Saturday Splash Page #94

 

"Malpractice," in Terra #2, by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Amanda Conner (artist), Paul Mounts (colorist), Travis Lanham (letterer)

This mini-series came out in late 2008. I don't actually know what prompted it. There was the original, New Teen Titans Terra. The traitor, the Judas Contract, creepy relationship with creepy-ass Deathstroke, all that jazz. There was a second Terra, who looked a lot like the first, and got killed a year or so prior to this mini-series, by Black Adam when he declared war on the entire world for some reason I no longer remember.

And then this, with a Terra who looks very little like the first two. Who comes from a subterranean civilization which she defends from threats both native to that realm and from encroaching surface world dwellers. Who doesn't seem to want to associate with anyone or explain anything. She's all about that world-saving grind, 24/7, or however they measure time underground.

That can only fly so far, and Palmiotti, Gray and Conner do offer some backstory when she runs into Geo-Force, who is at least a natural person for a team-up, given his connection to the previous Terras. That's mostly in issue 3, which is when Conner gets to show us what Terra's (or Atlee, as that's her real name) home looks like. It's a giant cavern, with a lot of tall narrow buildings and bridges presumably formed from existing rock formations. A lot of their technology seems to be biologically based, as Geo-Force gets helped by some floating jellyfish thing that rewires his neural interface. It fits with how the society is presented, as watching the surface world warily, concerned about humanity's track record of using technology in the worst way.

Geo-Force ends up helping her with a guy that wanted to be a great underground explorer and stumbled into something he didn't understand. Even after the guy, who is acting out of grief and anger because, again, he's a stranger in this world, causes a lot of damage, Atlee's hope is he can be helped and restored. Which helps establish her as someone with a lot of compassion and an optimistic outlook on things. Of course, I feel like she got sucked in some "teen heroes forced into gladitorial combat" thing I vaguely remember from Teen Titans of that time. That would seem to do a lot to blunt someone's optimism about humanity. Or maybe I'm confusing that with whatever Terror Titans was.

But Conner, Gray and Palmiotti would make Terra a major supporting cast member in their Power Girl series that came out in 2009. That had its rough moments for the character, but built up a big sister/little sister relationship between the characters that was usually a lot of fun to read. We'll get to that when we get there.

Where The Power's At

I was originally going to post about this after Power Girl #11, then I forgot about it, then I remembered it some time in the last couple of weeks, and here we are.

OK, Satanna and Angry Badger Scientist switched out Terra and Ultra-Humanite's brains, so U-H could slip into Power Girl's life and learn a bunch of stuff, and generally be evil. He could also use Terra's powers, which made him quite formidable.

I thought it was kind of odd that was the case. I guess I thought of what Terra did as a sort of specific telekinesis, where she can only manipulate earth. That being the case, her power would be localized in her brain. The genetic sequence that is the source of it would be in every cell, but the way I had it figured, that sequence was only transcribed into the proper proteins in brain cells. So Ultra-Humanite wouldn't be able to do squat, because his brain doesn't have that power. Obviously I was mistaken, and the power is present throughout her being. But not in her brain, perhaps, since she showed no ability to manipulate earth while in the Ultra-Humanite's body. That may have been because his body was badly damaged, and she was in too much pain to concentrate, though.

I don't know if this is how it's commonly portrayed in the superhero comics. In The Defenders, Chondu the Mystic's brain was placed in Nighthawk's body, but Nighthawk's power is being twice as strong at night, so I wouldn't expect the brain in the body to matter. I don't think it came up, regardless. Chondu could still use his powers in Nighthawk's body (which is probably why he didn't bother with Kyle Richmond's powers), but I assume those were magics he'd learned, and were reliant on knowledge in his brain. It's worth noting, when Dr. Strange transferred Chondu's soul out of his brain and Nighthawk's body, and placed Jack Norriss' consciousness in its place (with Chondu's consciousness going into a fawn the Hulk had brought with him), Jack showed no sudden ability to cast spells, I assume because Chondu's knowledge was part of his consciousness, so Jack wouldn't know the necessary incantations.

Emma Frost was able to use Iceman's powers, but I think that, like Chondu, was a case of her consciousness taking over Bobby Drake's brain, rather than his brain being removed, and hers put in its place. I can't think of any others off hand, though I'm sure brain swapping probably happened to the Silver Age Justice League all the time. Pity the Leaguer who wound up with Hal Jordan's brain in their body.

How Best To Protect The Crowd In A Battle

Back to Power Girl #4 for a moment. Right before they start dealing with the magical attack on the bridge, Power Girl tells Terra to protect the civilians as they flee, while she goes and hits the monsters. Terra objects to be placed on crowd patrol, because she wants to hit things too. Power Girl responds that she's the one who hits things, while Terra's the one who saves people, and that people will like her more for them.

Looking at the first part of that final sentence, I find it kind of interesting that Power Girl sees herself that way. She doesn't see herself as a lifesaver, but as a fighter. Except fighting giant monsters does save lives. Plus, she restarted her company, and it's all about ideas that are supposed to have practical applications to make people's lives better. And, she didn't simply trounce the villain behind the troll outbreak, she offered her a job where she can channel her energy without causing property damage. Hopefully. If it works, she keeps that girl from falling into a cycle of being tossed in jail, escaping and embarking on another destructive crusade, only to be tossed in jail again, and so on. She's stepped in before the young lady winds up as warped as Ultra-Humanite. I'd say that counts as saving a life. I wonder why she doesn't see it that way*.

The second part is kind of interesting too. People will like you more for escorting them to safety, than if you go fight the baddies. I can sort of see the logic in that. If you're there with the crowd, they know you're protecting them, whereas if you fly right at the monster and start punching, they might think it's just another mindless super-brawl, and that no one concerned cares about the regular Joe. Though that's more the mindset of a Marvel citizen, it does exist in DC, albeit in smaller quantities**.

On the other hand, if the hero is near the crowd, that means they expect the threat to get near the crowd as well. I think I'd prefer the hero go fight the threat some place far away from me, and I'll try and escape on my own.

* There's always the possibility she was just using that as a way to get Terra to stop arguing with her and go protect the crowd. She figures if she makes crowd protection sound better, Terra won't feel as bothered that she's left in charge of it.

** Morrison used it in his first JLA arc, where the disguised Martians started fixing everything, and some people told Superman they wanted heroes to do more than just fight.

It Would Fit With Killer Whale Raiders

The "astronaut god" that is responsible for the current Terra's home and the life under the surface of the earth, is it a new addition to the DC Universe?

It doesn't matter, it just sounds like the sort of thing Kirby would have thrown into one of his stories*, and DC's been big on bringing his concepts and characters out the last few years (for better or worse), so I wondered whether this was an old concept revived and added back into the fabric of the DCU, or something new.

I can see Kamandi coming across a civilization built around and worshipping the remains. Sure, it's buried now, but the Great Disaster created an entirely new continent, so it isn't out of the question the tectonic upheaval would push the remains back up to the surface, or close enough that other natural processes would unearth it.

I'm a little unclear on how the subterranean life came about though. So, there were raw materials for life present undergorund, same as on the Earth's surface, but this mixed with the "lifeblood" of the astronaut god. Thus life underground is different on a genetic level, beyond all the basic structural differences one would need to survive the pressures and temperatures underground. So were the remains bleeding out through the coccoon, or did the basic building blocks present udnerground somehow make it inside the coccoon. I'm guessing the latter, since they said Strata is built at least partially inside the astronaut god.

These are the things I use to occupy my thoughts.

* Though I'm probably thinking of that Dreaming Celestial that was part of his Eternals work for Marvel.

Does Genetics Work Like That?

I was looking over Terra #1, and there at the end of the issue Dr. Mid-Nite says Atlee* (Terra the III) is an exact genetic match for Terra the II, also known as the Terra that got killed by Black Adam.

Given that Terra II was blonde and blue-eyed, and Atlee has black hair and purple eyes, I'm perplexed as to how they can be an exact match. They almost certainly have to have different nucleotides at the genes that determine such things as eye and hair color**, because they're showing different visible characteristics. Granted, both seem to be examples of "Terran" genetics combined with human DNA, or vice versa, so perhaps the underlying Terran genetics codes are the same, and that's what Dr. Mid-Nite picked up on, but what would that mean for them? That they're purely genetically engineered? Would that make Atlee adopted, or did her parents ask her to undergo a process to wind up in her current state?

* The name Atlee brings back bad memories for me of former San Francisco Giants' pitcher Atlee Hammaker, who I remember as dominating the Cardinals pretty much every time he faced them. This recollection was not borne out by the stats, which say he was only 4-4 with a 3.92 ERA in his career against the StL. Although in '87 and '88, he was 3-2 with an ERA under 3.00, so that probably explains the memories.

** One of the things I learned in the class I was teaching assistant for was that eye color, and also hair color I think, are determined by more than one gene. It's a combination of genes on different chromosomes.