Thomas Oscar MorrowAs mentioned prevoiusly, DC has a proud history of playing sufferers of Malign Hypercognition Disorder completely straight, owing in no small part to their much more stereotypical Silver Age. Thomas Oscar Morrow first appeared in Flash #143, cover date March 1964. Interestingly, for a character that is much more associated with the Justice League of America, he first appeared in a title that he really has no long lasting connection to.
In his first appearance, Morrow had what would become ostensibly his gimmick and main power- a special "television set" that allowed him to look one hundred years into the future as well as pull things through to the past/present using a "fourth dimensional hook". In his first appearance, he menaced Barry Allen as well as his pal Hal Jordan by making duplicates of Hal. This story had the wonderfully Silver Age title of "The Trial of the False Green Lanterns!". Gotta love those old titles. Anywho, at the end of the issue , Morrow falls into some big machine and is presumed dead. But, as James Robinson had Wes Dodds say in Starman, dead isn't dead unless you see the body. And even then, sometimes not.
And indeed, in Justice League of America #64, August 1968, TO Morrow returned. As it turns out, the machine had somehow thrown him onto Earth-2. See, back in the Silver Age, DC introduced the Multiverse. The first alternate Earth introduced, in Flash #123, September 1961, was Earth-2. On this Earth, the Silver Age had never happened, the heroes had been around and fought in WWII, etc.
On Earth-2, Morrow used his tvs to see that if he were to rob the "Museum of the 20th Century", because we totally need a museum less than three quarters through it, he would be stopped by the Justice Society. So, his solution is to make an artificial being and infiltrate the JSA so they can't fight back. Or something of that sort. The whole story is beautifully 60s with a disregard for much logic. Case in point: Hourman builds a computer that tells him where crimes are being committed, apparently because its just that smart. Note that Rex was a chemist, not any sort of engineer.
Anywho, using a device called a "Humaniztron" he creates the Red Torando, who will be discussed at length in the below section, as has became standard.
TO Morrow's next crime was to try and rob Atlantis, which in the world of Earth-Two had been raised by archeoligists. Because, you know. Archeologists totally raise continents all the time. Anywho, the Justice League of Earth-One gets involved and saves the day yadda yadda yadda. This is what Morrow became most famous for, really. Creating the Red Tornado. Sometime in this era, Morrow got split into two people and one of them became Tomorrow, the Future Man, a weird hyper-evolved man whose body wasn't able to keep up and failed. This has been totally ignored.
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, TO Morrow first appeared in Flash v2 #19, December 1988. In this story, Morrow attends a party thrown for the Flash Rogues, perhaps the only awknowledgement I've ever seen of his start as a Flash villain. In said story, Morrow's origins are slightly rewritten to have him as a native of Poland whose real name is actually Tomek Ovadya Morah. Note Tomek is actually the Polish form of Thomas. In this era, Morrow was portrayed as a guy who has, by his own admission, "cracked up" because of his glimpses into the future.
JLA #5 is one of the more notable appearances Morrow has had over the years. Alongside Professor Ivo, another prominent mad scientist, Morrow creates another android to infiltrate the Justice League, Tomorrow Woman. Tomorrow Woman ends up betraying them to save the Justice League because they had made her too perfect- as the issues says, she developed a soul. This issue is really funny, and has some great banter between Morrow and Ivo. Really, this is where DC started playing their mad scientists completely straight. Note Ivo was the creator of the Amazo android, which is likely where the Morrow's Magnificent Mechaniks piece about the Amazo Voculizer is in reference too.
There was a forgetteble event called DC 2000 that happeend and had Morrow take technology from the year 2000 back to the '40s that happened, but its not really important. His next big appearance was in 52, wherein he's shown as a prisoner in a mad scientist prison village called Haven. In said series, it is revealed that he was Will Magnus' tutor and a good friend of his. In the course of the story, Morrow is captured and taken to Oolong Island. Whilst there, Morrow develops his now trademark Hawaiian shirt outfit. Hilariously, this carries over to DCUO not just with his design but also with the Hawaiian style you get for complete the Science Squad Experiments collection. Which is a totally awesome touch. During the climactic fight with
Morrow's friendship with Magnus has survived the reboot, as seen in the supplementary text in Justice League #3. In addition, he's shown involved with STAR Labs in the rebooted timeline. Time will tell if he'll come back to menace the justice League again, but the presence of the Red Tornado on the Justice League may hint that he'll be back.
Oh, and that panel at the top? That literally came the panel after the Doctor Death panel from last update. God, I love 52.
Red Tornado
The first Red Tornado was a humor character from DC's Golden Age. She was a working mother whose son, known as Scribbly, was the star of Sheldon Mayer's semi-autobiographic humor feature, Scribbly. As Ma Hunkle, she first appeared in All-American Comics #3, June 1939 and as the Red Torando All-American Comics #20, November 1940. As the Torando she took some red long underwear and a kettle for a helmet and took the fight to the crooks that plauged her area of NYC. She guested in the first ever JSA story in All-Star Comics #3, Winter 1940-1941. It's a pretty darn funny cameo, actually. The JSA stories were great.
Why am I talking about a character that isn't really important at hand? Because the Red Torando in question was designed by TO Morrow to try and fool the JSA into thinking he was Ma Hunkle and infiltrate them. It didn't work, and Reddy ended up joining the Justice League, becoming a fairly prominent member of the Sattelite era.
Now, the origins of the Red Tornado are rather complex. It was eventually revealed that Reddy was, in fact, two entities from the planet Rann, the Tornado Champion and Ulthoon, the Tornado Tyrant. The latter first appeared in Mystery in Space #61, August 1960. The Tyrant was beaten by Rann's champion, Adam Strange. Following this, the Tyrant decided that it pays to be good and went off to an uninhabited planet and made it into a replica of Earth, complete with a Justice League. Said League was actually the Tyrant, now calling itself the Tornado Champion. However, the Champion found it ain't that satisfying being a duplicate, so it traveled to Earth-Two and found the Red Tornado being created and merged with him. In the process it lost its memory, so essentially the Red Tornado was a new entity.
This may have been lost Post-Crisis, where the Red Tornado may have been created as an elemental by the spirit of Earth, Gaea. But maybe not. While Reddy has a bit of a convuluted history, he doesn't approach the horrors of pre-Crisis Black Canary or Post-Crisis Hawkman.
Reddy eventually got himself a wife, Kathy Sutton, and an adopted daughter, Traya Sutton. He's pretty unique as far as comic book androids go- contrast him with his totally not source material, the Vision. He's been technological, magical and in-between. A Leaguer, a Societyman, a Layman (Primal Force was pretty cool!) and a piece of art made by an Australian sold on eBay. Pretty cool character all around.
Other Tornado Androids
Well, the Red Tornado is an android. So it stands to reason that, yeah. There are going to be other androids of his sort. In the Tornado's first appearance, Morrow had other androids similar to the Torando but without tornado abilities. They were just kinda there.
For the most part, the Torando enemies in DCUO draw inspiration from Brad Meltzer's (totally awesome) Justice League of America v2. At the end of issue 2, November 2006, we see a shedload of Tornado robots. In the following issue, we are treated to a whole lot of Tornado robots created by Morrow. Said robots look like palette swaps of Reddy. The green attack with lightning, the blue with wind, the yellow with solar power and the black don't seem to have powers- they just karate chop you. The extra Tornadoes appeared fairly briefly, and were taken down quite easily by Hal Jordan after the Black Canary found their deactivation switch- which was in their heel. Get it? Achiles Heel? Yeah, its pretty insufferable.
While there has never been a Red Tornado style robot in the comics called the Tornado Tyrant, in the televisoin show Brave and the Bold Reddy made himself a son, modeled after his original costume, called the Tornado Champion. Said Champion ended up becoming a villain called the Tornado Tyrant. I doubt this was intentional, but it is worth mentioning, I guess. I loved that show- if you haven't, you should totally check it out.
Starting in 52, there were hints at other Tornado robots. These came to a head in the Red Tornado miniseries that started in November 2009. The miniseries introduced three other robots- the Red Torpedo (II; there was a Golden Age hero named the Red Torpedo. I guess Morrow had pulled the GA hero trick before), the Red Inferno and the Red Volcano. Overall, you can ignore these characters if you want, although Inferno and Torpedo got appearances on the television series Young Justice, albeit modified. That was pretty cool too.
