History Behind DCUO: TO Morrow and the Red Tornado

Thomas Oscar Morrow
As 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.

History Behind DCUO: Oolong Island Alert, part 1

Oolong Island
Once upon a time, in America, I mean, the Silver Age, comic books were not very politically correct. Like, at all. Among the worst offenders was perhaps the most inexplicable foe Wonder Woman ever locked hopefully metaphorical horns with: Egg Fu. We'll get too him in a bit.

Following Infinite Crisis, DC ran a fifty two issue maxi series called 52. I know, creative, right? Rather than having a central plot, the entire series was set up like a year in the life of various DC heroes, in real time. One ongoing plot at the beginning was that someone was kidnapping mad scientists. Over the years, DC has had a respectful number of mad scientists. Unlike other comppanies, such as Marvel, DC usually plays their mad scientists completely 100% straight. Folks like Thomas Oscar Morrow, Thaddeus Bodog Sivana and Anthony Ivo are firmly in the Cave Johnson School of Throwing Science At the Wall, ethics be damned.

Anywho, Will Magnus (Who I'll cover in more depth later)became the face of this story. For his first few appearances, he met with his former mentor and villainous friend Thomas Oscar Morrow (Whom we'll be covering in another update, along his windy creation.) to discuss life, the Universe and mad scientist kidnappings. Ultimately, Morrow ended up being kidnapped. Magnus ended up kidnapped himself a few issues later, in 52 Week 22. The following week Magnus arrived on the as of yet unnamed Oolong Island, which was introduced as, "..what you get when the world's maddest scientists are given an unlimited budget and encouraged to let their imaginations run wild on the finest mind expanding narcotics available to man!" Two weeks later, in week 25, we get the true purpose of Oolong: Create the Four Horseman of Apokalypse. More on them in a bit. Suffice to say, it was eventually revealed that Oolong was part of a conspiracy involving the Religion of Crime, headed by Intergang, to bring the Evil Gods of Apokalypse to Earth.

Oolong ended up being attacked by Black Adam following the destruction of first the Four Horsemen, then the nation of Bialya. Through the careful leadership of Ira Quimby, the Science Squad overcome the Black Marvel.

Following 52, Oolong Island is officially disconnected from the People's Republic of China and becomes its own independent nation inhabited by mad scientists. Veronica Cale (First appearance Wonder Woman v2 #196, November 2003) somehow becomes its president. Cale was created by Greg Rucka as an attempt at making a rule 63 Lex Luthor for Wonder woman's rogues gallery, and ended up being mostly ignored till 52, wherein she was one of the Science Squad's members and the only penitent one. She was a major part of the 52 Aftermath: Four Horseman miniseries, and ultimately was able to contain the Horsemen she had helped create using a special, Apokalyptian containment unit. And just as the collectible says, she did indeed eat it. That happened in 52A:FH #6, March 2008.

The independent nation appeared in both Four Horsemen and Keith Giffen's Doom Patrol. Interestingly, both were written by Keith Giffen, whom had done the layouts for 52. I guess Keith took a liking to it. In the latter, the island is home to its own resident superhero team: The Doom Patrol! I really the Doom Patrol a whole lot.Lots happened in that series, but none directly pertinent.

Oolong in DCUO is seemingly modeled after its Doom Patrol era, with the Science Squad still having free range with their experimentation and with Cale as its president. Frankly, this is pretty interesting. 52 is obviously the most important story with Oolong, as neither Four Horseman nor Giffen's Doom Patrol were especially well selling. Trust me, I know. Doom Patrol was at one point DC's lowest selling comic in the DCU- made me proud to be a reader of it.

Egg Fu
We also got the mastermind behind Oolong: Chang Tzu, originally called Chiang Tzu, better known as Egg Fu. Egg Fu has a bit of a... unique history. Whilst many DC characters were given reboots following Crisis on Infinite Earths, few are as dramatic as Egg Fu. And with good reason- Egg Fu was pretty darn racist when he first appeared.

In his original incarnation, he appeared in Wonder Woman Volume 1 #157, cover date October 1967 and was created by notable crazy man Robert "Bob" Khanigar, known for his somber war stories and crazygonuts superhero comics, and Ross Andru. This issue was a few years after China turned Red, when Vietnam was still grinding men and the Russian Bear was still menacingly casting its shadow across Europe. So he's definitely in the spirit of the times, albeit filtered through Khanigar Kraziness.

There were three more-or-less distinct Egg Fus in the Silver Age. The aforementoined Egg Fu, who appeared completely inexplicably in the aforementioned #157. During the issue, the astoundingly wrong headed racial caricature actually managed to kill Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor by first turning Steve into a human bomb then blowing him and Wondy up with a missile. Then Wondy's mother resurrected them with an atomic structure reassembly beam. You know, like the Amazons had back then. The following issue Wondy defeated Egg Fu.

Egg Fu returned a few issues later in #166, cover date November 1966. This one was pretty much the same and was called Egg Fu the Fifth. Nothing much to note here, moving on...

The third-ish Egg Fu appeared in Metal Men #20, cover date June/July 1966. I guess that means he techincally came before the Fifth. Anywho, this one was a silly Dr. No ripoff called Dr. Yes. It's actually somewhat interesting that the Metal Men came to blows with an Egg Fu, considering their role in 52, where...

Egg Fu returned! After a mythology gag in John Byrne's Wonder woman run, Egg Fu returned in 52 week 25, Will Magnus meets the mysterious benefactor of Oolong Island, Chung Tzu. His old name is referenced at one point as one of his "nine thousand and nine unmentionable names" and is something he's a tad touchy about- the guard who alledgedly referred to him as Egg Fu is disintegrated. As the story moves on, we find out that A: Egg Fu is actually an Apokalyptian machine, similar to the easter egg from John Byrne's run and B: Is working for China, who is somehow involved in the whole Apokalyps situation.

Egg Fu's downfall ultimately comes from Will Magnus, who had been secretely recreating the Metal Men. In 52 week 49, Magnus takes a particle wave beam gun- the same one that is part of the Science Squad Experiments collection- Will Magnus destroys Egg Fu, leaving behind a yolk in the spider chair.

Little is actually explained about Egg Fu, truth be told. We know he's an Apokalyptian "flesh machine" and is capable of regenerating himself from a yolk left behind when he was destroyed. Following 52, he shows up in a Checkmate and Outsiders crossover still on Oolong Island, but isn't seen in Doom Patrol.

All told, it tickles me to no end to see that friggin' Egg Fu is in DCUO! Kudos to the development team.

Will Magnus and the Metal Men (But mostly Magnus)
Will Magnus and the Metal Men occupy that strange place as perpetual guest stars, destined to never hold a book long but show up every once in a while in other books. People like 'em. Just not enough to buy their book. Speaking of, buy Duncan Rouleu's Metal Men mini. It's great.

The Men were created as last minute filler by none other than Bob Khanigar and Ross Andru in Showcase #37, cover date March-April 1962. As introduced, the team were roobts made of elements and brought to life by "Responsometer" technology. Originally, they were wholesale robots. This has wavered once, in a four issue Metal Men miniseries that started in October 1993. In said mini, they were various people associated with Magnus who were killed and had their conscience transferred in a lab accident. I believe this is probably where player characters becoming Metal Men in the Oolong Island alert comes from.

Throughout the sixites, the Metal Men were destroyed and rebuilt in each story- it was sort of a gimmick of theirs. In fact, they were destroyed at the end of their first story, which wasn't intended to have followups! As sales fell throughout the decade, the writers tried something rather drastic. They had Doc Magnus go crazy, to be blunt. He was kidnapped and brainwashed by some foreign dictator. He ended up making a Plutonium Man, similar in concept to his Metal Men but malevolent. This story was referenced in 52. Rather than have the original explanation, Magnus was retconned to suffer from Bipolar Disorder, and was medicated for it. I'll explain it as I explained it to a friend of mine: When he's off his meds, he does science. Off his meds, he has no regard for ethics and makes science for the sake of science. The results are often things like the Plutonium Man. This has some basis pre-Crisis as well- in Metal Men v1 45, 1976, he was told to take medication to help with his shattered psyche. This ought to more than explain Magnus in the tech wing- "This is one of my bad days. Maybe I can finally get some work done."

The Plutonium Man wasn't the last time there were evil Metal Men, either. While most were Metal Men like Aluminum or Sodum, from Metal Men #3, there were emtotionless copies of the actual Metal Men in 52 Week 22. There is pretty good basis for the Metal Men enemies in Oolong Island, as they were made by evil scientists and were used to kidnap Magnus, as alluded to earlier in this article.

While we are talking about Magnus, I should explain something else related to him, but not especially to Oolong Island...

Veridium
Veridium appears as an adjetive on a handful of items in DCUO. This is one of the many fictional items in the DCU, although it did get some bizarre exposure in the Dragon Age: Origins videogame. Veridium first appeared in Metal Men v2 #4, from January 1994. In said issue, Doc Magnus is killed and transfers his conscience to a blank Metal Man robot made of an alien metal. Veridium has the special property of being able to store and channel heat and energy. I'm not sure the element has been used especially much since this, although Magnus' brother David became another Veridium in Metal Men v3 8.

As you can probably tell, Magnus didn't stay Veridium. In 52 week 22, it was retconned that that, along with the human origin for the Metal Men, had been a hallucination of Magnus', brought on by severe depression.