Saturday, December 27, 2008

TOP 100 COMIC BOOK BATTLES: # 82

82. Flash vs. Zoom (First Battle)



The new Zoom was Hunter Zolomon, a criminal profiler who, due to a poor judgment resulting in his wife’s father’s death, lost his wife, his father-in-law and the full use of his legs. Now in Keystone City behind a desk as a profiler, Zolomon became friends with Wally West, the Flash, as the two interacted often.


Later, Zolomon was attacked by the villain Gorilla Grodd, and in the resulting fight, Zolomon was left fully paralyzed. He turned to his friend Wally to ask Wally to use the Cosmic Treadmill to go back in time and stop the attack before it happens. Wally refuses, saying he is not allowed to mess with time like that.


Infuriated, Zolomon tries it himself - it backfires, but the resulting explosion puts Zolomon out of place within the timestream. He can now alter the effects of time around him, giving him the illusion of super speed.


The now clearly insane Zolomon figures that Wally’s problem was that he just wasn’t a good enough hero to help out Zolomon. If he was a better hero, he clearly would have done Zolomon the favor he asked. So he tried to think - why WASN’T Wally a good hero? Then Zolomon “figured” it out - Wally had not had a personal tragedy!


Now calling himself Zoom, Zolomon figured he’d fix that by killing Wally’s pregnant wife, Linda!


Ultimately, Wally was able to borrow speed from other speedsters to match the effect of Zoom’s time travel, and he managed to save his wife, but not before Zoom caused Linda to miscarry the twins she was carrying!


While Wally and Linda grieved, Zoom was trapped in one of the rifts in time and space that he created from his powers - he was forced to re-live the moment where his father-in-law was killed - over and over again.

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