Lesser Known Characters I Love: Terra

Welcome to week 2 of Lesser Known Characters I Love. This week’s character we are going to look at is Terra. 

Um, no. Not that one.

*Sigh* Not that one either. The Terra I am talking about is the newest Terra.

Ok, good. Yes, that is the one. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Atlee. She is the creation of writer Jimmy Palmiotti, co-writer Justin Gray, and artist Amanda Conner. Yes, this is my copies cover. I was able to ask Jimmy Palmiotti about the creation of Terra is a twitter post. He responded with the following.

Basically, this means that DC wanted the new character to play off the old, to help get old readers who liked Terra to like this new one. At least that is what I take from it.

Terra first showed up in Supergirl Volume 5, issue 12. The basic story of this issue is Supergirl is having second thoughts about being a superhero. While Supergirl is dancing at a New York night club, a talking dinosaur with psychic powers (yeah I know, but just go with it) attacks the city. Supergirl quickly gets into costume to fight the beast, only to see someone else already fighting Empathosaur. And yes, that is the creature’s name. This is the first time readers got to see Terra. Sadly, I do not have this issue, and no, it is not from lack of looking.

After this issue, Terra got her own mini-series. The series had a total of 4 books in it and served to explain who Terra, or Atlee, is rather then be just a superhero romp. There was a bad guy and all but really that was the B plot, or at least that is what it felt like. The story on Terra is that she was a being from beneath the Earth. The world under ours is one of strange creatures but mostly ones who just want to be left alone. But at the same time, these creatures know that they someday must face the surface walkers. So they inject one of their own with the famous Terra’s blood (with some science babble thrown in for good measure) and they make this Terra. After her mini-series run, Terra found a home in Power Girl Comics, which were, at the time, also drawn and written by Amanda and Jimmy.

Weird back story aside, I love this girl. She is fun, energetic, and she just wants to do some good. She likes to dance at clubs, she hates scary movies, and most of the time she wants to do the hitting in the super fights. The expressions Terra makes are one of an innocence that many heroes forget about. Terra is still new to our world and it shows.

But I do feel that the character Terra would not be anywhere near as fun a character if she did not have Power Girl to play off of. Like I said, Terra mostly graced the pages of Power Girl as Power Girl’s partner. I will not call Terra a sidekick. When Jimmy wrote any conversation between the two of them, you can just feel the sisterly love they have for each other. Even more so when you remember all the issues Power Girl has with being Power Girl (and that is a whole Can of Worms I am not going to open).

But now that I talked about why I like this character so much, with the good news there must be bad news. With the new 52 relaunch of DC, a lot of characters I loved who never got noticed or went anywhere have been tossed to the wayside. This includes Terra as well. Karen Starr, Power Girl’s secret ID, is gracing the pages of the new Mister Terrific comic. But in this comic, she is only Karen Starr. And with Terra’s only real friend now a powerless support character in another comic, there seems to be little chance right now about my favorite geopath coming back. If I get a job at DC (and I am applying so this is not an empty threat) I am going to do what I can to bring Terra and other characters I loved back.

But until then, I hope this helps you know more about a Lesser Known Character I Love.

All images (c) DC