| The Radical | |
| |
| Biographical Information | |
| Real Name | Tom Weathers |
| Aliases | Radical, Mokele Mbembe |
| Gender | Male |
| Class | Ace |
| Wild Card Traits | Superhuman strength and durability, flight, energy projection, metamorphosis, intangibility |
| Social Information | |
| Place of Creation | California, USA |
| Occupation | Activist, revolutionary, terrorist |
| Base of Operations | People's Paradise of Africa |
| Affiliations | Captain Trips avatars |
| Allies | Sprout, Tom Marion Douglas |
| Origin | |
| First Appearance | Wild Cards |
| Final Appearance | Suicide Kings |
| Creator | Victor Milán |
The Radical is one of the avatars of Mark Meadows, a powerful fusion of the five well known people Trips calls his "friends" and possibly one of the strongest aces to ever live.
History[]
The Radical is an alternate personality of Mark Meadows. He first appeared in Berkeley in 1970 after Meadows took LSD for the first time. The Radical showed up at a student demonstration in People's Park which had turned into a riot after the National Guard attempted to break it up. Radical helped the ace Thomas Marion Douglas fight the conservative ace Hardhat. After defeating Hardhat and the National Guard, Radical and Douglas participated in an orgy with other protesters including Kimberly Anne Cordayne. The next morning the Radical reverted to Mark Meadows. Meadows spent the next decades searching for a way to bring back Radical.
Radical next appeared in the mid 1990s after Meadows' time in Vietnam. Now calling himself Tom Weathers, Radical was the permanent personality. Weathers, with Meadows' daughter Sprout in tow, travelled the world attaching himself to various leftist causes. However, his instability and the lack of ideological convictions among his compatriots always lead to a falling out.
In the early 21st century, Weathers had gained control of all of the powers of Meadows' friends, effectively becoming one of the most powerful aces in the world. Arriving in the People's Paradise of Africa, a new Marxist state in central Africa, he allied himself with President-for-Life Nshombo and became the chief enforcer for the regime. Soon after the PPA came into conflict with the Caliphate, Weathers was targeted by the teleporting British ace Noel Matthews. Matthews shot and grievously wounded him, but he was healed by a local ace Our Lady of Pain. Later, Matthews and Weathers fought over the American ace known as Little Fat Boy, and Matthews ended up kidnapping Sprout to lure Weathers into a prisoner exchange.
Weathers became increasingly paranoid after this confrontation, sent Sprout into hiding with a nanny, and took to sleeping in a different location every night. He vowed revenge on Matthews, whom he only knew under his pseudonym as the Arabic ace Bahir. In the meantime, Weathers oversaw the PPA's fighting against the Caliphate in Sudan. In this capacity he made use of several ace child soldiers whom the PPA had forcibly infected with the wild card virus.
Eventually, Weathers was sent to Paris in disguise as a PPA envoy to a peace conference with the Caliphate hosted by the Committee. However, Weathers blew his cover when he was informed by Jonathan Tipton-Clarke that Noel Matthews, who was at the conference, was actually Weathers' enemy Bahir. Weathers flew into a rage and attempted to kill Matthews, who promptly teleported away. He was then attacked by the dozen or so assembled aces and was nearly killed before escaping.
After he recovered, Weathers was manipulated by Noel Matthews into thinking that President Nshombo had looted the PPA treasury and killed the man. Then while confronting some UN sponsored aces he was forced to transform into Meadows' alternate persona Monster. While his own persona was submerged he was confronted by Meadows and forced into submission.
Wild Card Traits[]
In his first appearance in People's Park in 1970, The Radical exhibited only enhanced agility and superhuman strength, swinging his golden medallion around as a defensive weapon. Since his return in 1993, the Radical has displayed a much wider range of abilities, combining many powers of Captain Trips' various 'friends.' He has power of flight (a power possessed by the majority of Mark's friends), Aquarius's cetacean form, Jumpin' Jack Flash's fire-based powers, Moonchild's regenerative healing and martial arts skills, Cosmic Traveler's insubstantiality and Starshine's sunbeams and "hyperflight," moving at faster-than-light speeds to jaunt about the globe.
There is a certain degree of variability to the Radical's powers. Initially, Radical's strength was only twice that of the most powerful nat, but this ace trait has seemingly increased over the years of his career from 1993 to the present. Also since his return Radical has been shown to employ his peace medallion as an offensive weapon, breaking bones and severing limbs. When the Peace medallion is hurled at a foe, Radical can use some sort of telekinetic power to call it back to his hand. This aspect of the Radical's powers was never demonstrated during his first appearance.
Utilizing Cosmic Traveler's insubstantiality constituted a severe drain on Radical's energy reserves and led to him nearly being killed when he tried to use it in conjunction with an energy blast. Instead of blasting and allowing a missile to pass through him Radical was hurled from the sky by the missile's explosion. Though not killed outright, this would have been fatal were it not for the healing powers he inherited from Moonchild. This was another sign of his powers' variability, surviving an explosion long enough for Moonchild's night-based healing to go into effect, but succumbing almost instantly to a few well placed gunshots from Noel Matthews. The key factor might be that Matthews struck from ambush whereas Radical was prepared for the missile strike.
Appearance[]
When the Radical first appeared in the 1970, he was a tall and slender youth with shoulder length blond hair and a pair of faded jeans. He wore his signature glowing golden Peace-sign Medallion over his shirtless chest. The Radical looked and acted like the perfect hippie revolutionary.
In 1993, Mark Meadows transformed back into the Radical and, unlike the rest of Mark's friends, did not revert back to Meadows' form after an hour. Radical's physical appearance is exactly the same as it was when he disappeared after his first and only appearance in People's Park in 1970, when he battled Hardhat. Since then he has continued to age normally.
Personality[]
The original Radical was a peace-loving idealist and the embodiment of youthful energy. By the standards of the 60s counterculture he was hip and heroic, using his ace powers to protect other youthful protesters, though somewhat prone to speaking in "all you need is love" platitudes. Perhaps as a result of Mark Meadows's growing disillusionment with his long cherished pacifist principles, the modern day Radical known as Tom Weathers was a jaded revolutionary that believed no excess was too much. Weathers not only endorsed killing and terrorism as legitimate tools of political change, he took actual pleasure in them.
Trivia[]
- Radical appears to be the only "friend" of Mark Meadows not named after a popular song from the 60s.
Selected Reading[]
- Wild Cards Volume I: Wild Cards - "Transfigurations"
- Wild Cards Volume XV: Black Trump
- Wild Cards Volume XIX: Busted Flush
- Wild Cards Volume XX: Suicide Kings