Hunter Zolomon

Origin

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 police surrounding his house. His father, a serial killer who had killed six young girls, had killed his mother when she turned him in and he was killed by the police when he refused to surrender.

To stop people like his father, Hunter became obsessed with understanding the criminal mind. He studied psychology and criminology in college and joined the FBI with his girlfriend, Ashley (whom he later married), specializing in low-level costumed criminals. One case resulted in Ashley's father's death; Hunter thought the criminal they were after was incapable of facing his adult life, and would not use an "adult" weapon like a gun). Ashley left him shortly afterwards, and he was fired by the FBI. The case left Hunter with a damaged knee; he needed a cane to walk, and was unable to run.

He moved to Keystone City and got a job as a profiler, working with the police in its Department of Metahuman Hostilities. Hunter's work put him in constant contact with the Flash, Wally West, and they became good friends. Although his insight was critical in solving a number of cases, he 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 prison break, and was left paralyzed from the waist down. He asked Wally West to use the time-traveling cosmic treadmill in the Flash Museum to prevent this; West refused, saying that he could not risk damaging the timestream. Hunter, believing that Wally disregard such fears for the sake of their friendship, broke into the museum and tried to use the treadmill himself. The resulting explosion destroyed the museum, gave Hunter the use of his legs again and shifted his connection to time (described by Jay Garrick as "derailing" him from the timestream), giving him superspeed.

Hunter decided that Wally had refused to help because, unlike previous Flash Barry Allen, he had never experienced personal tragedy; if he became the new Zoom and brought tragedy to Wally's life, the Flash would be a better hero. With this belief as justification he attacked the Flash and his allies, creating a shockwave (by snapping his fingers) which caused West's wife Linda to miscarry their twins. After borrowing speed from the other speedsters to even the playing field (briefly allowing him to match Zoom's speed), Flash prevented his former friend from killing his wife. Wally used slight rips in time created by Zoom's powers to force Hunter into a temporal anomaly in which Hunter is comatose, continuously seeing the death of his father-in-law.

Hunter's ex-wife, Ashley, replaced him as a profiler and tried to communicate with him. After a car accident, she was hospitalized for a long time and Zoom awoke out of concern for her. Cautious, he remained in his cell.

Rogue war

Zoom is driven out of his self-imposed imprisonment by Cheetah (Dr. Barbara Minerva) to harness his superspeed and induct him into the growing Secret Society of Super Villains. Although they are attracted to each other, Zoom still considers himself married to Ashley.

He infiltrates the growing Rogue war between Captain Cold's Rogues, the Trickster's reformed Rogues and the Top's brainwashed Rogues. Spiriting Ashley out of danger to the home of Linda Park, Zoom returns to the battlefront to dispatch Captain Cold and say that the "Man Who Mastered Absolute Zero" is 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 as Barry Allen did to Eobard Thawne (Professor Zoom). Before Zoom can kill Kid Flash, Eobard Thawne arrives on a cosmic treadmill with Jay Garrick chained to the front end; Zoom had captured Jay and forced him to take him back to the day of Professor Zoom's death.

The two Flashes and Kid Flash fight the two Zooms, and Kid Flash escapes Zoom by vibrating to become intangible (the only speedster power Zoom cannot duplicate). The two Zooms grab Wally and jump aboard the treadmill. Zoom forces the Flash to watch their first fight, in which Linda miscarries their twins. He tells Professor Zoom to replay the experience, feeling that Wally should be forced to focus on his sorrow and loss. As the scene begins to rewind, Wally's uncle (and mentor) Barry Allen appears on his own cosmic treadmill after searching for Professor Zoom.

Barry removes Wally from immediate danger, telling him that he was there to return Thawne to his proper place in time; no matter how bad it seems, Wally can win if he pushes himself. He and Thawne then disappear. An enraged Zoom begins running around the world, building up speed to kill Linda by colliding with her. Although Wally rushes to catch up, he is a step or two behind. At the last minute he puts on a final burst of speed, pushing himself and hitting Zoom in the back. Zoom falls forward, caught in his self-created sonic boom and taking the brunt of its force. This creates a "fissure in time", preventing Linda's miscarriage in time for her to give birth in the present. Zoom runs to the treadmill, but Wally forces them back to their {mutual) present. Along the way, they see scenes from Zoom's life. Zoom recognizes his mistreatment of Wally, and apologizes before slipping into the timestream; he is later seen as a ghostly figure, apologizing to Ashley.

He returns in "Infinite Crisis" as the Secret Society of Super Villains' chief speedster, claiming that their adversaries would be stronger heroes if they survived. Zoom is part of the Society's strike force which massacres the Freedom Fighters, and scars Damage with superspeed punches.

One Year Later

Zoom later appears at the sacking of Rome, asked by Bart Allen's grandmother to help her protect Bart from a tragedy planned by the villain Inertia. He is pursued by the Justice League to find Sinestro after Batman and Hal Jordan learn of the existence of the Sinestro Corps.

Zoom is pursued by the Justice Society of America to Atlanta. Although Damage is banned from the city, he enters in search of revenge. During a scuffle, he takes Zoom hostage until he is talked down by Liberty Belle. Disappointed that Damage is not "improving", Zoom throws a sharp pipe to kill him. Liberty Belle uses her superspeed to catch it and throw it back, knocking Zoom unconscious.

Powerless

In Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge he frees Inertia from the paralysis inflicted by Wally West, hoping to make him his apprentice as a new Kid Flash and teaching him to "improve" his life and others' by inflicting tragedies. Inertia learns the lesson well and, as Kid Zoom (the new master of tragedies), betrays the Flash's Rogues and Zoom. Claiming that he just wanted to make the heroes suffer (Zoom wanted them to work through their damage), Inertia unravels Zoom's timeline and returns him to the crippled, powerless Hunter Zolomon. When the resurrected Professor Zoom is imprisoned in Iron Heights in Flash: Rebirth, Hunter says that they can help each other to be better.

Powers and abilities

Zoom does not move at super-speed, as most other speedsters do, with the Speed Force; he alters time, manipulating the speed at which time flows around him. This allows him to go faster or slower relative to everyone around him, and his "speed" rivals that of Wally West.

The temporal nature of Zoom's speed allows him to avoid the usual problems encountered by other Flash-type speedsters, such as air-friction heat and seeing and hearing at heightened speeds, whose automatic, unconscious use of the Speed Force overcomes those problems. He cannot become intangible (like other speedsters can) by vibrating his molecules at certain frequencies, and compensates by "quantum-tunneling" his way through objects.

Although Zoom's powers are not tied to the Speed Force, he has demonstrated the ability to grant a form of "super-speed" to other beings by giving them the ability to control their relative time through himself. He can shut down this connection at will.

Television

Toys

In July 2016 a Funko POP! vinyl figure of Zoom was released, based on his appearance in the TV series.