Victor Zsasz

== Biography ==
=== Beginnings ===
Victor Zsasz was born on June 1st, 1962 to a wealthy family, the Zsaszes. They were a prominent family in the Casino business, and often worked under the Falcone family. By the time Victor was 25, he had opened his own very successful casino. However, shortly after the grand opening, his parents were killed in a boating accident.
Vic fell to the very vice he catered and soon owed gambling debts all over Gotham City. Vic was the eldest of the family, so he had full control of the family assets. In order to gain favor in the city, he sold the assets to Oswald Cobblepot and Fish Mooney.
He was shunned by his siblings and outcast by Gotham’s high society. Vic fell into a deep depression and saw that his life was empty. He planned to kill himself and was going to jump from Gotham Bridge when a homeless man tried to rob him, Zsasz turned the knife on him and killed him, then took the knife to himself and carved a tally mark into his arm.
=== The Tally Man ===
As he did this, Fish Mooney’s car pulled near him. She picked him up and took him back to the Iceberg Lounge. She and Cobblepot nursed his wounds and then decided he would make a fantastic enforcer, seeing his fragile mental state as an asset to be manipulated. They turned him loose against their enemies, and Victor proved an effective killer - except he preferred to use a small blade instead of a gun. And after every successful kill, Zsasz would turn the knife on himself and carve a tally mark into his body.
Zsasz became one of the most effective killers in Gotham. By the time the Batman showed up, he was well known by the moniker of “the Tally Man” throughout Gotham’s streets. The constant cycle of violence and self-harm was taking its toll on his brain, as his psyche slowly began to crumble. During his first encounter with Batman, Zsasz had been tasked with kidnapping and killing Harvey Dent’s daughter, Duela. Batman’s subversion of the attack put Vic in such a blind rage that he didn’t notice Harvey behind him with a double barrel.
Harvey’s gunshot took him out of commission for a few months and landed him in Arkham Asylum with a life sentence. Professor Hugo Strange took an interest in Zsasz - and he wasn’t the only one. He began to carry out hit contracts in prison, often disposing of prisoners in the shower. This was eventually discovered by the guards when they caught him using a homemade shank to carve into his arm.
Zsasz was placed in solitary for a year. When he emerged, he was not the same man, just a husk of what he once was, and now he was filled with rage for Batman. He managed to set up communication with Penguin, who was rapidly moving up the ranks of the Gotham Underworld, and he arranged for low-level underworld contractor Jenna Duffy to do some remodeling on Arkham Asylum and snuck in a secret passage out for Vic’s cell.
Vic would disappear into the Gotham countryside at night, attacking hitch-hikers and burying them at Slaughter Swamp before returning to his cell. He began to have nightmares of what he called “zombies”. His psychiatrist suspected them to be figures of his subconscious guilt, unaware that Zsasz would often see these figures at the swamp.
Zsasz’s madness continued with no hope of repair. He was eventually transferred out of Arkham Asylum and to Belle Reve Penitentiary to undergo intensive psychiatric care with Doctor Edgar Cizko, who soon insisted he had cured the Tally Man by turning him near catatonic. However, when he was jumped in the prison yard, Zsasz brutally murdered all of his opponents and began gashing open his neck. He was quickly transferred back to the intensive care ward at Arkham.
He remained in Arkham for years, now that his secret passageway had been found out. He stayed there until the League of Assassins led their attack on Gotham City, and he was unleashed back into the world. Zsasz managed to evade capture, silently growing the tallies on his arms, until he reunited with Oswald Cobblepot, who offered him a top spot as lead of his enforcers.
Zsasz accepted, and has now found his way into favor with most of the Gotham Underworld. He is seen as clean and efficient, although nobody knows what goes on at night behind closed doors, or about his secret deal with Cobblepot to keep him supplied with cannon-fodder prostitutes.
== Trivia ==
* Arkham psychiatry notes suspect that Zsasz is a necrophiliac.
* His brother may be Vic Sage aka the Question, but Vic will deny the rumor.
== Notes ==
* Zsasz is a composite character with Tally Man.