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| Art by William H.D. Koerner Character originally created by William H.D. Koerner |
Inhabitant of the Goldaverse, Zeb Zuse was a circus bear, born to a dancing bear mother who promptly rejected the meek cub, and before the small thing was disposed of by the circus he belonged to, them seeing the little thing as to much a burden to keep, he was saved by a young boy from a different circus, who bought the cub (or more so convinced his uncle to buy the cub for him) and started raising it as if it was his own son.
This boy being Hugo Hercules Hill, future founding member of The Heroics, Hugo would name the cub Zebediah, and the two quickly became like father and son, as the skinny cub latched onto Hugo as a parent.
Another surprisingly quick thing to happen was the baby bear growing, as in a manner of a week Zebediah was the size of a full grown bear, and by a month he was big enough to put an elephant to shame, and this growth was good news for Hugo but more so Hugo's uncle, Urso "Url" Hill who ran the Hill Family Circus, and had a decent bit of money riding on this bear being a good attraction, and as an addition to Hugo's act, it could work, the act already having one animal.
That of course being the Tiger of his brother the Handyman, so adding a bear to it would make the whole "3 super strongmen" act even more interesting.
And eventually despite his fragile beginnings, Zebediah proved himself to be a mighty performer with his partners and surrogate family, and even went on to prove himself to be a hero on one chaos filled night.
The scene was a rainy night in the big top, the crowd panicking as an elephant rampaged, the elephant panicking itself, so Zebediah knowing both sides weren't in the wrong he found a solution, a solution to the benefit of everyone and detriment to none, Zebediah, took a deep breath, and roared as loud as he could.
Zebadiah did this and startled the elephant still, stopping it's rampage while also causing the panicking crowd to go quiet and scared stiff, allowing the circus workers to get a handle on the situation, but the point is Zebediah saved the day thanks to a roar so loud that it cracked like thunder, and did so with no casualties or loss of life.
And so Hugo, being so proud of his boy, gave Zebediah a nickname, Zeb Zeus, And the two alongside Hugo's brother's, Handyman, his Tiger and Samson the strongman, all continued performing at the circus, doing amazing feats of strength.
For example, for one of their duo acts Hugo, the 6 ft 11 giant would get into a bit of a wrestle with the even larger Zeb in public exhibitions, to astonish and amaze quite consistently, with the two's absolute immense physical strength on full display.
However eventually came the day where Hugo would finally leave the circus, in order to pursue a greater adventure and answer a calling He had been feeling for a while, while Zeb ended up staying at the circus, continuing to be a part of the strong man act with handyman, his tiger and Samson.
Now this wasn't because Hugo didn't want to take Zeb with him, but Hugo was afraid that in any other context Zeb would be hunted, attacked or killed do to his strange paranormal nature, and Hugo couldn't be sure he was with the bear 24/7 to help protect Zeb from threats the bear couldn't deal with alone, with Hugo ultimately feeling that if he was going to keep the giant bear safe, he'd need a big property and to train the bear.
So Hugo made a promise to his first son that one day he'd be back and bring Zeb home to live with him, on a big spread all their own.
And Hugo of course kept this promise, although not after some hardship, with this fulfillment happening shortly after the Martian invasion, The disbanding of the heroics, and Hugo adopting his biological nephews due to his brother dying, although from this last tragedy Hugo ended up inheriting his bio brother's massive wealth, and using a small part of this inheritance Hugo was able to afford to buy a large piece of property for his quickly growing family.
This piece of property in particular being mostly a untouched forested area, funnily enough on this property one of the games that Hugo would play with Zeb would be one the two called Hunter, Hugo would dress up as a hunter, and Zeb would go out in the forest and hide, with the two simultaneously tracking each other, with the end goal being to surprise attack the other and then win a wrastling match.
Although Hugo would win most of these encounters, leaving Zeb a bit sour but also determined, always ending up learning from his mistakes, This all according to Hugo's plan, as Hugo would use this game to help train his bear boy how to properly fight for himself and deal with potential poachers, and other such threats that could end up on their property.
Now the property was huge and because of that, Zeb wasn't the only family Hugo had living there, as Zeb quickly made for a fascinating addition to Hugo's now strange, growing and complex immediate family, that family at the beginning being Zeb alongside his new brothers, The man known in the papers as the Gladiator, Hugo Danner, as well as Bart and Dave Hill.
All of which Zeb treated as little brothers and was fiercely protective of, although he and Danner would end up having a bit more to their relationship as they manage to foster a sibling rivalry between each other, often competing in tests of strength and even working with each other on occasion, most notably teaming up to save and protect their younger siblings and family members from a group of cyborg goons, sent by the mad scientist Dr Maxwell Flash.
Zeb would end up living for an abnormally long time for a bear, however he was the first child of Hugo to die, and luckily it was of natural causes, this happening sometime before the coming of the calamity The Martians predicted, however Zeb's spirit still lingered and would lend his thunderous power to those in the family who needed it, including Hugo who had a unbreakable connection to his bear boy.
The Ghostly bear and first of Hugo's sons would end up staying loyal to Hugo, till the elder strongman's very end, at least on the physical coil, as The Bear allowed his father to access the totality of the phantom Ursa's ghostly and higher dimensional power, helping Hugo overcome a great and hungry evil threatening the world during this calamity.
Although this action would ultimately add to a great cost.
However, I think that story is best left to be told as a proper tale in and of itself rather than described in a bio such as this.
Some of his notable adventures include
- Hugo Hercules: The Original Comics
- The 3 Super Strongmen
- Hugo Hercules: The Walk About Years
- The Heroics: The Klan that Hates
- The Heroics: The Martian Calamity
- The Gladiator: The Monster's of Maxwell Flash
- The Gladiator: Now it's Personal
- Zeb Zuse: The Monsters of Dr Moreau
- The Gladiator/Her Highness: Entwined Across Time and Space
- Aciesers: The Golden Finale, The Home Front
- Aciesers: The Silver Generation
- The Masteroid Calamity
- Legionary Ursa: Son of the Gladiator
(Note, Zeb is a character of my creation with loose basis in the original Hugo Hercules comics)
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