Tempest (comics)
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DC Comics has featured two fictional superheroes with the name Tempest.
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[edit] Joshua Clay
The first Tempest was Joshua Clay, an African-American member of the second Doom Patrol. Along with Captain Comet, he was one of the few DC Comics heroes initially identified as a mutant.
Clay was murdered by a temporarily deranged Niles Caulder (The Chief) in Doom Patrol v2 #55. Whether his death was undone by the events of Infinite Crisis, like the deaths of other Doom Patrol members, is unknown.
[edit] Garth
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[edit] Fictional biography
The second Tempest was initially known as Aqualad, Aquaman's teenage partner, and like many other such 'kid sidekicks' popular in the Silver Age, his powers originally varied very little from his mentor. Aqualad was a founding member of the Teen Titans but was often perceived as the team's weakest link, because of his inability to survive out of water for more than an hour at a time.
Tempest's real name is Garth, and his origin is similar to that of his mentor, Aquaman: he is an amphibious humanoid who was left to die because of ancient Atlantean superstition and prophecy. Tempest was a prince of the Idyllists, a colony of Atlanteans that settled in the Hidden Valley 4,000 years ago. There, nestled in the capital city of Shayeris, the pacifist Idyllists became rabid builders and collectors, architects and artisans, and eschewed physical violence at all costs. The Idyllists were also practitioners of magic and kept an extensive library of mystical texts and scrolls.
Approximately four decades ago, King Thar and his wife Queen Berra, became the reigning monarchs of Shayeris. Thar had inherited the throne and access to ancient magical energies that his brother Zath, a powerful magician in his own right, believed to be rightfully his. Zath practiced dark sorcery and necromancy, the raising of the dead, and was eventually banished from the Hidden Valley. His body transformed into disgusting, half human form, Zath, renamed Slizzath, returned to Shayeris twenty years later with an army of undead. He planned to invaded the Hidden Valley and transform it into a necropolis he would rule.
King Thar knew of this and assembled an armory of robots and weapons to stop his demented brother. But the Idylist radicals killed him and banished his pregnant wife Berra back to Atlantis. Before Thar was killed, however, he was able to cast a magical spell that trapped Slizzath in an otherdimensional prison. Unfortunately, this spell was linked to a magical ritual which would give his offspring access to incredible mystical powers and accessing that ritual would give Slizzath the energy required to break free of his prison. So word was sent out that all babies born with purple eyes, the Idylist mark of power, should be banished and killed, lest they try to perform the access ritual and accidentally free Slizzath and his undead army. The Idylists also claimed that Thar had gone insane to hide their complex, fearful plan.
In Poseidonis, one of the domed cities of Atlantis, Queen Berra gave birth to her baby boy, Garth, who was born with purple eyes. The Atlanteans claimed Garth had been born genetically inferior and sentenced him to death on a seabed leagues away from Atlantis. But, with the secret help of Aquaman's father, the Atlantean sorcerer Atlan, the young Garth not only survived but thrived. It was Atlan who taught Garth language and survival rituals and kept the young boy from going feral as he scavenged his way through the undersea. Garth did develop an intense fear of schools fish, however, that haunted him into his teens.
Eventually, Garth meet and rescued Aquaman and became his sidekick, Aqualad. Together they shared many adventures, and Garth became one of the founding members of the Teen Titans, as well. He was also briefly schooled in Scotland, on dry land. As a teenager, Garth met and fell in love with an Atlantean princess, Aquagirl (Tula). They dated for years, aiding Aquaman as defenders of the undersea realms, until her tragic death at the hands of Chemo during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. Grief-stricken, Garth left Atlantis, rejoined the Teen Titans on a number of occasions, and saw his relationship with Aquaman become violent and strained.
As a result of his grief and repeated telepathic abuse by Mento, among other factors, Aqualad lost his ability to control marine life. While he later regained this power during the Millennium event, it came with the condition that his commands must now be phrased as requests to the creatures to perform desired actions, although the animals apparently need little persuasion.
Some time later, Garth encountered a band of shark-like merpeople who attacked the hero with a kind of "mystic water." Garth vanished and reappeared in another dimension, where Atlan awaited to train him. Atlan taught Garth to use powers the young Idyllist didn't know he had, included elemental powers that allowed him to heat and cool water and create whirlpools, as well as fire purple blasts of energy from his eyes. During these years of training, Garth scarred himself in an initiation ritual, leaving two pronounced marks over his right eye. Atlan told Garth that the final part of his training was to complete the ritual that would grant him full access to his ancentral magical power, and thus Garth had to return to Shayeris, in the Hidden Valley.
Garth returned to our dimension at nearly the same time he left, although he was years older. When Garth, alongside Atlan, returned to Shayeris, he found the city overtaken by undead creatures. Completely unaware of his own history or his uncle's powers of necromancy, Garth was ill-prepared for the sudden return of Aquagirl, risen from the grave. Together with Letifos, one of the shark warriors, Atlan, and Aquagirl, Garth descended into Shayeris. Just the sheer proximity to the ancient pool of ancenstral magic allowed Garth to tap into the power, and, charged with the purple energy, he recreated his costume out of the Idylist red and black flag and renamed himself Tempest. Tempest then found his father's sanctum, and performed the magical ritual which would give him his power. But the false Aquagirl, a magical conduit for Slizzath, attacked Tempest and channeled that power into Slizzath, releasing the monster from his other-dimensional prison. Using his stolen power, Slizzath captured Tempest and Atlan, raised an enormous undead army, and finally transformed the Hidden Valley into the necropolis he long dreamed of.
Tempest eventually broke free of his prison and found the remaining Idyllists, hiding in Thar's old armory. There, Tempest was reunited with his mother and the truth -- that the fearful Idyllists were so terrified of the release of Slizzath, they lied about Thar's sanity and saw to it that Garth was banished as an infant. Disgusted, Garth took control of the armory and a small number of Idyllist warriors and attacked Slizzath. Tempest destroyed the Aquagirl zombie that had seduced him and, using his full range of powers, sent his uncle back into the other-dimensional prison void, sealing the portal forever.
After a tearful goodbye to Aquagirl, Tempest returned to Atlantis where he became the city's official ambassador. His relationship with Aquaman became more tumultuous, and Garth later learned that Aquaman had another son, a biological one, from a dalliance with an Inuit woman. This son, Koryak, grew to resent Tempest and the two became bitter rivals for some time. More friction arose between the Tempest and Aquaman when Aquaman's lover, Dolphin, left him for Tempest, but the two have since resolved their differences. Tempest and Dolphin were soon married, with the young maid pregnant of a young son, named Cerdian by his godfather, Aquaman. At the same time, Tempest joined a new incarnation of his old team, the Titans, playing part-time adventurer as well as royal politician and new father.
The weight of new familial responsibilities initially strained the relationship between Dolphin and Tempest, and she demanded that he choose between his duties as a hero and his duties as a father and husband. Tempest complied, and quit the Titans. Another weight on his matrimonial life came when a new sorcerous elite took over the government of Atlantis after its return from the 'Obsidian Age'. As friends of the deposed king, both Tempest and his wife fell under suspicion and, as suspected traitors, were put into house arrest. Tempest himself always managed to sneak out, sometimes briefly adventuring with his former mentor and helping him, but always leaving his wife behind.
When finally Hagen fell from his chief role and Aquaman returned to Atlantis, Tempest returned to his home, and seemingly reconciled with his wife and son, but only briefly. While Tempest was trying to channel the magic of all the Atlantis Sorcerers (to undo a spell that turned Mera into an air-breather), the Spectre sensed the strong magic power Tempest now possessed and, following his crusade against magic and magicians, unleashed his strength on Atlantis. The inhabitants of the undersea city paid the toll, and Tempest, target of the Spectre's wrath, is now missing. When Aquaman searched for him, he was only able to find part of his uniform in the presumed place of his death.
[edit] One Year Later
One year later, Garth appears on the cover of Justice League of America #1, although his status is still unknown. Aquaman, Sword of Atlantis confirmed him as alive, as the ghost of Vulko, the old faithful advisor of Aquaman, claimed to have not sensed the passing by of him and his family, while he was able to feel every death in Atlantis.
In his weekly column "DC Nation", DC Executive Editor Dan Didio hinted on December 27, 2006 :
"This is their favorite time of year. A time when then share a laugh and a drink instead of worrying about things like Bart Allen's first meeting with the Rogues, Tempest's dramatic return to the DCU, and World War III. "
Moreover, the sollicitation for Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis #51 later revealed that Tempest will "[try] to help Arthur recover the Trident of Poseidon". In fact he was finally found by Cal Durham and the people of Sub Diego in issue #50, amnesiac and unable to process autonomously water into oxygen, with a post-hypnotic suggestion warning Arthur and Orin on the upcoming fight with their nemesis, Issitoq the Narwal.
[edit] Powers/Abilities
Tempest possesses superhuman strength, allowing him to lift about 8 tons on dry land. He can survive at depths of up to 3,400 feet below surface level. His body contains fluids that adjust to give him buoyancy at varying depths. His body also produces gases that push out against the ocean pressures as heavily as they push in, preventing him from being crushed at great depths. His body is also highly impervious to physical injury. His bloodstream is filled with an amino acid that keeps his body from freezing in the ocean depths, although his own temperature is naturally quite high, allowing his muscles the heat they need to swim at such high speeds. Tempest can swim at speeds of 97.76 knots (or 85 MPH). Tempest has excellent close range vision and he can see particularly well in low light. He is partially color blind, almost unable to distinguish between black, green, and blue. His sense of hearing is particularly acute, although, because the rate sound travels on dry land is different than beneath the water, his hearing is directly linked to his vision. He also has a powerful sense of smell. Tempest breathes by extracting oxygen from the water through tiny pores in his skin. Tempest can project powerful purple force blasts from his eyes, manipulation of water currents, create whirlpools, and can boil or freeze vast bodies of water. Finally, Tempest's mystic powers include sensing magical energies in the air, postcognition, telepathy, dimensional travel, limited telekinesis, demonic summoning, and astral projection. Tempest's magical powers are so great that he was able to magically teleport the entirety of Atlantis into the past during the Imperiex War; further, the villainous Darkseid used him as a conduit to help open a Boom Tube powerful enough to send Imperiex back to the beginning of time.
Note: Garth is the only founding Titan whose original codename hasn't been used by a new hero.
[edit] Aqualad in other media
Aqualad's first animated appearance was alongside Aquaman in Filmation's 1967 animated series The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, as well as in the Teen Titans shorts that were part of the series. The Aquaman cartoon series of 1968 was a repackaged 30-minute version featuring primarily (but not exclusively) Aquaman and Aqualad.
Aqualad has also appeared on the Teen Titans animated series, where he is voiced by Wil Wheaton. His first appearance was in "Deep Six" where he, Tramm and the Titans West defeated Trident. In "Winner Take All", it appears that Aqualad has acquired the ability to control water on land. In the series, he serves as a Titans East member, a short term crush of Raven and Starfire, and a temporary rival to Beast Boy. He is now an official member of Teen Titans' sister group, Teen Titans East, with Bumblebee, Speedy, and the twins Más y Menos. Aqualad is the most frequently used honorary Titan on the show.
Aqualad also makes several appearances on the comic series based on the show. In his first appearance in Teen Titans Go! (issue #10), he searches for Gill Girl. He told the Titans that she used to have a crush on him, but he looked at her like a sister. Beast Boy didn't believe him and says that she dumped him. He made short appearances in #20, #25, & #27. One of the stories in issue #30 focused on him and Speedy.
Additionally, in the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants, there are parodies of Aquaman and Aqualad called Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. However, the characters were designated as such in their younger days, and now they are old grumpy men.
[edit] Tempest in other media
Tempest (Garth) appears in the video game Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis. He is also a unlockable character in the game.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
Categories: 1960 introductions | DC Comics supporting characters | DC Comics Atlanteans | DC Comics superheroes | DC Comics characters with superhuman strength | Fictional characters with the power to manipulate water | Fictional adoptees | Fictional mermen and mermaids | Fictional sidekicks | Magic users in comics | Spin-off comic book superheroes
