11.19
Issue #7 or “Bad Storm Rising!”
Red Tornado’s arc is a bit of a sub-plot throughout the first season. We first get a taste for his personality in the Christmas episode where he wants to find “Christmas Spirit” like he sees in the movies and ends finding some semblance of inner warmth by episode’s end. It is a cute episode that’s a lot of fun, but is pretty self-explanatory and not that uncommon of a tale.
Next we had the issue when Batman traveled to a parallel world and met Silver Cyclone who was Red Tornado’s doppelganger. Silver Cyclone ended up being one of the most heartless and vile villains that wasted no time attempting to wipe the world clean of the humanity he didn’t understand. Silver Cyclone was what Red Tornado would be without the inkling of soul that existed underneath his chips and wires because of his unbridled hatred of those he didn’t want to understand.
In this episode we continue the Red Tornado story, this time in his quest for a family. So grab your Red Tornado plushie (what do you mean there aren’t any?) and have a seat for this red knuckled episode of “The Brave & the Bold”!
#7 – Hail the Tornado Tyrant!
Written by: J.M. DeMatteis
Directed by: Brandon Vietti
Principle Cast:
Corey Burton as Red Tornado
Carl Lumbly as Tornado Champion / Tornado Tyrant
Diedrich Bader as Batman
James Arnold Taylor as Major Disaster
At nightfall Batman arrives at a laboratory that he appears to know all too well. Underneath a sheet on a lab table there appears to be something hidden, but only when Red Tornado arrives on the scene does he understand what it’s for. It’s a project Red Tornado has been working on for a while, and he is eager to share it with someone he trusts. What lies under the sheet is another robot just like him.
The robot is based upon Red Tornado’s fundamental design but with several “important” upgrades. “Tornado Champion” as he calls it will improve upon the previous generation in the most crucial way-that being the addition of emotion that Red Tornado lacks. He will be the next generation- an “improvement” over the one that came before.
Batman warns him of the danger of creating life in a lab, but his friend replies that he is already aware of the risks. He has installed a fail-safe switch in case it doesn’t work out, and his creation goes awry. But what surprises our bat-like hero more is that Tornado refers to it as his “son”. Even Red Tornado longs for the companionship of a family- he’s always longed for more than what he had.
After the spark of the laboratory shocks Tornado Champion into life, we meet… a soulless automaton who merely states obvious sentences over and over. Red Tornado states that it may just take time for his emotional programming to awaken and decides to simply get started on their crime-fighting career in the meantime. But if it has the proper programming, then why isn’t it closer to being like him? They catch a distress call during their discussion and take-off to find the source of their trouble.
Tornado Champion is eager to help, but that only seems to be because of his programming. He has no real motive or drive to speak of.
Major Disaster, a villain who causes storms, waits at the seaside amusement park, threatening pedestrian lives for riches and if they do not comply he will send a hurricane upon them. The trio arrive to stop him before he carries out his threat. He goes down rather easy, since three heroes is usually too much for any villain to handle.
The parallels are obvious, as are the amusement park to the father and son, and the spark of life that creates Tornado Champion to the spark that… well, that’s coming. For now, we wonder what it is that makes Red Tornado so different from other robots as even his son who has “emotional” programming does not appear to have the soul that Red Tornado possesses. But he is still the family that he desperately needs.
But maybe his son just needs the right trigger to be set off.
The trio takes the villain down when, in their celebration, he sends a lightning bolt of vengeance at our heroes that strikes Tornado Champion center in the back- but not before Champion says something very concerting to Batman. Batman takes the villain down before he can do further damage.
Before he is taken for repairs, the violent bolt appeared to awaken something in his son as he recovers now fully aware of who he is. He even calls Red Tornado “father”. Perhaps he was right when he said his son simply needed time to integrate his personality.
After a full diagnostic, Red Tornado comes to the conclusion that Tornado Champion was awakened by the force of the bolt which kick-started his programming into overdrive. It was really nothing short of a miracle. Or maybe something a bit less than that. Tornado Champion can feel and emote unlike his father and is able to be just as logical. So he is an improvement after all, then.
Maybe he really does have all the pieces to be the next generation of the Tornado line.
Batman appears a bit concerned, but says nothing as the son gives his father a great big hug and wants to learn everything he can.
Their new lives as a family are just beginning.
Tornado Champion asks many questions including why humans are so important and his father tells him that they have an inner strength different from other creatures. His son wonders if he has this strength too, but only time will tell in that case. This inner strength is more of a mystery to his son than to Red Tornado since unbeknownst to him, he has already encountered it many times before.
Why is there evil in the world? Why do some choose to do the wrong thing? Why do others become heroes? Red Tornado does not know the answers; just that human kindness is preferable to human cruelty. Why is it preferable? He doesn’t know the answer- just that all his studies have brought him to the conclusion that it is the only answer.
The world is a complicated place and hard to understand- especially for machines that run primarily on logic alone, the answers are not as simple as equations in a problem. There is no formula for the sins of evil or the goodness of deeds. Red Tornado accepts it to the extent that he is able to, which is more than one asks of a robot that should not be capable to.
But, his son?
Even Batman keeps watch on the pair, something bothering him about Tornado Champion. He stays out of it and only keeps watch from a distance- but it clearly bothers him. The last thing he said to Batman was very concerting, though maybe it was erased with his new personality. There’s no way to be sure. Yet.
They arrive at a large fire tearing down an apartment complex and spin away flames and rescue children from the building. Champion concocts a plan to save the children while Red Tornado aims for the flames. It’s a rather simple plan and the father is proud of his son for thinking it up in the first place.
But Champion is a bit too eager and when pushing the flames and crashing beams away from the children, he pushes them through the opening in the wall and out the apartment side. He catches them and brings them to safety, but not before hearing about his over-eagerness from the parents and police. But he saved them from death, isn’t that good enough?
“Robot? I’m not a robot. I’m a person, just like you!”
Red Tornado takes his son aside back to the beach where he was first born and tells him to master his emotions so they don’t master him. His son apologizes but is still confused about what his feelings were in the heat of the moment. He thinks, he feels, and he is human in almost every way but they don’t accept him still. But humans fear what they do not understand, they just need time before they understand- or so Red Tornado says.
After all, Red Tornado has had much experience with humans, surely father would know best? But something about Tornado Champion leaves him unable to accept his words.
His son disagrees, and thinks he trusts them too much. He takes off on his own still confused about the right thing to do and the right way to feel.
Tornado Champion appears to have a real problem grabbing hold of his emotions and keeping them under control But why exactly is that? Red Tornado doesn’t know the reason since he does not have them.
Batman shows himself and Red Tornado asks why he has been following them, which was to make sure he was adapting well to society. Red Tornado lies and says that he is to which Batman wonders how he can be so sure. Batman has been watching the whole time, so why does Tornado think he can lie to him? He knows Batman can read personalities, but still attempts to fool him. He should know better.
He probably isn’t sure why he does it himself, but he has an answer.
Fathers just know.
Major Disaster has risen again to cause trouble elsewhere. Red Tornado and Batman put off their discussion to stop the evil storm from approaching. He breaks from his prison with his storm powers, and no guard offers any resistance to him. Even Red Tornado and Batman alone have problems keeping him at bay, that is, until assistance arrives.
They don’t have much time, as the storm has arrived and their enemy is strongest with one at his disposal. But who knows if he’ll have the chance to use it?
Tornado Champion arrives to help saying that he could never stay mad at his father. But the celebrations don’t last long. Major Disaster deals an intense near-fatal blow to Red Tornado that sends Champion into a blind rage to which he almost kills the villain, but Batman manages to stop him just before he goes too far.
“There’s a difference between justice and revenge.”
“The difference is that revenge is more efficient.”
“The difference is morality.”
“Morality? I am above human morality!”
In his blind rage, he nearly kills Batman before Red Tornado comes to his rescue. He tells his son that they are servants of human kind to protect them from evil they cannot otherwise protect themselves from. It is their duty to do the right thing. His son almost awakens from his poisonous mindset, but it proves too difficult for him.
Champion disagrees and calls them evil and a disease. They are unable to grow or change- not like him, and they will always be filled with mindless hate. He believes his father is a fool for believing in them as much as he does, but before he can continue- Batman disables him. Tornado Champion lies beside the very villain he was supposed to stop and the very same one that gave birth to him. But, what can they do now?
There’s no going back from this.
Red Tornado believes that in more time they can fix the software anomalies, but Batman doesn’t. He sees Tornado Champion as a threat that is out of control and will snap at any time. He tells him to use the fail-safe to protect lives from the monster lurking inside of his son. Red Tornado sees the logic of the situation and follows Batman’s advice.
He has already crossed the line, and sees no fault in doing so. Tornado walks over to the console and shuts his son down. There is nothing more he can do for him.
His son is dead.
They leave the body alone to grieve, but something is amiss. Tornado Champion awakens, having removed the fail-safe some time ago and decides to give himself some upgrades. That he was wary enough to know why he had the fail-safe in the first place and still had it removed speaks volumes to who he really is.
Nobody was ever going to stop him from doing whatever he wanted. Even if it meant trampling all over life itself.
He steals pieces of the very lab that birthed him to form his armor and shape into something much different and something much more sinister. Tornado Champion is dead. Long live the Tornado Tyrant.
It goes back to Red Tornado’s advice to his son to not let his emotions control him, but the robot is nothing but emotions and logic which leads to a dangerous combination. The emotions not only control his logic, they are a tyrant over him which lead him toward the very path that almost killed Major Disaster and Batman- not to mention those children that he “saved”. Something had been missing from his son from day one, but it was clear from the moment he removed the fail-safe that he cared more for his own survival than those he might hurt and it was clear whose intentions he cared most about.
We are brought once more to the beach that birthed Red Tornado’s son and the first step in Tornado Tyrant’s final solution. His purple tornado knocks the waves into the beaches to signal his arrival. He floods the beach and sends cars crashing out from the parking lot down into the sand without any regard for life.
Because life doesn’t matter: he’s already decided.
Maybe it isn’t a coincidence that his colors are very similar to Silver Cyclone’s. They certainly think alike.
He wishes to create a tidal wave that will obliterate the city and everyone living in it in his first act of tyrant. He will not stop until the world is dust under his feet and humans are crushed. But little does he know that help is coming for the humans.
Red Tornado hands Batman a scrambler that will stun his former son and give him enough of a chance to stop him. It’s all they can do if he will not see the error of his ways.
Red Tornado and Tornado Tyrant do battle, but Batman quickly realizes with his friend that he is much stronger than he was before.
“I’ve moved beyond you.”
The upgrades have beefed his strength up, but he is otherwise the same child-like robot as before just now dressed in stronger armor.
Though he easily thrashes his former father, he can’t seem to stop him from getting back up again. Red Tornado tries to tell him the value of humans to dream, to live, to love, and to reach out for something better than their individual needs, but his former son has moved beyond interest in such trivialities.
Not even his father will stand in his way.
“Declaration: You cannot mock love, for it was love that created you.”
“You are a fool.”
Before he can deliver the final blow to his father, Batman swings in and inserts the electronic scrambler into Tyrant’s head and brings him back to the ground again. It might be their only chance in the chaos of the deadly storm, and Red tornado refuses to wait. He rushes in with a speed he didn’t know he had.
He charges into his former son with his full strength and punches into him- cracking open his chest. Batman rolls out of the way, fully knowing what is coming.
Red Tornado has landed the fatal blow.
His son is dead.
“Father.”
The battle is over, but the damage has been done.
Back in the lab, Red Tornado melts down the remains of Tornado Tyrant and what remained of his son. He believes he never should have done such a thing in the first place; he never should have played with the nature of human existence. But somehow we and Batman know that he’s fooling himself. He knows more about humans than he lets on.
Batman tells him what he should have already known from back when he first wanted to create his son. That he understood the value of life and the depths of the soul better than most humans he had ever met. He basically is one himself- more than his son was, anyway.
In seeking to make his own son, he found his own humanity, but Red Tornado won’t have it. He lies again to Batman saying that he was only parroting what he had learned in human art and everyday life and what lay underneath the surface that he had picked up. He didn’t really understand them. But then why did he lie? If he was only circuits and wires, how could he pick up things he couldn’t process? There is more to him than maybe even what he himself thinks.
“You okay?”
“Why would I not be?”
“… Take care, Tornado.”
His son had the emotions and the logic, but he was missing something- the soul that Red Tornado had that pulled them together and brought out the love that made him want his son in the first place. While his son had rejected everything life could have brought him (like Silver Cyclone had), Red Tornado embraced humanity and earned his love and suffering that brought him to be who he was.
The title might have been a reference to the idea that Champion hailed to his emotions to become the tyrant that he grew to become- but it was his choice to embrace them. Red Tornado and Batman did all they could. Red Tornado might not understand it, people don’t either, but there is something more to him than a soulless robot. It’s the very same thing that makes him a hero and not the monsters Silver Cyclone or Tornado Tyrant were. But Tornado Champion was still his son, and he still failed him. It isn’t as easy as looking on the bright-side. Not this time.
Batman leaves his friend to grieve, but tornado has no intention of letting it get to him. He is just a machine, he tells himself. But then why does he care so much?
“Oily discharge- I must run an interior diagnostic.”
Not necessary, Tornado.
Red Tornado leaves the lab for the dark and walks back out into the night. Maybe next time. Maybe next time, he will do better. There’s always a next time as long as there’s life.
Until next time, Bat-fans! Same brave blog, same bold place!