Johns (November 2001)
• Infinite Crisis #1, Geoff Johns
• Superman (2nd series) #221, "Jimmy's Day", Mark Verheiden (November 2005)
• Wonder Woman (2nd series) #211, #213, #214, Greg Rucka (February 2005–May 2005)

External links

• Profile on Hunter Zolomon
• Profile on Zoom
• Crimson Lightning, an online index to the comic book adventures of the Modern Age Flash.

• Flash villains
• DC Comics supervillains
• Doppelgängers
• Fictional Americans in DC Comics
• Fictional FBI agents
• Fictional time travelers
• Fictional characters with the power to manipulate time
• Fictional characters with the power to move at superhuman speeds