Zachary Hale Comstock

"The Lord forgives everything, but I'm just a prophet&hellip; so I don't have to."

- Father Comstock

Zachary Hale Comstock is the leader of the Founders, the ultra-nationalist party that founded the floating city of Columbia. He is the main antagonist of Bioshock Infinite. Within Columbia, Comstock is known as a prophet, earning the nickname of "the Prophet" or "Father Comstock", since he has, or at least claims to have, the ability to predict the future of Columbia, attacks from his enemies, and the actions of Booker DeWitt.

Origins
The man that would become Zachary Hale Comstock was an alternate version of Booker DeWitt. After the Battle of the Wounded Knee, Booker was overcome with guilt for the atrocities he committed, and so, sought a way to absolve himself of his sins. Coming across Preacher Witting, Booker was offered a chance to be reborn as a different man and start anew, free of his past crimes. In one reality, he found himself unable to go through with the baptism. However, in an alternate reality he accepted it, taking on the name Zachary Hale Comstock. After the baptism, Comstock is visited by an archangel of God named Columbia&mdash;she tells him of a floating city that he was to create, which she claimed would usher the world into righteousness (note: it is uncertain whether or not this is true, or simply fiction created by Comstock to magnify his power over Columbia). Now seeing himself as a prophet, Comstock began to see the American way as "the New Eden", and the Founding Fathers as prophets to God's great plan. However, he also viewed the white man as the true free race, and saw the minority races with contempt, believing them as little more than animals. He viewed Abraham Lincoln as "the Great Apostate", who brought nothing but war and death among the country.

Founding Columbia


Before, or in 1893, Comstock met quantum physicist, Rosalind Lutece, and with her help and the cooperation of the United States government, he was able to make the floating city a reality, naming it Columbia and creating an all white leadership called "the Founders", with himself as the leader. Columbia became a symbol of American ideals, as the country was becoming a world power, and was dispatched to different parts of the world where it would be marveled by people throughout the world.

When the Boxer Rebellion in China occurred in 1901, Comstock discovered that the Chinese were holding American citizens as hostages. Upon this discovery, Comstock ordered Columbia to open fire on the Chinese populace, considering them an enemy to American ideals. This act revealed to the world that Columbia was, in fact, a giant warship. The United States government disavowed Columbia, and seeing this as a betrayal, Comstock led Columbia to secede from the United States, and the city disappeared into the skies. From then on, Comstock considered Columbia the true America, believing the old America to be a shell of what it once was, and condemning it with the rest of the world as "the Sodom below".

The Lamb of Columbia
Over time, Rosalind found, through experimentation of the quantum atom, that she was able to create a portal into an alternate universe, and met an alternate version of herself, Robert Lutece, whom she quickly befriended, and began calling him her "twin". She reported her findings to Comstock. Upon this discovery, Comstock gave Rosalind the task of finding a way to create a tear that would allow access to different realities. With the help of Robert, the two were able to create a machine to perform the task. Utilizing this machine, Comstock was able to see into the future, while the citizens of Columbia believed him to be a true prophet of God. This also allowed Columbia to become more technologically advanced, as Jeremiah Fink helped to mass-produce the technologies discovered through use of the machine.

However, Comstock soon discovered that using the contraption caused his body to deteriorate&mdash;he began to age rapidly, and became sterile. Desperate to carry his plans into the future, he decided to obtain a child from an alternate reality. Robert was able to find Booker&mdash;they were both from the same reality&mdash;and offered to wipe away his debts if he gave him his daughter, Anna DeWitt. Booker agreed, giving Anna to Robert, who brought her to Comstock.



Booker almost immediately regretted the decision, and tracked Robert down. He finds them in an alleyway preparing to pass through a tear back to Comstock's dimension. He tries to stop Comstock from going through, but he manages to escape. However, the tear closed a moment too soon, slicing a portion of Anna's right pinkie finger off.

Seeing the child as the key to making his dream of remaking the world a reality, he created Monument Island to house her, where she, after being experimented on, acquired her powers to create Tears&mdash;portals through dimensional space and time&mdash;but Comstock saw to the creation of the Siphon, which limited her powers. Comstock used these inter-dimensional abilities with the Siphon to create a guardian creature known as "the Songbird", which would not only keep her safe, but also prevent her from escaping. Renaming her Elizabeth, Comstock began to call her the "Lamb of Columbia", and the Founders soon worshiped her as a savior.

Unfortunately for Comstock, overuse of Rosalind & Robert's contraption not only caused him to get cancer, but also gave him knowledge that Elizabeth's real father would eventually find a way to take her from him. He warned the populace that a "False Shepherd" would appear, bearing the mark "AD" on his right hand&mdash;which was what Booker branded on his own right hand&mdash;and became determined to turn Elizabeth into a version of himself.

However, Lady Comstock was growing more and more frustrated and angry with keeping the truth about Elizabeth from the populace. Knowing that she was going to break, Comstock had her killed, and framed his servant Daisy Fitzroy for her murder. Daisy would later become the leader of the Vox Populi. Soon afterwards, Rosalind and Robert had seen, through tears, the future of Columbia and what Elizabeth would soon become, and they planned to send Elizabeth back to her original universe in order to prevent that future from happening. However, Comstock soon discovered what they were doing, and ordered Jeremiah Fink to sabotage their contraption, apparently killing the two as they were using it.

In actuality, the sabotage caused the Luteces to exist across all space and time, giving them the ability to appear wherever and whenever they wanted. Still determined to stop Comstock, they devised a plan to send Booker DeWitt into Comstock's universe in order for him to retrieve his long lost daughter. The process of crossing realities caused Booker to lose much of his memory about Comstock and Anna. The only part he remembered was Robert telling him "Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt", which ultimately makes him believe that he is retrieving Elizabeth from Columbia and bringing her to New York to pay off his gambling debts. And so, Booker ascended to Columbia to rescue Elizabeth.

BioShock Infinite
When Booker made his presence known in Columbia, Comstock sends his forces after Booker, determined to stop him from taking Elizabeth. He even uses Elizabeth's powers at one point to create a version of Lady Comstock that is both living and dead in order to stop them from proceeding. But, an older Elizabeth, feeling regret that she allowed herself to become Comstock's heir—the executor of his desire to "drown in flame the mountains of man"—brings Booker to her universe after the Songbird captures the young Elizabeth, and gives him a note that will show her younger self how to avoid her fate, and, later, Booker is able to free Elizabeth from Comstock.

Determined to put an end to the evil of Comstock, Booker and Elizabeth board his ship, The Hand of the Prophet, and confront him in his cabin. There, Comstock shows remorse, wondering why he did not tell the truth to Elizabeth, and, instead, sent his armies after her and Booker. He grabs Elizabeth and demands Booker to tell her the truth of how she lost her finger. In a fit of rage, Booker grabs Comstock by the throat and thrice smashes his head against a stone baptismal font and proceeds to drown him in it.

Destroying the siphon at Monument Island, Elizabeth is able to unlock the full extent of her powers. Using them, Booker remembers what he had done, and the two travel to the place of Booker's baptism after the Battle of Wounded Knee (which he refused to go through with in his own universe). Booker and Elizabeth discover that an alternate Booker's acceptance of the baptism resulted in him being "reborn" as Zachary Comstock, meaning that Booker and Comstock were one and the same&mdash;Elizabeth reveals that, in order to truly destroy Comstock, throughout all the realities he exists in, Booker would have to die before his alternate self could take the baptism.

With this revelation, Booker allows a number of Elizabeths from different universes to drown him. Because of this, Comstock, and all the events that took place in the game, are erased completely from existence.

Voxophones

 * Welcome Center
 * Undeserving
 * Everyman, All at Once


 * Comstock Center Rooftops
 * The Gift of the Emancipator
 * The Lie of the Emancipator


 * Monument Island
 * Another Ark for Another Time
 * A Reward Deferred


 * Battleship Bay
 * A Dog's Loyalty
 * The Golden Path to Heaven


 * Soldier's Field
 * I am His Mirror


 * Good Times Club
 * His Design for Cruelty


 * Downtown Emporia
 * The True Color of My Skin
 * A Broken Circle


 * Hand of the Prophet
 * The Mirror of Sin

Behind the Scenes

 * Although his appearance as a prophet shows that he is much older, with white hair and a full beard, in early gameplay footage, he appeared on political banners as middle-aged, with darker hair and clean shaven.
 * Comstock is apparently only 38-years old during the events of Bioshock Infinite. In a Voxophone located on the Hand of the Prophet airship, Rosalind Lutece suggests his advanced age is due to the cancer caused by the Luteces' machine.