Zam the Black Mamba

**Description**

Zam is a Mobian Savannah black mamba. He has a rare skin condition that makes his scaly skin as inky black as his mouth, yellow eyes, gold bracelets on his wrists, and a thin golden cartouche with his name in Ancient glyphs around his neck. He wears a black hoodie, blue jeans, and black Shelto Adidas sneakers. He also carries a rucksack filled with explosives.

**History**

Zam, as the best friend of Aleut the Wolverine and Dart the Crested Porcupine, joined the South Side Aces as their arsonist and demo man to try to support them as they fought hard to support their families. Zam himself was orphaned a long time ago by a gang rumble instigated by Tyson Lee, so he didn't have much to lose. When he joined the Resistance under Lee's command, he fell in love with Brinca the Bobcat, who felt so guilty about the deception she was a part of that she told Zam everything about the corruption in Lee's operation. Zam was blamed for the apartment bombing that killed Dart's two cousins, and as accessories to the crime, Aleut and Dart received the same sentence as him. From then on, while Dart and Aleut were comfortable around Twitch Rufous and her friends, Zam never trusted anyone, preferring to live the black mamba's mostly solitary life. Max the Fox, however, helped him to come out of his shell and get to know people. He and Brinca soon met again and rekindled their love, and it was his fondness for Max and adoration for Brinca that drove Zam, even with a severely shattered spine, to save them both from falling off of a high ridge, succumbing to the agony shortly after and dying.

**Powers and Abilities**

Zam, like most black mambas, is deceptively strong, as he demonstrated after stopping a Jackal Squad half-track dead at full speed. His bite is highly venomous, and the venom eats through substances like acid, and Zam has used this skill to bite into robots, vehicles, and pretty much anything that gets in his way. Zam is also very fast, able to keep up with Mighty the Armadillo with ease, and he's invented his own versions of the Spin Attack and the Triple Spin that utilize his bulletproof scales as a nigh-unstoppable wrecking ball. He also has a hypnotic gaze, and he combines it with his naturally frightening mouth to scare the bejesus out of his opponents--even robots run when he does it.

**Personality**

As a young child, Zam was always shy, knowing that his eyes and mouth would scare people, but his parents and his friends Aleut and Dart helped him get over his shyness. Living in the neighborhood he did, however, taught him how to use his appearance to keep people from picking fights. As he got older, he lost his innocence in a traumatic experience with the Heartbreakers, an all-female gang that hid out near his house and had been noticing him for a while due to his looks. After that, he became introverted and even more shy, naturally distrusting everyone he met unless they proved themselves. Brinca the Bobcat, despite being pretty, had a good heart, and Zam couldn't help falling in love with her. After she confessed all, his shock, anger, and betrayal were replaced with grief and terror in prison, and when he got out, he became moody and dark, only shedding that side to become the hero he'd always been just before he died.