Origin
The Goon is the son of Rooney and an unknown woman. After this woman left Rooney due to his abusive behavior he left his son with his sister, Kizzie the Iron Maiden. Despite her initial hesitation and reluctance, Kizzie cared for the Goon & brought him to the carnival where she worked. When he became older he became a sparring partner for his aunt who practiced her wrestling holds on him, thus teaching the Goon to fight & fend for himself. Goon’s own natural abilities and drive netted him the position of cleaning up after the animals around the carnival & killing any zombies that wandered in. Eventually the carnival was visited by a mobster named Labrazio who took a liking to the Goon; however, Labrazio’s arrival gained the attention of local authorities who attempted to arrest Labrazio for his past crimes. In the following shootout Goon’s aunt was caught in crossfire & killed, angered by this and at Labrazio’s comments following her death, Goon grabbed a nearby rock and crushed Labrazio’s head, stealing his hat & his ‘Black Book’ before leaving the carnival to make a name for himself.
Creation
The Goon was created by Eric Powell as the titular character for ‘The Goon’ comic series.
Character Evolution
The Goon has stayed relatively the same throughout his history without much of a design change. This can be attributed to the fact that the creator, Eric Powell, has always been working with the character hands on. He did; however, change for a single issue in which Powell wrote as a parody of the superhero genre and the utilization of multiple costumes for marketing purposes.
Major Story Arcs
The Goon Volume One
In the first volume of ‘The Goon’, Goon is the target of local mobsters and various supernatural creatures. This is due to the fact that the unnamed Zombie Priest has put a bounty on his head for $50,000.00, a prize so great that even one of Goon’s friends, Merle, tries to bring claim it. Merle fails miserably and a local gang leader known as Joey the Ball successfully ambushes the Goon and his pal, Franky. Unfortunately for Joey, the Goon survives this ambush and escapes, despite having to fight millions of feral rodents and the Giant Zombie Chimp.
Goon’s title as “Labrazio’s Right Hand Man” gains the attention of a government group known as The G-Men, who decide to partner with the Zombie Priest in an attempt to capture Goon in order to learn the whereabouts of Labrazio. While they begin an investigation the Goon is busy fighting vampires, zombies, and a large fish-like creature known as Fishy Pete.
Goon is eventually ambushed (again) by the Zombie Priest; who recruited a deceased friend of Goon, Brick Head Johnny, and the G-Men. Goon’s able to fight off the ambush for awhile, but eventually succumbs to the overwhelming forces of his foes. The G-Men then attach Goon to a device known as the Bio-G and begin to question him about Labrazio. The Goon feeds them an altered origin story while managing to escape his restraints, eventually killing the G-Men and freeing himself from the clutches of the Zombie Priest.
The Goon Volume Two
Having recovered from his previous encounter with the Zombie Priest, the Goon is back to his regular schedule of protecting Lonely Street and collecting his debts. Unfortunately for Goon, this doesn’t last long as the Zombie Priest summons a Bog Lurk and feeds it the brain of G-Man Smith, resulting in the personality and memories of Smith being transferred into the Bog Lurk’s mind. Goon is tracked down & attacked by the Bog Lurk; but wins the brawl with aid from Franky.
Goon is later seen in his apartment; suffering from a nightmare. His screams waken Franky who then gets a call from a mutual friend named Milo who insists that the Goon and Franky should come pick up a truck filled with Mexican porn. This is discovered to be yet another ambushed set by the Zombie Priest, as the truck is actually filled with zombies who assault the Goon & Franky. While the two of them are holding their own rather well, they’re aided by a mysterious man known as the Buzzard who allies himself with Goon.
Come Christmas time the Goon is enlisted to find some missing children. With help from Franky & Merle he finds them as captives of Santa’s elves, Santa then aids Goon in freeing the children & returning them to their parents. In the Volume 2 finale the Goon must defeat a magical foe known as Drakston Entity who, with a special stone, can conjure masterful illusions and is defended (or enslaved, depending on perspective) by two ruthless harpies. Goon, engaging in combat with the man, easily breaks the stone thus killing Drakston & the harpies.
The Goon Color Special
In a short one-off story the Goon and Franky track down their old pal turned foe, Brick Head Johnny. The two capture him & inform him that they’re going to kill him; however, he attempts to barter with Goon by giving him information about a valuable treasure hidden in the Decaster House, Goon takes this information and kills Johnny anyways. Goon and Franky then head to the Decaster House where they face the spirits of the Decaster Family, surviving the encounter due to a magical necklace given to the Goon by Momma Norton in an earlier encounter. Goon then claims the treasure in the house & burns it to the ground.
Drawing On Your Nightmares
In a story contained within a different comic series, the Goon is attacked by the Mud Brothers after Spider lies to them, trying to convince them that he’s the one that owes a debt to a mobster named Salvatore. Goon easily bests the two in combat and learns what Spider did, calling his ex to the bar as punishment. Goon’s then convinces the Mud Brothers to work for him instead of Salvatore, adding more muscle to his circle of “friends”.
The Goon Volume Three
Resuming his battle against the Zombie Priest and his undead allies, the Goon is left to defend Lonely Street from Houstus Grave and his children, the Mongoloid Twins. His battle against the trio led him to the Hobo Jungle where both he and his foes were captured by hobos. While the Mongoloid twins were able to speak hobo in a conversation with the King Hobo to escape, Goon resorted to a good old round of fisticuffs. Goon’s victory against Houstus and his children resulted in the Zombie Priest becoming increasingly angry & planning for a future assault.
In the meantime Goon fought against an escaped convict known as Dr. Alloy and his robotic companion, Bruno. Goon survived the encounter and then befriended Alloy who would return in the future to aid Goon alongside the Mud Brothers, Merle, and Franky when they went to free the Buzzard who had been captured by the Zombie Priest.
After saving the Buzzard, Goon met another challenge, defending Lonely Street from a reptilian/alien that called itself Largato Hombre. Once again aided by the inventions of Dr. Alloy, Goon was able to subdue the creature which he then gave to Alloy for experimental purposes. In the absence of the Zombie Priest another group rose to infamy after summoning an ancient vampire into the world, however, the Goon defeated this creature as well, proving once again that Lonely Street was under his protection and that he wasn’t going to be beaten easily.
Goon was then featured in two anthology stories that covered the formation of the Fighting Fish-Canners and Goon’s rise to fame in Lonely Street, as well as a Christmas Special in which Goon portrayed the Ghost of Christmas Present. Goon quickly returned back to the main story in order to cure Dr. Alloy of a life threatening disease by being shrunken down to a molecular level and entering Alloy’s brain. Goon’s mission was mostly successful, though something happened while Goon was inside the head of Dr. Alloy which made Alloy want to destroy the Goon.
This resulted in a battle between the Goon & a plethora of Bruno robots which wound up destroying the city, the conflict ended with both Dr. Alloy and Goon being shipped off to Cade’s Island Maximum Security Prison. Goon was easily able to escape with the aid of Dr. Alloy and some admirers who went by the name of the Little Unholy Bastards.
After Goon’s escape he was contacted by the Buzzard who decided to help him defend Lonely Street in return for some more bullets, Goon agreed. Soon after Goon came into conflicts with a Gypsy woman named Taliba and her brother Demeter, members of a group that disliked Norton & his mother. Goon dealt with the duo and then went back to defending Lonely Street against various groups of small time mobsters and criminals, waiting for the moment that the Zombie Priest would resume his assault.
Goon wouldn’t have to wait for long as the Zombie Priest began attacking the Goon with a brand new army, bred from a special undead creature known as the Mother Corpse. Several lengthy battles against the undead army would lead to the destruction of Norton’s Pub, though Goon used his wealth and influence to rebuild a bigger and better pub for his pal, Norton.
With the increasing size of the Zombie Priest’s army & the frequency of their attacks the Goon found more allies, one of them being a friendly zombie known as Willie Nagel. With Goon increasing his crew, the Zombie Priest recruited a former foe, Drakon Entity, the two harpies that follow him, and Madame Elsa. The Goon was able to defeat these foes, but then had the fight of his life as Labrazio was recruited as a member of the undead army.
Goon’s past all then came to clash at once as his former love, Isabella, entered his life again. Goon would eventually fight Labrazio, as well as a man named Mr. Wicker, another foe from his past. With the help from his friends Goon was able to kill Labrazio once and for all, thus defeating the Zombie Priest once again. Unfortunately, during the battle several of Goon’s allies were killed, as well as his former love, Isabella.
After the defeat of the Zombie Priest the Goon resumed protecting Lonely Street against various supernatural oddities while trying to get his life back in order. This was short lived however, as the Zombie Priest would return to inform Goon that they needed to work together to defend Lonely Street from a new breed of foes, the other members of the Zombie Priest’s former group.
The Goon: Chinatown and the Mystery of Mister Wicker
In this flashback series the Goon is attacked by a new foe known as Mr. Wicker. Goon eventually uncovered that this was a former friend of his named Skinny, and wound up accidentally killing him when Skinny lunged at Goon but impaled himself on a large splinter of wood. Not long after the Goon would lose the love of his life, Isabella, due to a breakup, thus causing him to snap and begin a spree of “revenge” killings. This led to the near-death of the Goon and while he was able to recover, he was never the same.
The Goon: Occasion of Revenge
The warnings of the Zombie Priest come true as a new coven of magical foes enter Lonely Street, all wanting to kill the Goon & take it over. While the Goon begins waging a new war he also enters a new relationship with a mysterious woman known as Ramona. Goon and his crew do a good job of fending off the new invaders but after learning that Ramona was actually a harpy in disguise the Goon snaps, killing the harpy and entering a nearly catatonic state.
The Goon: Once Upon a Hard Time
The betrayal of Ramona led the Goon to enter a near emotionless rampage; during which he ripped one of the legs of off Spider & killed one of his new enemies, Spindle, with highly corrosive acid. Goon then killed the rest of his foes, Longfingers, The Arab and the Zombie Priest, thus saving Lonely Street once more. Deciding it was time to take a break, Goon then left Lonely Street and returned to the Carnival in which he had been raised.
Powers and Abilities
While the Goon has no real “powers” he has a near superhuman level of durability and a surprising level of strength, able to fend off entire hordes of zombies with relative ease. The Goon is also skilled in utilizing unconventional melee weapons as well.
Other Versions
The Goon & Hellboy
The Goon has also teamed up with Hellboy in a crossover issue and appeared with Dethklok of Metalocalypse in an alternate reality. In one of the early comics the Goon also utilized a talking chainsaw named “Mickey Da Saw” to sever Fishy Pete‘s two remaining limbs.
A Christmas Carol
The Goon Series Features holiday specials, one of which is the re-enactment of “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens featuring the characters of the Goon, and a story where Santa’s elves wander into town and start eating children whose parents request for the Goon to save them.
Other Media
There is a YouTube 3D animation short and a 2D motion comic.