Fictional character biography
Simon William Garth was born in Birmingham, Alabama and became a work-obsessed executive of Garth Manor Coffee, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Ambushed and kidnapped by his former gardener (whom he had fired), Garth is to be a voodoo cult's human sacrifice; however, the cult's priestess Layla recognizes Garth as her own everyday-life employer, with whom she is in love. Though her attempt to let him escape is thwarted, and though she is forced to mystically transform his corpse into a zombie with a clouded mind, under the control of whoever holds the matching Amulet of Damballah worn by Garth, Layla and her grandfather, Papa Doc Kabel, continue to try to help the uncomprehending Zombie reach his final rest.
Despite his zombie state, he retains some vestige of his soul: for instance, when under the control of the Amulet, he has been forced to hurt or even kill people he has come to care about (such as Philip Bliss and Layla). The moment he is free from control, his vengeance is terrible. Because of these remnants of soul, Layla and Papa Doc perform a ritual that allows Garth 24 hours in his restored human form in order that he might attend the wedding of his daughter Donna and set in order what was left of his previous life.[6]
He was resurrected by the voodoo witch Calypso who discovered that, through acts of selflessness, this particular zombie possessed free will, i.e. the ability to act of his own accord and not always at the request of whoever was wearing the Amulet of Damballah — an unusual feature for a member of the walking dead. In this case, he ignored her orders and pushed Calypso aside in order to release the captive soul of his friend Papa Doc Kabel, whom Calypso had murdered as part of the process of reviving Garth.[7]
Marvel Zombies 4
Simon Garth had been a test subject of A.R.M.O.R. when the zombie plague killed everyone on the base. He retrieved the head of zombie Deadpool, and used the base's teleporters to escape to the bottom of the sea, where Deadpool's head infected all of the Men-Fish and their leader, the Piranha. Garth was compelled to travel to the island nation of Taino in the Caribbean Sea, where he told Black Talon about the zombie plague. Black Talon assumed control of Garth, and captured Deadpool's head.[8] When the zombie Deadpool's head bites one of the Black Talon's henchmen, he uses this opportunity to get Garth to help him escape.[9] At the end of the series, Jennifer Kale and the Black Talon confine the zombie virus inside Garth.[10]
The Zombie was later recruited by Phil Coulson to join his incarnation of the Howling Commandos in order to fight Dormammu's Mindless Plague.[11]
