So in all that crazy amounts of free time I have, I’ve been poking through the supplement book in the Crisis on Infinite Earths slipcased edition. Among other things (like the constant drubbing the Flash comic was getting therein, discussed on my Bluesky), I noticed the repeated references to the desire to make the android hero Red Tornado into a villain.
Now, I can get the impulse. As character development goes, his primary contributions to stories (as detailed in a probably inadvertently-hilarious Wikipedia summary) is to be Blown Up Read Good, then repaired just to be blown up again. Rinse. Explode. Repeat.
In an effort to make the character, you know, interesting, particularly in the wake of DC’s crosstown rivals having their own android, the Vision, on their own superteam, the Avengers, and getting a bit more traction with him…DC decided to blow up Reddy one final time in Crisis on Infinite Earths #8, courtesy Marv Wolfman, George Pérez, and Jerry Ordway. In this sequence, an already pre-blown-up Red Tornado is on the Justice League satellite, when it’s discovered he’s booby-trapped with a bomb:
Exuent R. Tornado from the Crisis series proper, but his story continues in Justice League of America Annual #3, by Dan Mishkin, Rick Hoberg, and Bob Gustovich. Through various means and reasons I’m not going to get into here (hie thee hither to the previously linked Wiki entry), the Red Tornado reforms without his robot body into a…well, human tornado:
That lady in the last panel is Kathy, the Red Tornado’s girlfriend, whom he addresses in the very next panel:
Yeah, the whole “Tornado Champion” stuff…long story, but in short it’s an alien intelligence that was accidentally embedded into the Red Tornado’s shell and gave him life beyond his programming.
Anyhoo, Reddy in this new incarnation is ready to blow the whole world down and rebuild it anew:
But not before Kathy manages to have a private heart-to-heart with him, managing to convince him to work with humanity to fix the world, not against them:
And of course, the second the Red Tornado drops his guard, and before Kathy can tell everyone “hold on, it’s all good,” Superman takes initiative with his super freezing breath:
…which Reddy eventually escapes from, and proceeds to flounce on out of there, but not without one final threat:
And off the Tornado goes, in his new status quo as Enemy of the Justice League and the Whole World, Maybe, to someday return in…well, Firestorm the Nuclear Man #91 (1989) by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake:
In #93 Firestorm rebuilds the Red Tornado’s body, essentially undoing the changes in Crisis and restoring him, more or less, to his status quo:
…and then it’s on to Primal Force and Young Justice through the rest of the ’90s/early ’00s. And Tornado pops up more recently in One Star Squadron and the current Justice League Unlimited comic, as well as having a pivotal role in Justice League: Red. As to how much of the old Crisis-era shenanigans still hold in continuity, I’m not sure.
But it is kinda weird that for all the talk and build-up for the Red Tornado’s Big Change in Crisis, it amounted to only a couple of appearances before being undone. Just another small sample of DC looking back at Crisis in the ensuing years and saying “in retrospect, maybe we shouldn’t have.”
does reddy look a bit like ma hunkel in that you have betrayed me panel?
You know, Vision and Red Tornado so firmly established a precedent of “Red-Skinned Android Built To Destroy Premiere Super-Team Rebels Against Creator And Joins Team Instead” that when the Salamandroid showed up to destroy Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, I fully expected him to wind up joining the team as well.
I still think Scott Shaw! missed a bet there. I guess Sal’s reddish-orange hide wasn’t red enough.
Even as a kid, it bothered me how much Crisis #8 and that JLA Annual don’t line up.
Always liked Reddy even though he was a poor man’s Vision, and the “white eyes” version from
JLA is my favourite instead of the weird “empty slots for eyes” older and later YJ version.
I don’t think I ever read the 80s RT limited series by (I think) Kurt Busiek, where did it fit in his timeline?
Yes, Busiek wrote it. I did read that comic, but I was kind of wondering about the timeline with that mini also. It seems a lot of things done with RT in Crisis and that JL Annual were also done in the RT mini. I was pretty sure it took place post-Crisis. It is from 1985. So, that makes its continuity around the events of Crisis hard to place.
According to the Wikipedia article, the mini occurs immediately prior to the events of Crisis.
Not mentioned in Mike’s article was that RT was reborn in the Ostrander Firestorm series, he had become the Air Elemental (equivalent to Swamp Thing’s plant elemental). That didn’t last long, as pointed out by RT returning to his status quo by the end of that story.
Wasn’t there some goofiness in the last few decades where the name of the Golden Age Quality Comics character Red Torpedo was appropriated and used on a “sister” android of Red Tornado? And then there was an android character named Red Volcano as well? And one other one–Red Hurricane or something like that? It was getting to the point where there should have been a Red Tornado Family ongoing comic or 80 Page Giant.
And doesn’t Ma Hunkel have granddaughter or great granddaughter with Red Tornado powers? Is her name Cyclone or something similar?
As Nike Sterling is my witness, I found a World’s Finest copy of this run–hyped as Gerry Conway’s run–at the Salvation Armyand the same struck me as strange. I just took it as two different writers, plus I’ve seen more annuals make a change that is promptly forgotten. Seems as if annuals were written by different writers. I fully expected RT to be blasted apart.
Mike has likely brought this up, but the World’s Finest line really is worth following.
Nik – Yeah, I didn’t bring up the Busiek/Infantino series (which I liked!), but it is definitely a “these events take place prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths“situation.
Chris V – I did initially have something in this post about Reddy’s “Air Elemental” business, but dropped it out as things were already complicated enough here. Kinda of a moot point anyway since we’re back to where we started now, more or less (or maybe not…knowing Waid, maybe in his head all this stuff is still canon to Tornado’s history!).
Red Tornado always struck me as perfect for hanging out in the background while the big guns had a discussion. He’s a great visual in battle, but maybe a bit dull as a character. No shame in being your best when you’re on a team. But I think if you’re going to make RT cool, you’d have to actually make him cool and not just make him evil. My two cents.
And yes, there was a family of Reds: Tornado, Torpedo, Volcano, and Inferno, at least on the Young Justice cartoon. Not sure if they originated on TV or in the comics.
I always liked RT (the visual of him spinning in the air was always interesting) but felt that they really just didn’t know what to do with him beyond blowing him up all the time and a sort of ‘fish out of water’ civilian life that he tried to fit into – although his relationship with his adopted daughter, Traya?, was always written so well – at the time (late 70s,early 80s) I don’t remember there being a lot of ‘kid’ characters and I thought their relationship was well done. I belong to a gay zine club and this month’s theme was “AI” and honestly I couldn’t think of any other character that I’ve read that even somewhat fit that other than RT. My knowledge of him extends only to Crisis though and had forgotten (or never knew) of his latter appearances.
I keep reading the moniker as “Red Tomato”
More than a little irritating for Red Tornado to finally get his own mini-series, by Busiek & Infantino, only for the Crisis to mean-spiritedly sweep all its character development aside. See also: Mindy Newell & Gray Morrow’s dour Lois Lane 2-parter. Was DC putting these out just to clear the pre-Crisis decks?
Red Tornado! The whirlwind that walks like a man!
“Tornado Champion”
I can buy Swamp Thing as an Earth Elemental; I do NOT buy Reddy as a TORNADO CHAMPION.
“Firestorm rebuilds the Red Tornado’s body”
I was unaware he was an expert in robotics!
“Red Hurricane”
HERE I AM! ROCK ME LIKE A HURRICANE!
“Red Tomato”
Enemy of Opera Singers everywhere!
“Was DC putting these out just to clear the pre-Crisis decks?”
Honestly, I find that VERY likely. Or to fulfill a promise made by an editor before CRISIS was planned.
Didn’t Reddy make some more appearances in his elemental form towards the end of the Cary Bates Captain Atom series as well?
The Lois Lane series really feels like a four-part series smushed into two parts to get it out the door and off the books quicker.
@Snark Shark
It seems like Doc Magnus or Professor Ivo would be more likely candidates for rebuilding Red Tornado. And maybe we could get an “untold tale” of the late Silver Age or Bronze Age from DC Comics where Red Tornado teams up with the Metal Men –with a cameo appearance by Bozo the Iron Man from the Golden Age of Quality Comics, and a time traveling ILDA (Intelligent Laboratory Data Analyzer)–Star Hawkins’s robot-secretary/Girl Friday.
@Pete
I’m doing a reread of the Captain Atom series now, and I can confirm he appears in Captain Atom 16 and 17, as does Swamp Thing.
Good Ol’ Doc Magnus!