Terra (DC Comics)

Terra is the name used by three fictional superheroines published by DC Comics. The first Terra, Tara Markov, is an antiheroine for the Teen Titans eventually revealed to actually be a supervillainess working as a double agent for Deathstroke. She was created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, and debuted in New Teen Titans #26 (December 1982).

The second Terra, a doppelgänger of Tara Markov, debuted in New Titans #79 (September 1991) and was created by Marv Wolfman and Tom Grummett.

The third Terra, Atlee, debuted in Supergirl (vol. 5) #12 (January 2007) and was created by Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, and Amanda Conner.

Tara Markov
Tara Markov, half-sister of Brion Markov (Geo-Force), was the illegitimate daughter of the King of Markovia. While in Markovia, she came under the care of a Dr. Helga Jace and, through her experiments, Terra obtained Earth manipulation powers—specifically, the ability to control all forms of earthen matter. After obtaining these powers, her father requested that she leave Markovia for the United States, to prevent the scandal of the king having an illegitimate daughter from becoming public. Unlike her more heroic brother, Geo-Force, Terra had deep-rooted psychological issues including malignant narcissism, believing that, with their powers, they should rule Earth rather than help the weaker masses.

As a result of this belief, Terra became a hitwoman, doing dirty work for others. A notable client was Deathstroke the Terminator, who she met when she was fifteen and with whom she had a relationship. She joined the Teen Titans, fooling them by staging a battle against Deathstroke. She then operated as a spy for Deathstroke, eventually giving him the information he needed to kidnap the Titans, with no regrets.

Eventually, the captured Titans were held in a stronghold of Deathstroke's contractors, the H.I.V.E.; Nightwing, and Deathstroke's son, Joseph Wilson (Jericho), raided the complex to rescue them, but were captured. When presented to Deathstroke and the organization in general, Jericho possessed his father and freed the Titans, who then attacked the H.I.V.E. Not knowing of Jericho's powers, Terra believed Deathstroke to have turned against her. In retaliation, she went berserk. When the misunderstanding was cleared, she was still murderously furious at Deathstroke for going "soft" with love for his son. Changeling (better known as Beast Boy), in an attempt to stop her rampage, shape-shifted into a small fly, then flew into her eye as a way to distract her. This finally pushed her over the edge as she pulled the whole H.I.V.E. complex down upon herself while trying to kill the Titans. Despite the discovery of her true intentions of joining them, a statue of her was placed in the memorial in Titans Tower. Her true activities were never made public, with her brother simply being told that she had died in battle. Subsequently, Batman eventually revealed the truth to him in an issue of Batman and the Outsiders, prompting Brion to change his costume to green and gold, as he considered the original brown and orange too similar to the outfit worn by his sister.

In DCU: Last Will and Testament, Deathstroke takes credit for Terra's insanity by claiming he gave her the same serum he used on Cassandra Cain and his daughter, Rose Wilson, telling Geo-Force that "the problem with Terra was that we waited too long. By then the psychosis was so bad, she tried to kill us all." This contradicts his earlier account of her lifelong insanity in the Titans stories following "The Judas Contract," although it is possible that Terra had mental issues from the start and that Deathstroke's serum served to exacerbate them, to the point where Terra had her psychotic break that resulted in her death.

The 2008 Terra miniseries had intended to explain that Terra was driven insane by an element called "quixium" harvested from Strata, which had been used by Markovian scientists to grant her earth-based superpowers. With a year-long delay in the publication of the Terra miniseries and the interim release of DCU: Last Will and Testament, this plot point was dropped completely. According to Justin Gray, "Terra 1 stays as she is in LW&T. The brain damage was part of the initial story (before LW&T) that connected all three Terras and Geo-Force to Strata, the book needed to be changed to reflect LW&T, the double ship made changes to issue #2 impossible. It happens and we all did what we could to make it work."

Doppelgänger
Terra was introduced as a young girl from the early 21st century who had been exposed to a DNA virus designed to transform her into a genetic doppelgänger of the original Terra. As part of the Team Titans, Terra went back in time to the year 1992 to stop the birth of Teen Titan Donna Troy's firstborn son, who would grow up to be the tyrannical Lord Chaos.

Terra shared a mutual attraction to the Teen Titan Changeling. Unfortunately, despite their attraction, Changeling was openly hostile towards Terra II due to his own emotional scars from being used by the original Terra.

The final issues of Team Titans revealed that the group's mysterious "leader" was Hank Hall, former Titan Hawk, who became the renegade time-traveling villain Monarch. His attempts to erase the universe from existence as part of Hal Jordan's plan to remake the universe during "Zero Hour" resulted in the erasing of the future that gave birth to the Team Titans. Only Terra and Mirage survived due to the aid of the Time Trapper.

After the events of "Zero Hour," Terra and Mirage joined the main Teen Titans team. Once there, they were told that they, along with fellow time traveler Deathwing (an evil version of Dick Grayson from the Lord Chaos future timeline), were really from the present day. The Time Trapper had whisked them away from the present to place them within Monarch's army of Titans in order to keep track of Monarch's schemes.

After New Titans was canceled, Terra remained in limbo until the 1998 revival of the Teen Titans. In the 1999 Titans Secret Files special, Terra visits Geo-Force and undergoes genetic tests to determine her identity. When she expresses her fears that she is the original Terra, Geo-Force (who discovers that the test results confirm only what was previously known, that she was a genetic match for his sister) informs her that she is not his sister and destroys the test results. Later, under circumstances which have yet to be explained, Terra also becomes affiliated with the Outsiders.

In the "Titans Tomorrow" storyline, the Titans glimpse a grim possible future, and Terra (in a costume modeled closely after her original) is a member of the Titans East, a more benign rival group that opposes the fascist future versions of the current Teen Titans. This future's version of Beast Boy, calling himself Animal Man, still bears a grudge against Terra and wants nothing to do with her.

Terra is one of the many Titans who answer the summon to help Conner Kent defeat Superboy-Prime in Infinite Crisis #4, working with Sand to hit Prime with a mass of earth in an attempt to stop him.

Atlee
Atlee hails from an intra-terrestrial race of people that live deep below the planet's surface. Her people's culture are intrinsically tied to the sanctity of the Earth, and they occasionally take measures to insure that the ecosystem is protected. To this end, Atlee was given geokinetic powers based upon the genetic template of her predecessor, Tara Markov. Taking human form, she rose to the surface world and began adventuring as a super-hero.

Taking the name Terra, she hit the streets of New York determined to help out those in need. In one of her first adventures, she teamed up with Supergirl to fight an evolved, talking dinosaur known as an Empathosaur from wreaking havoc near a trendy New York Nightclub.

Terra then popped up in Broomfield, Virginia where she helped a subterranean race known as the Illumi-Mites avoid being crushed by a collapsing tunnel. She then flew to the South Pacific where she encountered a more aggressive subterranean race, the Lavarians. While stopping the Lavarians from terrorizing a nearby village, Terra met the JSA member known as Power Girl. After the fight, Power Girl took Terra back to JSA Headquarters, where Doctor Mid-Nite ran a battery of tests on her. He determined that Terra was a genetic match of the original Tara Markov.

Terra then traveled to Markovia to assist Geo-Force against a necromancer known as Deadcoil. Geo-Force was infected by Deadcoil's possessive powers, and Terra was forced to bring him to her homelands so he could recuperate.

Terra and Geo-Force then teamed up to stop super-powered Richard Faulkner from destroying all of Strata.

Shortly thereafter, Terra resumed her friendship with Power Girl who helped her to assimilate to life on the surface world. The two teamed up together to tackle Satana and her animal-men cronies and later, they embroiled themselves in a fight with Solomon Grundy.

She was later seen with several other young super-heroes in Los Angeles when they were ambushed by the villains known as the Terror Titans. She was briefly imprisoned at the Dark Side Club and forced to participate in gladiatorial combat. She first fought up against Zatara and later against Aquagirl.

Atlee played a pivotal role in saving New York when the Ultra-Humanite literally uprooted the entire island of Manhattan and held it suspended miles above the ground. While Power Girl severed the two cables anchoring the island to the Humanite's ship, Terra formed the earth below into a giant catcher's mitt, fielding the displaced city and re-rooting to its proper geological position with minimal casualties.

Iago PUC's ideas

 * Terra appears as one of the three core protagonists of Comic Con Incorporated.
 * Tara Markov / Terra appears as a playable character in Marvel/DC Heroes Unite!, voiced by Ashley Johnson. Contrary to her comic book counterpart, this version is depicted as a more heroic figure, with no connection to Deathstroke, and is a member of the Teen Titans. Interactions with her will also reveal that Terra is a Justice League intern training under the mentorship of Superman and Wonder Woman.
 * Five variants of Terra appear as playable characters in Lego Teen Titans.
 * The Tara Markov version is a boss character and antagonist in the main story, voiced by Kari Wahlgren.
 * The Doppelganger / Terra II is a unlockable character, with vocal effects provided by Laura Bailey.
 * The Atlee version of Terra, voiced by Tara Strong, is a main character in a Bonus Level.
 * The game also introduces Terra's more heroic counterpart from Earth-3 (dubbed "T-3" by the Teen Titans), voiced by Ashley Johnson. The character wears a barefoot one-piece leotard based on her green suit from the New 52.
 * The Teen Titans animated series version appears as a major character in the Teen Titans animated series Bonus Level. She along with the TV show's versions of the Titans also appear in the levels' loading screen animations, on which they react to videos of the series' episodes.

Joint ideas

 * Terra appears as a DLC playable character in DC vs. Sega, voiced by Hynden Walch. This version is depicted as having similar history of her counterpart from the Teen Titans animated series, as a metahuman teenager seeking control over her powers, but conflicted over the decision between joining the Teen Titans or becoming Deathstroke's protegee to solve her troubles. In her ending, she manages to earn full control over her powers after defeating Blackseid, who turned out to be the reason her powers were partially unstable. Defeating him, Terra manages to defeat Deathstroke and Infinite after her restored powers allowed her control over the Phantom Ruby in Infinite's possession. Becoming the Ruby's new master, Terra uses it to form her own superhero team, the Terra Squad (consisting of herself, Beast Boy, Vector the Crocodile, a brainwashed Metallo, a reprogramed Egg Golem, and three sentient stone statues based on a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a bison and Superman.
 * Terra appears in the DC Phoenix franchise.