This week’s episode of The Flash saw Barry and Ralph trying to put their hands of a weapon that would allow them to stop Cicada once and for all (by doing of the Cure exactly the one use Caitlin forbade…), but this mission leads them to dark paths. In Goldfaced, the two heroes go undercover in the organization of the greatest tech dealer in Central City, Goldface, portrayed by Damion Poitier. Goldface is a crime boss, a metahuman with a body literally made of gold, and the ex boyfriend of Amunet Black, all traits that find some correspondence to the comics counterpart, albeit slightly changed. Let’s take a look.
Keith Kenyon was born somewhere around Coast City, California, the son of a renowned labor union leader. Following the wishes of his blue-collar father, he enrolled in California University and studied political sciences, but he wasn’t exactly happy with the future prepared for him. An opportunity to change his life came when he retrieved by chance a sunken chest of gold in the bay: smelling wealth coming, Keith took it, without considering that the gold had been exposed to a number of toxic wastes over the years under water. The unique combination of chemicals had given the gold mutagenic properties, and Keith found himself covered in a gold-like aura (which he later called Auric Energy) that gave him a number of superhuman abilities. Kenyon saw in this accident the perfect opportunity to turn away from his father’s expectations, becoming rich in a faster and easier way, and he abandoned university, preferring to become a serial robber. Known as Goldface, Keith Kenyon crafted an armor entirely made of gold, that acted as a second protection that, summed to his golden skin, made him virtually invulnerable, and even built a weapon that he called the Gold Gun, a placebo tool that merely channeled his own powers. Becoming a themed villain, he only targeted gold, and took plenty of it. He slowly built his own gang of criminals, and along with them he looted several treasures all around the sea, even building his own hideout in Hawaii. It was here that his men had to poison a pilot, Hal Jordan, who had found the gold they were looking for before them. The goons apparently took care of the pilot, but shortly after Kenyon’s base was visited by the hero Green Lantern… who found himself outmatched, as his Power Ring was ineffective on Goldface’s armor, yellow as it was. During their fight, though, Green Lantern sprayed royal water on his foe, making Goldface lose his golden cover and invulnerability long enough to be knocked out with a single punch: jail was the next stop.
Goldface didn’t stay in prison for long, and he started a personal war against Green Lantern, challenging him over and over again, but ending up defeated all the times. Eventually, losing even after joining forces with other criminals like Black Hand, Goldface decided to ignore his nemesis and to focus on building a criminal empire, laying low for a while. His efforts paid off, and he managed to extend his control over several cities, having crime syndicates and even Mafia families accept his leadership… only one city resisted to him: Central City. Feeling his presence to be needed, he moved there in person, and immediately made an example of one of the bosses resisting him, Mugsy Malone. There was one other problem though: as long as The Flash protected the city, Goldface couldn’t properly rule it. To take care of the problem, he kidnapped former villain Mick Rory to extort from him The Flash’s secret identity, but Rory escaped. Goldface then enhanced his armor and publicly beat the hero, later starting to execute a cop anytime The Flash showed his face again. Eventually, after several other clashes, Goldface was defeated by the combined efforts of The Flash and the deadly Eradicator, coming back to prison. Surprisingly, it was Green Lantern Guy Gardner to break him out of jail this time, as he recruited the villain in an army he aimed to direct against Qward. On his way to the battlefield, Goldface proved his might by murdering another corps veteran, Tomar-Re, but he eventually found himself entangled in a cosmic battle beyond his comprehension, a war between the embodiment of two rival universes. Even when the universal threat was over, Goldface stayed in space for a while, involved in battles with the Green Lantern Corps, but when he came back to Earth he just wanted to change life. He served his time, then moved to Keystone City, where he married a woman, Amunet Black, and became the Commissioner of Union 242, just what his father had wanted for him in the first place. Maybe it wasn’t too late to change life: only time would have told.
Keith Kenyon is a smart and careful man, moved mainly by greed and ambition, but characterized by an undeniable intelligence. As Goldface, his skin is made of organic gold, making him extremely durable (durability increased by his golden armor) and superhumanly strong; for a time, he also manifested other powers, such as turning inanimate objects and even living beings into solid gold (a power now compensated by his Gold Gun), manipulating anything made of gold, and even negating certain forms of energy. Terribly powerful and dangerously cunning, Goldface eventually grew tired of a risky and meaningless life, and tried to turn on a new leaf… but hold habits die hard, and his fate is not as solid as the gold he’s made of.