WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for The Flash #81, by Joshua Williamson, Scott Kolins, Luis Guerrero and Steve Wands, on sale now.
Over the past year, Hunter Zolomon -- better known as the villainous speedster Zoom -- has made a strong case towards being the greatest enemy the Flash has ever faced, either for Wally West or Barry Allen. The former criminal profiler secretly pit Barry and Wally against each other during last year's "Flash War" storyline, using his newly acquired knowledge of the future and the mysterious hidden Forces of the DC Universe to gain access to them through the two Scarlet Speedsters' emotional feud.
Absorbing the Speed Force, Zoom proclaimed himself the one, true Flash and the new Fastest Man Alive, after seeking to obtain the other Forces, combining them all within himself to form the Forever Force and become one of the most powerful figures on Earth. Before Zoom can launch his own twisted version of high-speed "heroism" on the DCU, however, he is confronted by the Black Flash, the personification of Death for speedsters that recently revealed itself to be hunting all Force users as part of its macabre way to maintain the natural order of things.
With his vast array of new powers and abilities, Zoom more than holds his own against the Black Flash though Barry fears that the deathly speedster's destruction may result in the termination of the Speed Force for good.
Joining the fray, Barry drops his own truth bomb on Hunter that immediately stops the villainous speedster dead in his tracks: Eobard Thawne, the time-traveling Reverse-Flash and Zoom's occasional partner-in-crime is secretly responsible for Hunter Zolomon's tragic past and eventual descent into villainy.
Prior to becoming one of Wally's greatest foes, Hunter had been an FBI profiler tasked with understanding the psychology of the serial killers he pursued. Working with his mentor and father-in-law, Hunter had cornered a mass murderer that often masqueraded himself as a clown.
Believing him to be unarmed given his previous modus operandi, Hunter and his father-in-law confronted the killer only for their quarry to brandish a handgun, crippling Hunter and murdering his surrogate father figure before his eyes. The downward spiral would ultimately culminate in Hunter attempting to use the Cosmic Treadmill to change history only for it to explode and transform Wally's one-time friend into Zoom.
Barry reveals to a shocked Hunter that he had been right initially: The clown killer was unarmed, but the Reverse-Flash traveled back in time and given him a revolver in the moments before the FBI raid. Thawne had long used his time-traveling abilities to reshape the Flash's destiny to be a more tragic one by murdering Barry's mother Nora and framing his father Henry for the crime. The creation of Zoom was an attempt by Thawne to create more tragedy for Barry's longtime successor while giving the DCU another villain close to the Flash family to worry about.
Hunter is rocked to his core by the revelation that Reverse-Flash was responsible for the greatest tragedy in his life, denying it at first before deciding to make his own heroic redemption as the battle against the Black Flash continues. While Zoom appeared to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the Forces and stop Death itself, it is likely only a matter of time before he reappears. And, now knowing Eobard Thawne's secret role in his life, the two Reverse-Flashes are slated for an explosive reunion when they inevitably cross paths again.