Origin
Tala takes great pleasure in spreading evil and chaos and in corrupting human souls. She first encountered Doctor 13 when the so-called “ghost breaker” was in Haiti where he noticed a group of people chanting near a body of water in the worship of Tala. Tala was released by this ritual and went forth to spread chaos around the world.
Time and again Tala has matched her powers against those of her main nemesis, the Phantom Stranger, but without success. Her repeated attempts to seduce him into the ways of evil always meeting with failure as he resists her temptations.
Tala formed a group known as the Dark Circle – an organization of mystics dedicated to conquering the world – only to see the Phantom Stranger thwart the Dark Circle’s plans of world domination. Tala then decided that if she and her group could not conquer the world, then they would destroy it. She summoned the four horsemen of the Apocalypse – the incarnations of War, Conquest, Famine, and Death – and sent them to wipe out humanity.
The Phantom Stranger and his enemy Tannarak united to oppose Tala. The Stranger, held captive by Tala and the Dark Circle, freed himself by creating severe Earth tremors. Tannarak hurled himself at Tala and both fell into a fissure that opened in the ground and sealed itself behind them. With Tala defeated, the Stranger sent the Horsemen back to where they came from.
Creation
Tala was created by Neal Adams and Robert Kanigher, first appearing in The Phantom Stranger #4, November/December 1969.
Powers and Abilities
In addition to her mastery of sorcery, Tala seems to have some succubus-like skills with seduction, claiming that many men have fallen for her and her ability to give them bliss that only Chaos can bring.
Tala is a very powerful magic user. She can use magic to alter reality itself. Unlike many DC magical users, she does not need to say her spells out loud. She can cast spells with her thoughts alone. Only the most powerful magic users have the ability to do that. She uses magic for many applications such as:
- Pyrokinesis-Generation and control of fire.
- Aerokinesis- Generation and control of the air.
- Cyrokinesis-Generation and control of ice.
- Hydrokinesis- Control of water.
- Geokinesis- Control of earth.
- Chlorokinesis-Control over plants.
- Thermokinesis- Able to manipulate the temperature of a place to stay warm in cold environments.
Tala’s uses of sorcery gives her access to a ton of other abilities. For example, she can use it for flight, weather control, healing, illusion casting, reality-warping, telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, force field generation, dimensional travel, size alteration, spectral sight, mystical invulnerability, probability manipulation, memory manipulation (erasing and altering people’s memories), superhuman strength, superhuman durability and extraction and teleportation of souls (she only uses this ability in dire situations). She seems to able to control demons as she is sometimes depicted as a mistress of hell.
Other Media
Justice League Unlimited
TV Tala appears in Justice League Unlimited as one of the heads of Project Cadmus. She, along with Amanda Waller organized the Suicide Squad-based team Task Force X. She makes numerous appearances in JLU seasons 4-5. In “Dead Reckoning”, she is Gorilla Grodd‘s assistant in the Legion.
When Luthor is brought into the Legion, she betrays Grodd and starts a “romance” with Lex Luthor. In the end when the Legion is divided she sides with Grodd, but is captured by Luthor. Ever since he joined the Legion, Luthor sought to bring Brainiac back and he used Tala to power the generator to bring back the computer virus. When Lex set the generator off, Tala was “overloaded” with energy and most likely killed, though she managed to twist the end result of the process, returning a Brainiac-infused Darkseid who had previously perished with Brainiac.
Tala is voiced by Juliet Landau. Landau is best known for voicing Zatanna on Justice League Unlimited and for portraying Drusilla on Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel.
Video Games
Tala appears in the DC Universe Online game. In the game, she is the mistress of her own part of hell. She sometimes want to destroy the world. She is the enemy of the Phantom Stranger.