| KING SOLOMON | BIOGRAPHY |
King Solomon
PERSONAL DATA
Aliases: Suleiman Bin David; Solomon Douid; Rachel "Zally" Zallman
Identity: Secret
Occupation: Formerly king of Israel; now wandering judge/police inspector
Status: Active
Place of Birth: Ancient Jerusalem, Israel
Citizenship: Israel
Marital Status: Married and widowed several times
Known Relatives: David (father, deceased), Bathsheba (mother, deceased), Reboboam (son, deceased), numerous unnamed wives
Base of Operation: Formerly ancient Jerusalem, Israel; later mobile; now Greenwich Village, New York
Gender: Other
Height: Unknown
Weight: Unknown
Eyes: Green
Hair: Brown (originally); white (with age)
OVERVIEW
King Solomon from the Bible empowers Captain Marvel, the modern-day champion of the ancient wizard Shazam. He has since been ressurected as a police inspector and, presumably, a female tattoo artist.
HISTORY
King Solomon took over the throne of Israel after the death of his father David, around 970–965 B.C., and made the nation greater than it had ever been. He established friendly relations with neighboring nations, developed the iron industry, promoted trade, and built the fabled Temple of Jerusalem. The wisdom of Solomon is legendary, and he is said to be the author of several books in the Bible.
Over the years, absolute power corrupted Solomon. He turned away from the worship of Yahweh/God and adopted the idolatry of his many wives, making sacrifices to gods such as Ishtar. The Bible says that this angered the God of Israel, and that God told Solomon that his legacy, his great kingdom, would be destroyed as punishment. Bound by a promise to David, God promised to postpone the destruction until after Solomon’s passing.
Towards the end of Solomon’s reign, around 925 B.C., the king was approached by the wizard Shazam. A champion for good for many years, Shazam felt the need to find a successor and traveled the world to ask extraordinary beings to bestow a portion of their power to Shazam’s future champion. Finding a kindred spirit in Shazam, Solomon agreed to bestow a portion of his great wisdom upon Shazam’s champion (known today as Captain Marvel) upon his own death.
Upon his death, deeming himself not worthy of Heaven because of his transgressions against God, Solomon was granted a new lease on life as he was resurrected or reincarnated. Solomon started to wander the world as a harsh judge, operating outside conventional jurisdiction. He has performed this task for thousands of years, in modern times taking on the alias of hard-boiled police inspector Solomon Douid. While investigating the murder of Elaine Belloc, and upon finding that her murderer, the demon Cestis, had taken possession of Elaine’s earthly father, he left Cestis trapped in a human shell as punishment. [Lucifer #34–35 (2003)]
Finishing off some business in Germany [Lucifer #62 (2005)], Solomon was taken by the angel Meleos to Heaven, to pass judgement upon Christopher Rudd, Hell’s latest ruler [Lucifer #69 (2006]. Rudd had defended the throne of God against Fenris the Wolf, but being already dead, he was in terrible eternal agony. Based on Rudd's sacrifice, Solomon deemed him innocent, and Rudd was allowed to disintegrate into nothingness. Solomon requested to be brought back to Earth, since he still considered himself unworthy of eternal rest.
Due to the events known as the "Infinite Crisis" (and most likely the fact that Elaine Belloc became Yahweh’s successor and reshaped all of creation) , the laws of magic changed for the entire universe. The superheroes known as the Marvel Family lost their mentor, the wizard Shazam, and their superpowers. Freddie Freeman (formerly Captain Marvel Jr.) was charged with the quest of seeking out Shazam’s original power sources, “the gods of magic”, and earning power from them through a series of trials. Guided by the necromancer Zareb Babak, Freddie sought out Solomon in his new form, female tattoo artist Rachel "Zally" Zallman from Greenwich Village. Zally tested Freddy’s convictions as she covered his back and his soul with a magical scripture which granted him the wisdom of Solomon (and thereby knowledge of magic). [The Trials of Shazam #3 (2006)]
Zally later met up with the new aspect of Achilles at a Christmas party for supernatural beings and saved a homeless man from becoming a human sacrifice at the hands of the Council of Merlin. Zally alluded to the fact that the gods who grant the Marvel Family their powers regularly meet for a holiday celebration. DCU Infinite Holiday Special #1/4 (2007)
Zareb Babak claims that the so-called “gods of magic” not necessarily are identical to the most familiar mythical beings and that their names denotes a title rather than a name. Rachel Zallman could be just another aspect of the Biblical Solomon or a separate being altogether.
POWERS AND WEAPONS
Solomon was renowned for his great wisdom and deductive ability, and was the greatest and fairest of judges. Upon his death, Solomon bestowed a portion of his wisdom to Shazam’s champion Captain Marvel. There are accounts of Solomon controlling or imprisoning demons, which would indicate that he had become proficient in magic through his studies.
Seraph, a modern-day Israeli superhero and member of the Global Guardians, utilizes a number of religious artifacts, among them the Ring of Solomon, which grants its wearer great wisdom and limited powers of teleportation powers. If this ring was ever wielded by Solomon remains unclear.
CHRONOLOGY
For a definitive list of appearances of King Solomon in chronological order click here