Equinox (Batman: The Brave and the Bold)
Equinox is a male supervillain who features in DC Comics.
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Biography
The origins of Equinox were largely unknown to the mortal world except to a select few. This was because he was linked closely to the eternal conflict between the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos. Their eternal struggle had lasted for eons with neither side gaining an advantage over the other. It was thus decided in desperation that an equaliser was needed to maintain a peace between the two sides which was accomplished through an orphan. This child was imbued with the power from both sides in order to form a balance between the two sides. The purpose of this child was to maintain this balance; should one side gain too much influence than Equinox would support the other side. However, at some point, he cracked under the strain of his duty and became obsessed with the concept of balance. He began to feel that only he could achieve such a goal whereupon he left the service of the Lords of Chaos and Order in such a manner that made sense only to his own fractured psyche. (Ep: The Fate of Equinox!)
His second appearance was during a fight between the Global Peace Agency agent called OMAC and a soldier known as Kafka. During the fight, Equinox prevented Batman from interfering in the battle. Using his powers, he influenced OMAC into attempting to kill Kafka but Batman prevented the final blow leading to the general being covered by the toxic chemicals he was making thus turning him into the supervillain Shrapnel Later, Equinox fought against the dark knight once more and revealed that his plans were part of a balance. Kafkas home was destroyed by the Global Peace Agency when they operated in his country and after his village was reduced to rubble, he decided to get revenge. Equinox thus planned on using the fight between OMAC and Shrapnel to get them to accidently damage the cooling controls of the nuclear power plant. This was in Equinox's view as being a balance, the destruction of the city in return for the destruction of Kafka's village. He pervented Batman from stopping the resultant meltdown but was stopped by Buddy Blank. This allowed Batman to enter into the core and forcibly lower the cooling rods thus stopping the nuclear reactor from exploding but at the cost of a lethal blast of radiation. Impressed, Equinox decided that Batman did not have to die as it would destabilize the balance. He than used his powers to cure the dark knight from raditaion before teleporting away to continue his plans. (Ep: When OMAC Attacks!)
He later returned and gave a subtle message to Batman which led him to an ancient temple in South America. Once there, the floor crumbled and revealed a large gyroscope in the lower levels that was considered the ninth wonder of the world. It was then that Equinox appeared and said that he knew Batman would fall for his clue. When asked what his plans were, he revealed that the gyroscope was an construct which was kept in functioning order by the ancient civilization that once lived at the temple. This was because the device was responsible for rotating the Earth with Equinox stating that it was the eigthth wonder of the world. His plans were to sabotage the gyroscope thus leaving half the world facing the sun which would burn away its surface whilst the other half would be trapped in eternal darkness with its surface being frozen. To the supervillains mind, this represented the perfect equinox which he planned to bring about the planet. It was then Batman revealed that he did not come alone and had called for the help of Doctor Fate who Equinox knew as being a "lapdog" of the Forces of Order. Animating two monstrous statues, he dispatched them after his foes and later joined in a fight against Batman. Equinox then told the caped crusader that it was said that a person of perfect balance was capable of sacrificing another in order to stop the gyroscope. During the battle, he managed to overpower Batman and even stopped a magical blast from Doctor Fate. The powerful sorceror asked how he accomplished this to which Equinox replyed that it was through a balance. A horrified Doctor Fate was about to reveal Equinox's origin but was silenced by Equinox through the use of an energy blast. He then attempted to throw Batman into the gyroscope but the dark knight instead managed to throw Equinox himself into the machine which seemingly destroyed both of them.
However, this was all part of Equinox's plan as the moment he was "killed", strange events began to engulf the world that was threatening its balance. Strange extinct creatures began to appear on the Earth and attacked everything whilst the balanced powers of magic were incapable of being used. When journeying to the Lords of Chaos and Order, Batman and Dr Fate learnt of Equinox's origins. They also revealed that Equinox believed that he saw in Batman the means through which he could accomplish his plans as the dark knight was similar in that he was a creature that balanced both darkness and light. By destroying Equinox, Batman had freed him from his fleshy prison allowing him to tap into the very forces of the cosmos itself thus shattering its balance. He then came before the dimension of Chaos and Order where he drained them of their magic but not before Lord Nabu and Lord Typhon teleported Dr Fate and Batman to safety. Returning to the mortal world, they discovered that it had been returned to normal but only because Equinox had now gained the combined power of Chaos and Order. He was easily able to overpower Dr Fate and began a magical chain reaction designed to wipe out the universe so that he could remake it in harmony and in his own image. This prompted the heroes fo the world combining their energy mystically into Batman who fought against Equinox but he proved too powerful. Whilst continuing his gathering of energies to destroy existence, Batman used psychologically to defeat his opponent by stating that Equinox was not a balanced being as his rebellion against his masters showed that he had more chaos within him than order. Despairing at the thought, the dark knight than pummeled Equinox sending him spiralling into the unstable energies he had gathered which apparently destroyed him. (Ep: The Fate of Equinox!)
Though seemingly destroyed, the battle with Batman had actually shattered Equinox's body and mind that dispersed throughout time and space in the form of twelve fragments. Each of these components of the being represented an aspect of his character with the fragment containing his hate along with his desire for revenge finding its way into a supercomputer in the future. Once there, this part of Equinox began creating squadrons of robots that contained part of his essence and sent them through time itself in an effort to eliminate the various Batmen from different periods of history. The ultimate goal was for Batman to cease to exist as his past was erased from history. However, this plan was discovered by Rex Hunter who told the Justice League at their station of Equinox's plan. Thus, the Martian Manhunter along with the rest of the Justice League International travelled into the past in order to save the various Batmen. Despite their successes in the past, the revenge squad of Equinox managed to capture a robotic Batman from the future and began to torture him which began to affect the Batman of the present. Thus, the Justice League travelled into the future where Equinox resided and battled him but were defeated by his revenge squad. Despite this defeat, the robot Batman managed to gain the strength to break free leading to an angry Equinox combining his robots into a combined form and powered by the fragments full power. During the battle with Batman, the Equinox robots time portal generator was overloaded allowing the Batmen of the past to arrive and join the fight. In the resultant conflict, the fragment of Equinox was destroyed and his robot armies were defeated. Whilst achieving a victory, Batman and the Justice League remembered that this was only a single fragment of Equinox and that a total of twelve shards of his essence still resided elsewhere in the multiverse leading to the possibility of his return. (Ep: Time Out For Vengeance)
Overview
Personality and attributes
According to the Lords of Chaos and Order, Equinox had snapped by the strain of his duty as the equaliser and thus went mad in his pursuit of balance. His warped psyche meant that he believed that only he could bring about the means of accomplishing this balance. He believed that the Lords of Order were arrogant and claimed that Doctor Fate shared that quality. After stealing the Lords of Order and Chaos's power, Equinox came to believe that he had the power of a god. In fact, he believed that he was a being of perfect balance and that he could only see a perfect future for the world. This led to his ultimately goal being to attain supreme power that would allow him to wind time backwards and restart the cosmos in order to bring about the rebirth of true harmony.
When Doctor Fate threatened to expose his identity, Equinox quickly silenced him in order to ensure he could not reveal it. After being queried by Batman, Equinox revealed that never ending duty could not be fathomed by the Dark Knight. As a result, he hated the Lords of Order and Chaos deep within his heart. Thus, in this sense he was not perfect balance as the chaos in his outweighed that of order. It was this reason that he rebelled against his masters though he stated himself that the balancing act demanded by the lords was impossible. Upon learning he was not in perfect balance, the act stunned Equinox and he cried out in despair at the thought that all his efforts were for nothing. This provided a moment of weakness that ultimately led to Batman defeating him.
Powers and abilities
His most basic skills were martial in nature allowing him to combat others in hand to hand combat. He was able to match the likes of Batman in such fighting arts. Equinox was also able to evade and even defeat him in such martial arts.
Due to his origins, presumably his abilities were magical in nature as he was imbued with the powers of both the Lords of Chaos and Order. These powers were far beyond that of a human being as he seemingly had the ability to alter reality both subtley and more directly. His power was able to work on such a small level that he could cause ropes to snap without any apparent effort being seen or manipulate his environment causing tree barnches to fall on his enemies. More direct applications of this ability allowed him to transform objects from one form to another - such as batarangs into real living bats. Furthermore, he seemed to be able to animate non-living matter into living creatures as he managed to transform statues into animated beasts to use against his enemies. In addition, he ahd the means to heal individuals from lethal injuries such as fatal blasts of radiation poisoning as he healed Batman from expsoure to the core of a nuclear reactor. He was perfectly capable of absorbing the power of an energy blast into his hands and shifting them between one hand to the other. This could also be redirected by Equinox and he could fire the magical attack back at his opponent. Equinox also had the power to teleport from one location to another.
It was also said that the destruction of his body freed from his the limitations of it allowing him the capacity to manipulate the primal forces of the cosmos. In this state, he was also able to recreate his mortal form though magnified in size to the point that he appeared as a giant. His power was much greater in this form as he was able to overpower the magical forces of both chaos and order. He also felt a hunger and drained those magical beings of their energy to feed himself. With their combined power, he changed his form into a much more majestic one that seemingly incorporated the magical forces from which he was embued with originally. This effectively made him reborn as a god-like being with power far greater than even the combined heroes of Earth.
Even when his cosmic form was destroyed, it was shown that Equinox's essence was strong enough to survive into numerous fragments that each represented an aspect of his psyche. These were able to splinter across the timeline and impart his cosmic powers into objects that they embedded themselves into such as a supercomputer.
Notes
- Equinox was created by Jim Krieg where he was an original creation of Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series with him making his first appearance in the episode "Mystery in Space!" and was voiced by actor Oded Fher.
- The characters duality nature is similar to the comic character called Libra.
- In terms of ultimate goal, Equinox's plans to remake the universe into a balanced version is similar to Darkseid's who wanted to remake a chaotic universe to one of order in his own image.
Appearances
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "When OMAC Attacks!"
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "The Fate of Equinox!"
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "Time Out For Vengeance"
External Link
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