User:SGCommand/Torquemada (comics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Torquemada | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Torquemada is the main villain from Nemesis the Warlock.
Contents |
[edit] History
Terra was once controlled by two religions: The Worm which became a symbol of the cosmic mother and The Termite which saw men as mere insects, obsessed with work, while women were like the queen termite: looked up to in theory, but in practice nothing more than submissive breeding machines.
Then Torquemada came: He persecuted "The Worm" cult and declared himself the chief of the Terran Tube Police and the Termite Religion. He even renamed the capital "Termight".
During the rise of Torquemada's armies, The Terminators, science as well as Extraterrestrial life, was blamed for the disasters that had befallen earth. Books were burnt, laboratories and computers smashed and thousands of boffins were butchered in the Anti-Scientist Riots.
Torquemada meanwhile had met and fell in love with a woman named Candida. Eventually they were married, and despite Tomas' little quirks, Candida stood by her husband. Eventually she produced the heirs to the throne, Pandora and Barbarossa. Then Torquemada was reduced to spirit form in a Travel Wire accident. Discovering his ability to possess the dead, Torquemada put it to good use, rooting out resistance fighters, as well as taking care of any pretenders to his throne.
Many Humans looked to the mysterious alien known as Nemesis for salvation from Torquemada's iron rule'. After their first major battle, the Grand Master's spirit was weakened but not extinguished and he rose up again in time to wreck any overtures of peace. With the help of one of his most fiercely loyal Terminators, Brother Baruda, Torquemada's spirit possessed the body of Zelotes, a spider-like alien and caretaker of the prison planet Arachnos. He used the disguise to usurp Nemesis' position in the Cabal of alien races and initiate total war between them and Termight. A female Warlock, Manga eventually betrayed the location of Nemesis' wife and son for her own ends, and The Grand Master immediately dispatched a squad of Terminator assassins to the planet Gandarva. Unknown to anyone, however, was that the lead assassin, Sir Hargan, had brought the Warlock's son, Thoth, back to Termight.
However, Torquemada's body-hopping spirit form joined his Terminators for the siege of The Gothic Empire - a race of aliens influenced by radio signals from earth, and who had become to believe themselves human. Torquemada disagreed and set out to cleanse the empire allying himself with the daughter of Space Admiral Beatty, Ursa, and Colonel Starblower, 2 young Goths who had heard the later signals from Earth.
In return for helping him assassinate the Goth Queen Victoria, and securing a new and permanent body, Torquemada agreed to hand over control of the entire Gothic Empire to his allies. The assassination attempt failed, thanks to Nemesis, but the Goths led by Professor Frankenstein had discovered why host bodies kept rejecting Torquemada's spirit and decided to make him a body from corpses of dead Goths. Torquemada agreed. However, the Goths had other ideas: they wanted to claim Earth as their inheritance. With the Grand Master now trapped inside his permanant and motionless body, they planned to keep control of him with mind control drugs, and use him as a puppet to rule the Terran Empire. Torquemada, however, had planned for this and, once he was back on his feet, quickly rid himself of his helpers.
Following yet another showdown with Nemesis, the new super-body was caught in a laser blast, and the alien DNA began to mutate, revealing Torquemada's own deviancy to all. Delighted by the irony, Nemesis allowed the Terminators to murder his hated enemy for him. Unknown to Nemesis, Torquemada managed to convince his former followers to listen to him. He asked for a sword, so he could cleanse himself of his deviancy, and become a martyr in the process. The 'official' story of his death became that he had perished during the conflict with The Goths. The actual events surrounding his death were, for obvious reasons, never revealed.
[edit] Reborn
Ten years passed, and Termight changed drastically. Though Torquemada was still honoured and revered, his ideals and philosophies concerning aliens had been more or less abandoned in favour of a more open and friendly approach. His wife, Candida, having lost her imperial position with the rise of the new Grand Master, Krassan, and the real power behind the throne Grand Dragon Mazarin, was now re-inventing herself as a media heavyweight, and using this position to groom her son Barbarossa for the throne. Thoth, meanwhile, had let his hatred for his father, Nemesis and Torquemada grow.
Quickly learning the secrets of Termight, Thoth discovered the Time Wastes, and the ability to control time itself. Finally, when he was confident enough, he began to wreak his vengeance. He took the opportunity to pull Torquemada from an earlier point in time and let him loose on the now alien-friendly Termight. Branded a blasphemer when he was captured and proclaimed to be the real Torquemada, Grand Dragon Mazarin discovered the truth and immediately ordered Torquemada burnt at the stake for heresy, as a way to keep the status quo the planet had reached. However, once the Grand Master's remains were carried away, he was led back to the stake to repeat the nightmare all over again. Catching sight of his wife gave him some hope, but even she refused to believe he was who he claimed. But worse was to come for Torquemada.
Nemesis, having found out that his son Thoth was still alive, came to Termight to find him, but was caught up in a conflict with the Tube Police. The Warlock managed to escape and find the former apartment of Sir Hargan where he witnessed the burning of Torquemada, and realised what was happening. With the help of Purity Brown and Candida, he mounted a rescue mission. Nemesis saved his enemy from the time loop, and the two formed an unholy alliance.
Reunited with his beloved Candida, Torquemada's celebrations were cut short after discovering that his children were accidently killed by Nemesis during the earlier escape. Burying his burning desire for vengeance, Torquemada was forced to lead Nemesis and the ABC Warriors into the Time Wastes to find Thoth and re-discover the extent of his evil at the end of the world.
[edit] The Truth
Discovering that Torquemada and his elder brother, Nostradamus, had travelled forward through time to the end of the world, only to discover that the human race of that era had regressed and had returned to the sea. The Terminators discovered that the Primords (the name given to future man) were composed of a hydrocarbon fluid similar to oil. It was exactly the source of energy that Torquemada needed to power his engines of destruction, and so purification plants were set up to pump and refine future man, flaring off the "useless" spirits into the atmosphere, filling the air with screaming as they were separated from their bodies. The spirits did not die however but were flared up into the atmosphere to form a vast intelligence, a huge mind cloud of electro-magnetic energy, an evil intelligence, twisted by the pain of purification. It was the quintessence of human evil: The Monad. The humans of the era fought back, causing Torquemada to flee, and leave his brother behind to the fate of the Time Wastes. Somehow, Nostradamus crawled out of the Wastes, his mind and body horribly disfigured. Torquemada spared no time in making sure he was locked safely away, so no one would ever know the truth about "Grandfather" Nostradamus.
[edit] Rise to power
Sickened with Torquemada after battling The Monad and losing Candida to insanity, Nemesis decied to turn Torquemada over to his men, and let them decide his fate. Instead he quickly took control of his men, and succeeded in turning them against Mazarin. The Grand Dragon was tortured to death.
Once he had returned to Termight, Torquemada proclaimed himself a god. Taking his throne once more, he realised he had lost his beloved Candida forever, and so took it upon himself to find a new wife who could sire him an heir. He found her in the form of Sister Sturn, one his most ardent followers. Murdering her husband, Brother Sturn, Torquemada quickly married her, and soon she gave birth to a son, Atilla De Torquemada.
Torquemadathen discovered that his body had begun to decay for and so ordered the ever faithful Brother Mikron to discover the cause of the problem. Brother Mikron discovered that something was attacking Torquemada's Ka and quickly realised that Thoth was travelling back through time again and killing all of Torquemada's earlier incarnations, with the help of Satanus.
Finally tracking down The Warlock and his foul offspring in the time of the Spanish Inquisition, Torquemada laid plans for the demise of his hated enemy. After meeting with the original Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Master quickly siezed power over the Spanish Inquisition, and used his namesake as bait to lure Thoth and Nemesis into the open. Soon discovering where the Warlock and his offspring were hiding out, he took advantage of their temporary inability to use magic and murdered Thoth before the very eyes of Nemesis. In retaliation, Nemesis welded the joints of Torquemada's armour together with a fireball and proceeded to unleash the "power of the flies". Millions of flies swarmed through the open vents and joints of the armour, and began to feast on the decaying flesh inside. The Grand Master was trapped in the smallest prison in the world, being eaten alive.
His loyal Terminators got him back to his Auto Da Fe where Brother Mikron developed a risky plan to free him, by diverting power from the engines into a single point of white heat. With no need to strap Torquemada down, Mikron began to cut open the armour. With torment from the flies, the intense heat and the molten metal on his decaying flesh, Torquemada was in agony, but was finally free after Mikron cut his way in. With his hatred to distract him from the pain, Torquemada managed to take control of his ship and escape through a time lock into a new time zone: 20th Century Britain.
[edit] In Britain
Thoth's meddling with time had weakened the walls of reality, and aliens were seeping through. With a ten year head start over his enemy, Torquemada had time to make plans and put them to effective use. As well as setting up a successful chain of boarding houses across the land, he used his legenday orartory skills to put together the Oy Boys, a group not unlike his Terminators, dedicated to weeding out the deviants that were leaking through. From there, he was appointed head of the Reality Police by the government.
It was then that he met a student named Jennifer, who was the exact double of Candida. Convincing Jennifer to return to Termight with him, things didn't go quite according to plan and she abandond him shortly after fighting the Warlock again. However, he managed to turn Nemesis' most faithful ally, Purity, against him. With the seeds of doubt now cast in her mind, Purity betrayed Nemesis, but also betrayed her new "ally", and let the two of them fight it out. Torquemada escaped and returned once again back to Termight.
Unfortunately for the Grand Master, it came sooner than he had planned. In a hollow bid to assure the people of Termight he was still in control, he rode through the Travel Tubes on horseback, accompanied by some of his men. They were attacked by a strange and horrible creature which Torquemada slayed single-handedly. He knew sorcery was behind the monstrosity, but could find no one willing to own up up to its creation until Nemesis arrived. Their battle was short and ended with Torquemada losing a hand. The Warlock then placed Termight under a magical shroud that reflected all the fear and hatred back onto the planet - fear and hatred that Torquemada had created. Meanwhile Candida continued to languish in her asylum cell for many years, with only the TV and the insane ramblings of "Grandfather" Nostradamus for company, until one day she was visited by a travelling musician who played for her the music of the spheres, and brought her back to sanity. The musician was turned out to be Nemesis in disguise, making his next move against Torquemada. Both Candida and Nemesis plotted to humiliate Torquemada during the inevitable re-marriage.
Delighted by Candida's recovery, Tomas dealt with his current wife and planned a state wedding, which ended with Candida and Nemesis fleeing the temple together before worldwide media coverage. Humiliated, the Grand Master vowed the final showdown with The Warlock was coming.
[edit] The final days
However, before he could extract revenge, his evil reign was overthrown and a new alien-friendly regime was introduced by the revolutionary leader, Purity Brown. Horrified by this unthinkable turn of events, Torquemada managed to steal Nemesis' Blitzspear and head for the Hypogeum to find a final solution, with Nemesis in pursuit. Torquemada succeeded in almost killing Nemesis during the chase and arrived at his destination activating the "Generation Bomb" (a device that would only destroy aliens and any humans contaminated with alien DNA) on Terra. But Nemesis managed to arrive at the Hypogeum and rake Torquemada with his claws infecting him with alien DNA. The Warlock then called on his remaining necromantic powers to make sure both he and his hated enemy would become the event horizon for the bomb. Through this spell, Torquemada, Nemesis and the Blitzspear became moulded together as one and hurled into the Spirit world.
Since then, the ghostly ship drives through the tube for all eternity into the galaxy beyond and then returns back to Earth again and again and again...
[edit] Family
Torquemada's family members have included:
- Murcalla De Torquemada (mother, alive}
- Nostradamus De Torquemada (brother, alive)
- Candida De Torquemada (first wife, alive)
- Barbarossa De Torquemada (son, dead)
- Pandora De Torquemada (daugter, dead)
- Sister Sturn (second wife, dead)
- Atilla De Torquemada (son, alive)
[edit] Publication
As well as appearing in Nemesis the Warlock he has appeared in his own eponymous series:
- Nemesis the Warlock (by Pat Mills):
- "A Day in the Death of Torquemada" (with Kevin O'Neill, in 2000 AD Annual 1984, 1983)
- "Torquemurder (Book VI) Part 1" (with Bryan Talbot, in 2000 AD #482-487, 1986)
- "Torquemurder (Book VI) Part 2" (with Bryan Talbot, in 2000 AD #500-504, 1986-1987)
- "The Two Torquemadas (Book VII)" (with John Hicklenton, in 2000 AD #546-557, 1987-1988)
- "The Tomb of Torquemada" (with Kevin O'Neill, in Poster Prog Nemesis #1, 1994)
- Torquemada (by Pat Mills):
- "The Garden of Alien Delights" (with Bryan Talbot, in Dice Man #3, 1986)
- "Torquemada's Second Honeymoon" (with Kevin O'Neill, in 2000 AD Annual 1988, 1987)
[edit] Trivia
Torquemada is named after and inspired by Tomás de Torquemada.
