Domenico diGrasso was the youngest son of a single mother in Naples Italy. His mother ran a bakery along with his three older sisters. Domenico was always a portly child who was doted upon by the women in his family. They pampered him and were always giving him treats.

When Domenico turned eighteen he entered the monastery in Naples where he became the librarian of the order. He served the monastery faithful for several years. However, as time went by, so to did Domenico’s torment. Domenico came to the realization that he was gay which was made worse as the years past. The temptations were becoming unbearable for him. To compensate for his lustful longings for the novices, he turned to food as a substitute, and when even that wasn’t enough Domenico turned to self-flagellation. For awhile these two substitutes were enough.

It was during a time of personal crisis when all the food and the self-flagellation did no good, that Domenico broke. Domenico had a tryst with one of the younger members of the monastery. However after the lust had died down, the guilt and remorse for the sin that he had committed proved to be worse than the desire for the flesh.

In a panic Domenico fled the monastery wandering the streets of Naples seeking a way to end his torment. This was also the time when his meta-powers started to emerge. Domenico had ran across a busy intersection without looking and a bus plowed right into him. The bus was destroyed and Domenico didn’t even feel the impact. In confusion Domenico picked up the bus throwing it a block away.

Domenico was found by the Order of Truth the next morning in his mother’s bakery. It was a blubbering Domenico with frosting all over his face that was dragged before Cardinal Sin in Vatican City three hours later. He took one look at the cardinal and confessed all his sins. It only took Domenico about an hours to eventually run out of steam.

“Forgive me Excellency,” begged Domenico who was on his knees before the cardinal.

“Do seek absolution?” asked Cardinal Sin, whose eyes seem to bore into Domenico’s head.

“Yes,” said Domenico, “I am a sinner. I am weak. I seek absolution.”

“Excellent,” said Cardinal Sin, “this shall be your penance.”....

Penance is a greatly troubled man. He’s a homosexual and also a monk. The lust in him is something he has denied so long, and the one time that his lust overcame him filled him with immense guilt. However, regardless of the guilt it doesn’t change the fact that Penance feels an attraction to men. He tries to deny his feelings towards men, never openly admitting it. This fills Penance with constant conflict. To assuage this conflict Penance is constantly eating.

Penance sees his own problems as the worlds problems. He feels for all the suffering in the world, and in a little way blames himself for the worlds woes. For Domenico he feels that he’s doing penance for the world. However for himself his penance will never end because of his denial and his guilt.

“All of us have our crosses to bear. Mine is just a little heavier than most.”

Besides being immensely fat, Penance is super-humanly strong. His flesh is so thick that most physical attacks aren’t even felt. In addition to his super-human strength, Penance wields a huge bronze cross that he often uses as a hammer. When not using the cross as a weapon, Penance usually wears it around his neck.

Penance is an extremely obese man. He’s completely bald and his skin is very pale, but not as light as an albino. His clothing consists of black robes tied with a thick white rope for a belt. Normally Penance keeps the hood of his robes up to cast his face in shadow, but he doesn't mind if the hood falls off during combat. Under his robes, Penance wears sandals and nothing else. There is a lot of scarring on his back from self-flagellation. Hanging from a cord around his neck is a bronze cross that weighs several tons.