Tara Markov (Teen Titans TV Series)

Her name was Terra. She was gifted with tremendous power and cursed with it as well. She was a dangerous enemy and a good friend. And she was one of the bravest people I have ever known.

— Beast Boy ^src

Terra is a teenager who possesses the power to manipulate the earth around her.

History

Origin

Tara Markov and her brother Brion Markov were the children of the king of Markovia. Tara, herself a princess, had trouble fitting in with the rules and responsibilities of her position growing up.

At some point, Tara and her brother were involved in a science experimented orchestrated by General Immortus to make them superheroes. The experiments were a success, and both Markov siblings received powers to control rocks. Though Brion was a natural with his powers, Tara struggled to control them and, fearing for the safety of her family, fled to the United States to start a new life. There, she took the alias "Terra" and remained on the run from her past until she reached the California town of Jump City. ^[1]

Teen Titans

With these powers, she always attempted to do good and help others. However, Terra lacked proper control over her abilities, and when she lost that control, avalanches and earthquakes would devastate the land and people around her. As such, Terra was constantly on the run, never having a real home, or real friends.

The Teen Titans first came across Terra in a nearby desert, mistaking her for an innocent civilian being chased by a giant scorpion. Terra quickly showed her powers to the heroes, revealing that she had been merely leading the creature into a trap, and easily disposed of it. Terra then introduced herself to the team, who quickly took a liking to the girl. When Terra revealed that she had been living in a cave nearby, Starfire and Beast Boy insisted that she spend the night with them at Titan's Tower, to which she reluctantly agreed. As she got settled, she overheard the other Titans discussing the idea of having her train with them tomorrow, and snuck out during the night.

Beast Boy found Terra outside of the Tower, and the two sat together and bonded. Terra wanted to leave, fearing that she would lose control of her powers again, but after some prodding from Beast Boy, she agreed to hang around for one more day. However, when Beast Boy mentioned the idea of her using her powers to their fullest, she briefly lost control of them, sending Beast Boy falling to the ground. Terra immediately panicked and begged Beast Boy not to tell anyone about her lack of control, to which he promised not to tell a soul.

The next day, Terra trained on the Titans' new obstacle course, passing their test with flying colours, all while maintaining control of her powers. Before they could celebrate, the group discovered Slade had resurfaced once again, targeting a mining facility underground. The Titans rushed off to find him, and Beast Boy asked Terra to join them, which she joyfully agreed to.

The Titans confronted a group of Slade's mechanical minions and fought them off, with Terra helping in their efforts. However, as Terra fought, she began losing control of her powers once again, and accidentally crushed Beast Boy in rubble. After dealing with the rest of the army around her, Terra began to panic and ran into the tunnels to regain her composure. It was here that Terra discovered Slade running through the tunnels, and she ran off to face him, cutting off his escape. Slade then collapsed the ceiling on the other side of the tunnel, trapping the two of them together.

Terra was forced to fight Slade alone, and even with her powers, she could barely hold her own. Slade, instead of going for a finishing blow, revealed that he had been watching Terra for some time now, and knew all about her history, and her inability to control her powers. Slade offered to be a teacher for Terra, to help her control her powers, but Terra remained hesitant, not willing to side with the Titans' enemy. Slade, however, told Terra that she couldn't trust the Titans, that they would turn on her when they discovered her secret, and that Beast Boy would break his promise to her. This pushed Terra over the edge, and she lost all control over her powers, causing a massive earthquake through the mining facility. Slade used the opportunity to escape, and Terra was saved by Beast Boy, who helped her to regain her composure, and reaffirmed his promise to not tell anyone.

Once the group returned to the Tower, Terra prepared to say goodbye and leave. Before she could leave, the Titans revealed that they had decided to offer her a full-time position on the time, although Robin said that Terra would still need more training in order to gain full control over her powers. Thinking that Beast Boy had broken his promise and told the other Teen Titans, Terra freaked out on him and stormed out of the Tower, not realising that Robin had pieced it together on his own, and Beast Boy never told anyone.

Terra sought out Slade in order to finally gain control over her abilities. True to his word, Slade took Terra in and became her teacher. In time, Terra had not only gained full control of her powers, but she had developed her skills with them even further, growing far stronger in the process. However, to return the favour, Slade gave Terra a mission: she would return to the Teen Titans, join their ranks, learn everything she could about them, and when the time was right, help Slade to destroy the team. Believing that she owed Slade everything, Terra agreed.

Some time later, Terra returned to the Teen Titans, who were largely overjoyed to see her again. However, when she revealed that she wished to take them up on their previous offer, the team was hesitant due to Terra's previous outburst about her powers. Terra then gave them a full display of her abilities, revealing her perfect control over what she could do. Before they could discuss things further, the Titans received a distress call, finding three giant, mechanical worms burrowing beneath the city. As the team ran out, Robin requested Terra's help, causing her to run by and brush Raven. This inadvertently gave Raven visions of Terra and Slade, fuelling Raven's suspicions over the girl.

As the Titans fought the worm, Terra attempted to throw an enormous boulder at the machine, which Raven tried to stop, fearing it was too dangerous. The struggle between the two led to the boulder exploding and the worm escaping, only increasing the friction between the two girls. The Titans split up, with Terra and Raven joining Robin to hunt down Slade. Terra and Raven reluctantly worked together to create a tunnel to Slade's hideout, where they discovered that the worms were blasting a series of lasers beneath Titan's Tower, which could sink the island into the ground. As Robin fought Slade on his own, Terra and Raven were left to try and disable the lasers. Terra initially attempted to smash the console controlling them, when Raven took control of her boulder again. Raven scolded Terra over how she was acting, telling the new girl that she would have to earn her trust if she ever wanted to be a Teen Titan. Terra then opted to trust Raven, relinquishing her control over the boulder. However, the console ended up buried in rubble anyway, powering up the lasers and revealing that Raven was right. With the Tower sinking into the caves below, the Titans were prepared to retreat and abandon their home, when Terra started holding up the Tower on her own. Seeing what she was doing, Raven joined in, and the two managed to raise the Tower back up to its former place, saving the Teen Titans' base.

Following this mission, Terra cleared the air with Raven, apologising for how she acted, with Raven admitting that she was starting to warm up to Terra. As Terra followed Raven, the Titans surprised her with her own bedroom, and a Communicator; Terra was now an official Teen Titan. As the rest of the team went off to celebrate, Terra stayed in her room, amazed that she had earned their trust.

In the following months, Terra fought alongside the Titans, getting to know their personalities, their fighting styles, their strengths, and their weaknesses. She also gained access to the Tower's security codes. While she helped the Titans, she secretly funnelled all of this information to Slade. Although Terra had come to care for the Titans, especially Beast Boy, the time came when Slade ordered her to shut down their security and strike.

Right after Terra sent Slade the codes to Titans Tower, Beast Boy knocked at her door, revealing a present for her: a heart shaped mirror. Terra was overjoyed with the gift, but when Beast Boy asked her out on a date for that night, Terra refused, shutting the door on him while overwrought with guilt. However, Terra realized that she didn't want to be at the Tower for what was about to happen; she only wanted one more night to be with Beast Boy. Leaving her Communicator behind, Terra floated outside of Beast Boy's room and asked him out, taking him to the outskirts of Jump City. Minutes after the pair left, the Tower was invaded by Slade's army, leaving the remaining four Titans to fight for their lives.

Terra initially took Beast Boy to a pub for some pie, but upon seeing Slade in the mirror, panicked and took Beast Boy out of the restaurant, causing him to drop his Communicator, and leaving him completely in the dark regarding the invasion at the Tower. Desperate to forget about Slade and what she had just done, Terra took Beast Boy to a carnival nearby, where the two grew even closer. While riding in a ferris wheel, Terra contemplated telling Beast Boy the truth, asking him if he would still be her friend, even if he knew something terrible about her. Beast Boy assured Terra that he would, and the two leaned in to kiss. Before they could, unfortunately, Slade interrupted, throwing Beast Boy out of the component and scolding Terra for running away. Beast Boy and Slade fought each other on the ferris wheel, and before Slade could defeat Beast Boy, Terra destroyed the earth beneath the ride, saving Beast Boy and sending Slade into the ground below. Beast Boy grabbed Terra and ran into a nearby House of Mirrors to hide, while Slade followed them.

Realizing that the two of them no longer had their Communicators, Beast Boy resolved to get back to Titan's Tower before Slade could find them. Beast Boy was shocked to hear that Terra had no intention of ever going back to the Tower. Just then, Slade stepped out of the shadows and revealed the truth: Terra was his apprentice. He had helped her to control her powers, then sent her to destroy the Titans from the inside. However, she had grown to care deeply about Beast Boy, and had tried to save him despite her orders. Slade also told him that Terra had deactivated the Tower's security, and that his friends were being destroyed at that very moment. Beast Boy refused to believe a word coming out of Slade's mouth, but Terra confirmed that it was all true. Beast Boy lashed out at Slade, only to be swiftly defeated. Terra still tried to defend Beast Boy, which allowed him to turn into a bear and attack Slade, giving her time to escape. Deep in the House of Mirrors, Terra collapsed and started crying, begging for Beast Boy's forgiveness and insisting that she had never meant for this to happen. She tried to reach out to Beast Boy, reminding him of the promise he had just made, but Beast Boy, heartbroken and angry over her betrayal, rejected her and sided with the Titans.

With nowhere left to go and no one left to trust, Terra gave herself fully to Slade, who continued to train her and develop her powers. In time, with Slade's encouragement, Terra's regret over her actions turned into rage, and she developed a pathological hatred for the Teen Titans, wishing for nothing less than their complete destruction. Equipped with a new suit that linked Terra and Slade, allowing the latter to assist the former in combat and unleash her full potential, Terra was given her next mission: kill the Teen Titans.

Terra ambushed the Titans while they were driving through Jump City, destroying the T-Car in the process. The Titans immediately engaged with their former friend, but they weren't able to fight to the best of their ability, hesitating to hurt the former Titan. Terra exploited this hesitation to her fullest, and dominated their first fight with Slade's assistance. Faced with an army of rock monsters created by Terra and seeing his fellow Titans getting beaten down, Robin ordered a full retreat, blinding Terra and buying the group time to fall back to Titan's Tower.

Shortly after, Terra broke out Overload, Cinderblock, and Plasmus from prison, and placed them under Slade's control. The two of them sent them to three separate locations and enacted the second part of their plan: isolate the Teen Titans. Following Overload's defeat, Terra ambushed Raven and battled her, using Raven's emotions against her. Once Raven lost control of her powers, Terra restrained her and dragged the empath into the mud, making Raven the first Titan to fall. Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy soon followed, leaving Robin to take on Terra on his own.

Robin managed to hunt down Terra and catch her off guard, but he chose to honour Beast Boy's wish and tried to get through to Terra one last time. With his combat proficiency, Robin was briefly able to overtake Terra, but once she began to unleash her powers, Robin was quickly left outmatched. After telling Robin that she doesn't need or want to be rescued, Terra smashed Robin with a boulder, leaving the Teen Titans seemingly destroyed.

With the Titans out of the picture, Jump City was left completely defenceless, and Terra successfully drove the population out of the town, bringing in Slade's armies and preparing to spread their conquest. Unbeknownst to Terra or Slade, the Titans had managed to survive their encounters with the girl, and retreated beneath Titan's Tower, taking time to recover and swearing that they would show Terra no mercy the next time they fought.

As Terra patrolled the abandoned and lifeless Jump City for any signs of the Teen Titans, memories of their time together kept flashing through her mind. Although a piece of the old Terra was still there, she was now firmly under Slade's control. While Terra was relishing in her victory, the Titans struck from the shadows, isolating her from her army and leaving her surrounded. Horrified that the Titans were still alive, Terra attempted in vain to fight back, but was getting hit hard from every angle, with no time to react between blows. As Beast Boy approached her in wolf form, Terra begged for him to stop and talk to her, only to be met with silence. The rest of the Titans emerged from the shadows, telling her that there was nothing left to say, and that the battle was over. Realizing that she was outmatched, Terra retreated.

As Terra attempted to run away, Slade viciously reprimanded her over her earpiece, and order her to fight and win. The moment Terra came out of hiding, the Titans ambushed her once again, and round two began. Although the Teen Titans no longer had the element of surprise on their side, Terra struggled to get in any kind of offence now that the Titans weren't pulling their punches any more. After taking yet another brutal beating from the Titans, Terra begged Slade for help, and Slade sent in Cinderblock, Plasmus, and Overload to hold off the Titans while Terra made her escape.

Upon making it back to Slade's hideout, Slade began to viciously beat Terra for her failure. After taking blow after blow from her master, Terra gave up her place as his apprentice and attempted to take off her suit, only to discover that it had fused to her skin itself. When Terra attempted to leave, Slade revealed another failsafe; learning his lesson from Robin's tenure as his apprentice, Slade took control of Terra's body, while telling her that she would never leave his side. What she didn't know was that Slade could only take control if Terra submitted to him, leaving her to think that she had no power to resist. Being left with no one once again, Terra retreated into the base and broke down.

Terra was discovered by Beast Boy shortly after, who had split off from the other Titans in order to personally find Terra and take her down. Upon seeing Beast Boy, Terra begged for him to kill her, but before he could react, Slade to control of her once again and blasted Beast Boy into the wall. With Terra under Slade's control, the two former best friends fought each other one last time, with Terra pleading for Beast Boy to stop her. Beast Boy insisted that Terra had the power to break out of Slade's control, and just as it was her choice to betray them, it was her choice to give him control of her, which Terra refused to accept. After getting knocked back by Terra, Beast Boy turned his attention to Slade. Before Beast Boy could reach him, Terra managed to pin him down with rocks, leaving him open for Terra to finish off.

Before Terra could kill Beast Boy, the rest of the Titans infiltrated Slade's base and surrounded her, prepared to unleash everything they had on Terra if she brought harm to him. As Slade's orders and the Titans' pleas filled the room, Beast Boy told Terra that it was still her choice, and that it was never too late to change. Apologizing to Beast Boy for everything that she had done, Terra managed to break Slade's control over her and attacked him, leaving the Titans to take care of Beast Boy. With Terra's anger unleashed, Slade was unable to stop his former apprentice, and she used her powers to unintentionally activate a dormant volcano beneath Jump City, sending Slade into the lava, and to his demise.

Although the Titans began their retreat, not seeing a way to save Jump City, Terra refused to go with them, knowing that she was the only one who could stop the volcano. Beast Boy begged for her to come with them, but Terra insisted, telling him "It's never too late." The two shared one final, tearful hug, before Terra sent Beast Boy back to the rest of the Titans. With the group retreating to safety, Terra gathered and unleashed all of her power, and managed to halt the volcano's activity. However, this came at a great cost; the entire cavern had been turned into stone, which included Terra herself.

When the city was repopulated, the Teen Titans returned to her resting place, leaving behind a memorial plaque and a bouquet of flowers to honour her as a Teen Titan, and a friend. Before leaving, they all pledged to find a way to reverse the effect and bring her back one day, with Beast Boy telling Terra that he would never forget her.

Rebirth

After her apparent death, the Titans tried their best to revive Terra from her statue-state. Raven attempted to fix her with magic, while Cyborg tried to heal her with science. However, both methods failed to show results.

Eventually, after the defeat of the Brotherhood of Evil, Beast Boy discovered that Terra had disappeared from her spot in the cave, having been mysteriously returned to life. Terra started a new life, enrolling in a new school in Jump City, leaving her past behind.

Beast Boy was ecstatic to find that Terra was alive and tried to contact her, but she claimed to have no memory of her past with the Titans before her rebirth. Beast Boy was heartbroken but decided it was best to let Terra live the life she wanted, whether he believed she had really lost her memory of them or not.^[2]

Beast Boy talked to Starfire after the fact, and, though they couldn't figure out exactly how Terra came back, Starfire theorized that she had been transformed like a caterpillar into a butterfly, with her apparent death acting as a chrysalis.

Some time after her rebirth, Terra's brother Geo-Force came to Jump City, having cleaned their home country Markovia of crime and sought to bring his sister back with him. Geo-Force attacked the Teen Titans at first, believing the heroes to have been antagonists to his plan. Once they calmed him down, Beast Boy showed Geo-Force what he had found earlier - that his Terra had given up his old life and chosen to go to school. Geo-Force, like Beast Boy before, decided not to bother her, seeing from afar that she was happy where she was. Terra saw the two as they flew away together, quietly giving a smirk, implying she remembered the two of them. ^[3]

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Geokinesis: Terra is able to control and manipulate the earth and all earth-related substances and materials and use them either as useful makeshift weapons or as transportation. She can also focus her innate geokinetic powers and abilities to blast her way through solid rock. She soon demonstrated exceptionally better control over her abilities, able to create various shapes and creatures that can act on their own accord or under her control out of solid rock. However, when her geokinetic powers and abilities had reached their limits, she was able to inadvertently create a massive volcano that was strong and powerful enough to obliterate the entire city.
- Flight: Using her geokinetic powers, Terra is able to simulate flight.
Superhuman Durability: Terra is able to withstand lethal physical damage, as she survived Starfire's star bolts, Cyborg's physical attacks, sonic cannons and was even able to withstand being hit by a bus by Raven.

Abilities

Hand-to-Hand Combat (Basic): Terra was capable of basic hand-to-hand combat, although her fighting ability wasn't enough to stand up against seasoned masters such as Robin.
Deception
Espionage

Weaknesses

Power Instability: Although she had improved over time, Terra always had difficulty controlling her powers.

Other Characteristics

Allergies: After her return, Tara claimed to be allergic to anchovies, despite it being one of her favorites before being frozen.^[2]

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[1] Teen Titans Go! #51

[ThingsChange-2] 2.0 ^2.1 Teen Titans: "Things Change"

[3] Teen Titans Go! #51

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