Inertia (DC Comics)
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| Inertia | |
 Inertia, in art from Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #5, by Ron Adrian. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Impulse #50 (July 1999) |
| Created by | Todd DeZago Mike Wieringo |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Thaddeus Thawne |
| Team affiliations | Titans East Rogues |
| Abilities | Superhuman speed |
Inertia is a comic book character in the DC Comics universe.
Contents |
[edit] Publication history
[edit] Creation
When questioned as to who created Inertia, Ethan van Sciver wrote that he could only accept five percent of the credit. The rest was offered to Mike Wieringo (twenty percent), Grant Morrison (twenty-five percent), and Todd Dezago (fifty percent). He also states that Inertia's appearance is just Impulse's inverted, like a Reverse Flash.[1] This fits the character's original role as a "Reverse Impulse" created to antagonize the title character.
[edit] Initial appearances
Inertia's initial appearance came in Impulse #50: "First Fool's" (July 1999), followed by 51: "It's All Relative" (August 1999), with Dezago observing. Then, Dezago wrote for Impulse 52: "Tumbling Down" (September 1999). The most character development came in #53: "Threats" (October 1999), with Dezago also writing. Inertia wasn't featured again until Impulse #62 and 66: "Mercury Falling" (July, November 2000), by Dezago. After this, Inertia would not be notably featured again for half a decade.
[edit] Revival
About five years after his debut, Inertia began making regular appearances in the DC Universe again, mostly due to his twin Bart Allen becoming The Flash. Inertia appeared in The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #5: “Lightning in a Bottle, Parts 5” (December 2006) by Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo. The formula was largely the same. Inertia acted as an antagonist to the title character, Bart Allen, who had changed greatly since his days as Impulse.
In addition to his Flash appearances, Inertia made repeated appearances in Teen Titans. A team-based series, Teen Titans features Inertia as part of an enemy team, Titans East. The story arc began in Teen Titans #43 (January 2007) written by Geoff Johns, with art by Tony Daniel and Jonathan Glapion. The arc concluded with Teen Titans #46 (April 2007) written by Geoff Johns and Adam Beechen.
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Beginnings
Thaddeus Thawne is a clone of Bart Allen, and was created in the 30th century by Bart's maternal grandfather, President Thawne. Thawne, being the descendant of the Flash's enemy Professor Zoom, got tired of his grandson's crime fighting activities in the 20th century and decided to create a clone of Bart using more Thawne blood so that he would be more ruthless. In addition to this modification, Thaddeus's growth and development was slowed. This is in contrast to Bart's accelerated development, (becoming physically 15 at chronological age 2). This was done to give Thad more training and knowledge than Bart ever would. His mission as the "Reverse-Impulse" was to go back in time and replace Bart, but he was easily defeated.
In his second attempt, upon realising Impulse was prepared to sacrifice himself to save Max Mercury, he fled, apparently horrified by the contrast between Bart's adopted family and his own grandfather's treatment of him as a weapon.
[edit] Return
Appearing again after the One Year Later event, Inertia worked with Manfred Mota.[2] Inertia stated that his agenda involved stealing the speed of all other speedsters in order to become the next "Fastest Man Alive". His first targets include his old rival Bart Allen, who is now a Flash and the original Flash, Jay Garrick. After betraying Mota, Inertia used Mota's daughter, Valerie Perez, as bait in a trap he set for Bart. Bart escaped and successfully rescued Valerie. After this defeat, Inertia began to gather the Rogues for his next attack.
Inertia is also working with Deathstroke. Due to Bart's encapsulation of the Speed Force, Inertia has been forced to inject himself with Velocity 9, a notoriously unstable substance invented by The Rival which allows the user to move at superhuman speeds. However, Inertia's Velocity 9 has been specially made by Deathstroke, and has thus far shown no ill effects.[3]
After being defeated in The Flash: Fastest Man Alive #8, he returned in #10 when he confronted the captive Heat Wave. He recruited Heat Wave into his newest mysterious plan, telling him that he was talking about something that would "change the world". Getting rid of the Flash would "just be a bonus."
He is also now a member of the new Titans East team in exchange for Deathstroke's help.[4][5] He begins the attack on the Teen Titans with Titans East teammate Match. Disguising himself as Impulse and Kid Flash, he defeats Robin and Raven, then toys with Wonder Girl in Robin's secret facility. Ultimately, he lets Match knock Wonder Girl unconscious. During the assault, Inertia mentioned that he was going to call himself Kid Zoom after Bart renamed himself from Impulse to Kid Flash, but decided to stick with the name Inertia. In Teen Titans #44 he is shown to be romantically involved with his Titans East teammate Sun Girl.
[edit] Full Throttle
With Bart Allen as the new Flash, Inertia decided it was time to declare war on his old nemesis. He organized Flash's Rogues together in a grand scheme. He claimed that their goal was to build a machine that could stop time, essentially giving them the freedom to commit crimes without anyone being able to stop them. This operation was apprentally in the planning stages for some time, and some of the Rogues' planning sessions were depicted in issues of the weekly series Countdown.
Once the plan was put into action, the Rogues attracted the attention of The Flash, but it was soon revealed that this was Inertia's intention all along: the machine they were building did not stop time, its function was to drain the Speed Force from the Flash (Bart Allen) and transfer it to Inertia, so he could regain natural speed powers and no longer be dependent on Velocity 9.
Though Bart did lose his speed, the Pied Piper and Abra Kadabra caught on to Inertia's betrayal and subdued him, before subduing the Flash. Inertia broke away in an attempt to reach the machine and prevent Bart's girlfriend from releasing the Speed Force, only to be tackled and beaten by a raging Flash. As he lay subdued, the other Rogues killed Bart.
[edit] Aftermath
Immediately after killing Bart, the Rogues turned their wrath on Inertia, blaming him for the entire fiasco. Inertia ran, but the arrival of the police forced the Rogues to flee before they could give chase, allowing Inertia to escape.
However, at the same time Bart was fighting the Rogues, Wally West, the previous Flash, returned to this plane of existence. Upon hearing of Bart's death, an enraged Flash hunted Inertia down. Though he thought of killing him, Flash decided to instead "do something worse." He used his abilities to slow Inertia's movements down to the point where he was totally immobile, essentially a living statue. He then placed Inertia on display at the Flash Museum, facing statues of Bart Allen as Impulse and Kid Flash. Though he can still think, see and hear in normal time, Inertia is now doomed to spend eternity in a state of near-total paralysis, staring at Bart's images (ironically enough, a variant of the fate that befell Zoom after attacking Linda for the first time). Wally describes it as being "forced to stare, with eyes that take a hundred years to blink...at the ghost of a man he could never be."
[edit] Powers and abilities
A partial clone of Bart Allen, Inertia is primarily a speedster. He has not demonstrated any other speed related powers, including Bart's resilience to alterations in the time stream. For some time following Infinite Crisis, Inertia remained no longer connected to the Speed Force. Instead, he has begun injecting himself with Velocity 9, a substance that helps him maintain his superhuman speed. Velocity 9 has been notoriously unstable in the past, but Deathstroke's new variant seems to offer no negative side effects.
[edit] References
- ^ Inertia . . . ! - Page 4 - The Comic Bloc Forums
- ^ Flash: Fastest Man Alive #5
- ^ Flash: Fastest Man Alive #7
- ^ Comic Book Resources - CBR News: CCI, Day 3: DC Comics Gets "One Year Greater"
- ^ IGN: Comic-Con 2006: DC Secrets
[edit] External links
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