Zoom

"Never forget, I am the fastest man alive!"

- Zoom after defeating The Flash

"Zoom" is a "speed demon" from Earth-2 and the archenemy of Jay Garrick/The Flash. After the singularity caused by the Reverse-Flash's "demise" on Earth-1 opened in Earth-2, Zoom traveled to Earth-1. After arriving, he learned of the existence of Barry Allen/The Flash and came to despise him and began extorting meta-humans from Earth-2 into killing Barry in exchange for a way home. His ultimate agenda however is to increase Barry's speed to siphon all of his Speed Force power and truly become the fastest person in the entire multiverse.

Early life
Almost nothing is known of Zoom's history except that he was supposedly affected by Earth-2 Harrison Wells' particle-accelerator when it exploded underground, which is what gave him his powers. No one knows what he really looks like or even what his real name is, but what is known is he first appeared on the Earth-2 radar around the same time that Jay Garrick/The Flash acquired his Speed-Force powers, rampaging around Central City and killing hundreds of people. Flash spent the next 2 years of his career tracking Zoom with little success and Zoom in turn became obsessed with destroying Flash, desiring to be the only speedster in the multiverse itself. Flash and Zoom had numerous encounters following this but Flash came to be scared of Zoom and sometimes deliberatley avoided fighting him out of fear. Zoom also became feared by everyone in Central City.

One night, the two had their biggest battle yet, where they raced throughout Central City as Flash fought hard to keep up with his incredibly fast demonic foe. Eventually, Zoom gained the upper-hand atop a tall skyscraper and began phasing his hand through the Flash, somehow managing to drain Flash of his speed. Before Zoom could finish off Flash however, a huge portal in the sky opened and Flash was sucked into it and brought to Earth-1 while Zoom, still on Earth-2, believed Flash had been eliminated and raced away.

At some point during his reign of terror on Earth-2, he kidnapped Earth-2 Harrison "Harry" Wells' daughter, Jesse Wells, and is currently holding her hostage. At one point after Harry departure, he confronted her again demanding to know why Harry had traveled to Earth-1. Jesse professed not to know and Zoom complimented her loyalty before subjecting her to torture.

Targeting the Flash
Upon gaining access to Earth-1 through his advanced Speed powers and the interdimensional breaches, Zoom learned of the existence of Barry Allen/The Flash and grew to despise him too for having speed powers also and vowed to kill him as he desires to be the only speedster in any world, but only after he has The Flash reaches his full potential since it would mean more of the Speed Force he would gain in the long run. Zoom then begun sending metahumans from his world to test him and force him to achieve his highest possible speed. To ensure the metahumans co-operation he promised these criminals safe passage back to their world if they succeed in killing him. Zoom's first candidate was Al Rothstein/Atom-Smasher from his world, who'd also come through one of the breaches, and offered him the chance to return home if he killed Flash. Atom-Smasher accepted the offer, but was eventually defeated by Flash and his team. In the wake of Atom-Smasher's defeat, Zoom briefly returned to Earth-2 to retrieve the metahuman Eddie Slick/Sand-Demon, and forcibly brought with him to Earth-1. Zoom extorted the terrified Slick with the same offer of return to Earth-2 and Slick consented but was defeated by the combined efforts of both Flashes. After Slick's dfeat Zoom later sent "King Shark" from his world but was defeated by Harry, who'd followed Zoom to Earth-1.

Somehow gathering details about Flash's personal life including his real name and previous romantic attachment to Central City sports-reporter Linda Park, Zoom sought out her Earth-2 counterpart Linda Park/Dr. Light and brought her to Earth-1 and forced her to seek out and kill The Flash, even though Earth-2 Linda was just a small-time thief and had never taken a life before. Zoom believed that Flash would be unable and/or unwilling to use lethal force against her due to his previous attachment to her Earth-1 counterpart. His plan was however thwarted once more by Flash and his team with guidance from Harry and resulted in Linda's capture and imprisonment in the Pipeline. Zoom later visited Jesse and told her that her father had abandoned her but she stood her ground, saying that he would find her and kill Zoom. However Zoom scoffed at the idea and reminded her that the fates of her and her father were still in debate and sped off.

Zoom was unexpectedly contacted by Dr. Light claiming that she had killed Barry and threw in his emblem as proof. Zoom however saw realised that Dr. Light was actually Earth-1 Linda Park posing as Earth-2 Linda and did not take the bait for the trap she and Barry had planted, choosing instead to bide his time. Once he was sure The Flash and his team had let their guards down, Zoom did emerge through the breach and kidnapped Linda, bringing her to the top of the S.T.A.R. Labs building. There he was confronted by Flash, who begged him not to hurt Linda. Zoom scoffed at Flash's request and dropped Linda off the edge of the roof but Flash raced to the bottom and used a wind-funnel to save Linda before turning to face down Zoom head-on. Flash then turned and sped around Star Labs, building up his speed electricity before throwing a lightning bolt at Zoom who, to Flash's horror, jumped into the air, grabbed Flash's lightning bolt and hurled it right back at him with even greater force, scoring a direct hit. In desperation, Flash tried to outsmart Zoom by forcing him into a freefall from high up in the air but Zoom reversed the move and landed on top of Flash. Zoom then proceeded to savagely and mercilessly pulverize Flash at high speed before ending with a devastating blow to Flash's spine, dislocating a portion of his spinal column and paralyzing him temporarily. Harry attempted to sneak up on Zoom and shoot him with a speed dampening dart but Zoom caught the missile and instead jammed it, along with Flash's, into Flash's chest while declaring to Harry that he was next. As a result, Flash was rendered unconcious.

Victorious, Zoom dragged Flash's limp and battered body across Central City at superspeed to the newspaper and the police to showcase his triumph, declaring that the days of Flash were over. Finally, Zoom then returned to Star Labs with Barry in his hand to confront Wells and the team. Derisively mocking Harry for believing that Barry stood a chance of defeating him, Zoom bade farewell to Barry as he stabbed him in the abdomen with one of his pointed claws. Drunk with victory and in the midst of gloating, Zoom's attention was distracted just long enough for Cisco to shoot Zoom in the neck with a dart filled with the speed dampening serum. Bellowing in agony, Zoom temporarily collapsed on the floor before recovering and raced away.

After recovering from the speed dampening serum Zoom returned to S.T.A.R. Labs to confront Harry and offered him a mysterious deal in exchange for his daughter but Harry didn't believe him and ran off, forcing Zoom to chase him through S.T.A.R. Labs and holding his throat but instead of killing him Zoom simply said Marry Christmas and sped off. Zoom later returned through for Harry's answer but he begged for more time and Zoom, reluctantly gave him one more day before departing. Later Harry secretly met up with Zoom and confronted him about his motives and correctly guessed Zoom's true plan, the force Barry to become faster so Zoom could eventually drain him of his speed and become faster himself. Zoom admitted his intentions and told that if Harry helped him Jesse would be released but Harry demanded to see her before making his choice, and Zoom brought Jesse to Earth-1. After a brief reunion between them Zoom returned Jesse to Earth-2 and Harry reluctantly agreed to help Zoom.

Zoom had an encounter with Flash that caused him to miss the funeral of a person significant to Oliver Queen.

Personality
Zoom is obsessed with speed to the point of being unstable, as noted by his creator, he has set a mission of eradicating anything else with super speed and at the same time, continually increase his own speed by stealing other's, namely Barry Allen at the moment. According to Earth-2 Harrison Wells, those under the enthrallment of Zoom are bound to do things out of character, such as turning a thief into a killer. Zoom instills a tremendous amount of terror in almost everyone he encounters, including Jay Garrick himself who describes Zoom as being a "demon with a face of death". Jay even admits he didn't confront Zoom sometimes when he should have out of fear.

Zoom has been shown to be extremely egotistical, as after his victory against The Flash in the episode, "Enter Zoom," he proceeded to parade Flash's body to Central City News, where he displayed it to the media like a hunting trophy, proclaiming himself to be "The fastest man alive." He then hauled the unconscious Flash to the Central City Police Department, gloating to the assembled officers, and reveling in their helplessness as he caught dozens of bullets with his speed. Finally, he carried Barry's body back to STAR Labs, showcasing him to Caitlin, Cisco and Harry (Harrison Wells Earth-2) and also mocking Harry for believing that The Flash was going to defeat him. Zoom's arrogance has however proven to be his one point of vulnerability when, in the midst of gloating about his victory to the team, he let his guard down long enough that he was shot by a speed-dampening dart.

Zoom is also horribly sadistic, enjoying the fear and terror in his helpless prey with obvious and somewhat animalistic satisfaction. Zoom toyed with Harry by not catching him instantly and instead chased him like prey in S.T.A.R. Labs.

He has also clearly been shown to be exceptionally psychotic, as he shows absolutely no remorse or regret in his use of other people, metahumans or otherwise, treating them as disposable pawns to further his goals. His manic personality is a reflection of his obsession with speed, and possibly an effect of his tremendous powers on his cognitive faculties.

Despite his psychotic nature, astronomical speed and obsessiveness, Zoom is not without patience and forethought; his plans are intricate and carefully mapped out in the long term as evidenced by his plan to wait and 'fatten up' Barry with speed before stealing it all from him in the same manner someone would fatten up a pig or cow before slaughtering it. Zoom also makes sure to set up secure contingency plans to ensure his primary plan succeeds; kidnapping Jessie Wells and forcing Harrison Wells to help him steal Barry Allen's speed in exchange for Jessie's life.

Powers

 * Superhuman speed: Zoom can move unimaginably fast and might be the fastest speedster in all of existence according to Jay Garrick, who claims to be capable of moving at near-light speed. According to Harry, Zoom is at least three or four times as fast as Barry currently is, and even moving at above Mach 2 isn't fast enough to stop him. Harry said it could be a mixture of Zoom's attitude, form and diet that makes him so fast. While running, the speed-force noise that he emits has a very pronounced thunderous yet strangely sharp and high-pitched quality. Unlike previously seen speedsters like Barry Allen, Jay Garrick or Eobard Thawne, the Speed-Force lightning that radiates off Zoom is sapphire blue as opposed to yellow (Barry and Jay) or red (Eobard). Zoom is so fast that even S.T.A.R. Labs' computers can't track his movements.
 * Superhuman reflexes: Because of Zoom's immense speed, his reaction time is augmented, allowing him to react to danger and events far faster than a normal human. He easily saw and countered a bolt of lightning hurled at him by Barry and likewise caught every single bullet launched at him by the entire police force with ease. He also easily dodged a blast from Harry's Mercury Lab weapon.
 * Superhuman durability: Zoom has the ability to have large amounts of damage inflicted on him, and be hurt at a rate lower than regular humans, sometimes suffering no injuries. During his fight with Barry, he fell to the ground from hundreds of meters in the air with no noticeable injuries, and quickly resumed viciously pummeling Barry. Although this may have been because he made Barry take the brunt of the fall.
 * Bodily vibration: Zoom has the ability to vibrate some or all of his cells and overall parts of his body on command for various effects. His bodily control can vibrate his entire body to mask his form from others clearly perceiving it and distort his vocal cords to disguise his voice. It's unknown as of yet what he really sounds like without using his powers to change his voice. His vibrations are more powerful than other speedsters, causing the electricity on his body to constantly show when he is disguising himself. It appears every time he uses his speed, he proceeds to vibrate his whole body.
 * Electrokinesis: As a speedster, Zoom can produce powerful electricity from his body, that always emanates off of him, whether he is moving at super speed or not. This is probably because zoom cells are moving so quickly that they generate electricity that emits from his body. He could also manipulate this electricity by touching it, as when Barry tried hurling lightning at Zoom, he managed to grab and hold the lightning as if it were a tangible object and hurl it back at him.
 * Interdimensional travel: Zoom is able to travel between Earth-1 and Earth-2 at will. He does so by using the "breaches" between worlds; his stupendous speed allowing him to temporarily stabilize the interdimensional "corridors" that link any one breach on Earth-2 with a corresponding breach on Earth-1, letting him and those he brings along pass through them.
 * Speed steal: Zoom can absorb the speed of other speedsters, further amplifying his own speed. He appears to do this by stabbing another speedster with his claws and draining the power from their body, as shown when he sapped Jay of his speed. The more speed he absorbs, the more powerful he gets, as shown by his goal of making Barry reach his full potential in speed and power so that he can take it all in the end.
 * Extreme force generation: Zoom is capable of inflicting massive amounts of physical damage on his opponents by packing speed into his blows. He was able to reduce Barry Allen/The Flash to a bloody mess in seconds with his deadly strikes, and even break his spine, causing paralysis. Even with Barry's rapid healing, the damage inflicted on him was noticeably prolonged.
 * Enhanced strength: Presumably due to his great amount of Speed Force energy, Zoom showed the ability to effortlessly exert great strength and force, enough to lift fully grown humans over his head with only one arm, without any strain or effort. Combined with his efficient fighting skills, Zoom is able to deal severe bodily harm with only a few blows.
 * Rapid cellular regeneration: Zoom's powers also afford him a heightened healing capacities. This is caused by his body's molecules moving at accelerated rates, causing the chemical reactions responsible for metabolism to mend and even restore any damages much quicker and efficiently than regular humans. Despite being shot by Cisco Ramon with a serum to dampen his speed, Zoom almost instantly recovered and ran off before the serum could take full effect, showing no signs of having been slowed down by the serum.
 * Accelerated Perception: Zoom is easily capable of keeping up with and clearly perceiving the movements of other speedsters while they are at superspeed themselves even when he himself is not. He was able to carefully and methodically track Barry Allen's exact movements during Barry's efforts to build up electricity for his Speed-Force lightning attack outside Star Labs

Abilities

 * Master tactician/Manipulator: According to Jay Garrick, Zoom is extremely intelligent. He outsmarted Jay, who possesses an equally sharp mind, multiple times for over 2 years and the latter claims that he always seems to be one step ahead. Zoom is also able to manipulate powerful meta-humans, either through simple bargaining or fear-extortion, such as Atom Smasher or Sand Demon to do his bidding, under the promise of returning them to their world afterwards, even adjusting the strategy based on knowledge on Barry's personal life he somehow attained. Zoom managed to evade the trap that the Flash and Harrison Wells from Earth-2 had set to capture Zoom. Zoom was able to easily out maneuver and out-fight Barry in every way, leaving Barry near death, a testament to his strategic fighting and planning.
 * Intimidation: Due to his incredible power and demon-like appearance, Zoom commands an extremely intimidating presence, able to instill terror in the most powerful of metahumans, even in Atom-Smasher who himself was a big man and Jay Garrick. Nearly all of the metahumans from Earth-2 fearfully speak of Zoom as a monster or demon, and consider him unbeatable, like when Atom Smasher considered Central City from Earth-1 and Barry Allen "unworthy" of him.
 * Skilled hand-to-hand combatant: Complementing his ferocious appearance and personality, Zoom's unpredictable yet efficient style uses his tremendous speed and powers. His style is more precise than Barry Allen's yet not quite as tactical as Eobard Thawne's. Instead, Zoom uses powerful punches to accompanied by his claws for savage slashing movements, overall causing great blunt-force trauma. He also uses his great reflexes to redirect attacks from his opponent. His punches themselves probably break the sound barrier as indicated by the sonic boom like sounds produced when he was punching Barry. Although this may have just been the resulting sound of his fist hitting Barry at such high speed.
 * Acrobatics: Zoom showed the capability to flip in midair when throwing the Flash's lighting back at him, as well as fight confidently while free falling.

Weaknesses

 * Speed dampening serum: When Zoom was about to kill Barry, Cisco was able to shoot him with a dart containing a speed dampening serum, which was shown to work temporarily. However, his healing capacities slowed the serum down to allow Zoom to run away before the serum took full effect in order to avoid being captured.

Equipment

 * Zoom suit: He wears a protective suit as his supervillain alter-ego, Zoom, to hide his true identity from his victims. It is unknown what materials it's made out of. Zoom's suit is unique in that unlike Barry who wears a mask that just covers half his face, Zoom has his whole face covered with only slits for a mouth that give him a somewhat demonic appearance, and gloves that end in pointed claws that he uses in combat. The suit itself is pitch black and boasts an inverted lightning-bolt shaped crest and lightning-bolt shaped earpieces.

Trivia

 * In the DC comics, Hunter Zolomon aka Zoom, is the archenemy of Kid Flash Wally West and he is also known as the third Reverse-Flash.
 * He also has qualities of Daniel West, another incarnation of the Reverse Flash, who stole speed from other speedsters, and also possesses claws.
 * His blue lightning and speed-draining abilities suggest at an influence from the villain Cobalt Blue, Barry's long-lost twin brother who acquired a gem that could absorb Barry's speed (Its only "limit" being that it could only take speed when Barry was actually using his powers).
 * Zoom's physical appearance as well as his suit in the show is more resemblent of that of the Black Flash in the comics, who acts as a grim reaper to speedsters, than the Zoom of the comics who, as stated above, is an alias of the third Reverse-Flash and who also boasts a yellow suit similar to that of Eobard Thawne.
 * Zoom's eyes have gone through some changes. In a previous version seen in the trailers and in the pilot when Cisco saw him talking to Atom Smasher, Zoom's eyes glowed blue. However, the current version has his eyes pure black with tiny white irises. This is most likely to give him a more "demonic" appearance and also having the blue eyes would have been somewhat repetitive, since Reverse Flash had this quality last season.