‘Harley Quinn’ Season 4: Who Are Natural Disasters? Terra, Volcana & Tefe Explained

‘Harley Quinn‘ is back with the 4th season, and so far, we’re loving it. Much of the focus has been put on Poison Ivy’s career as a girl boss among supervillains. We know that Poison Ivy has some serious duty now in order to spread general mayhem and chaos across Gotham, and she takes it rather seriously. One of the most important aspects of being a supervillain, however, is the fact that you need to maintain your legacy and invest in the future, so to speak. This is why the show also introduced us to a group of young potential supervillains called ‘Natural Disasters,’ let’s see what the members of this clique are and learn more about them.

‘Natural Disasters’ is a name for a small team of Poison Ivy’s mentees consisting of Volcana, Terra, and Tefe. Their name is derived from the fact that every single member of the team controls one aspect of nature. Both Volcana, Terra, and Tefe have their origin in comics, but in the show, they are affiliated with the Legion of Doom. We’ve yet to see more of their stories in the upcoming episodes, but what we do know so far is that their latest escapade has gone very, very wrong, and their mentor, Poison Ivy, brushed them off, leaving them to pull themselves out of trouble and possibly make things even worse.

Now that we’ve given you a brief summary of who Natural Disasters are, it’s time to explain them in a bit more detail. We’re going to brush up on what they are up to in the show as well as their comic origins. If you’re interested in more, stay with us and keep reading!

Natural Disasters are villains in training for Legion of Doom

Natural Disasters have been introduced to the show as Poison Ivy’s mentees. She is supposed to show them the ropes in regard to what being a villain is all about. The team so far consists of Terra, who has the ability to control rocks, ground, and dirt in general, Volcana, a first-class pyromancer, and Tefe, who is able to control both plant life and animals.

Their personalities, for the most part, reflect their powers as well as their ideas. This is why, during their first brain storming session with Poison Ivy, related to their first “mission,” was generally focused on how to cause chaos in Gotham by exploiting nature.

Volcana recommended that dormant volcanoes underneath Gotham be activated, Terra thought about causing earthquakes which goes hand in hand with Volcanoes, and Tefe wanted to repopulate the sharks and ruin everyone’s summer. This honestly sounds like a grand plan if you want to shift focus and attention to yourself as a young villain on the rise.

Still, by the end of the episode, while Ivy’s statue was being uncovered, Natural Disasters approached their mentor and told her that something had gone wrong and not how they planned it to go.

Ivy, unfortunately, is too preoccupied with her latest PR stint to notice the sense of urgency. It remains to be seen whether this has anything to do with the death of Nightwing.

This is pretty much everything when it comes to the arc of Natural Disasters so far in the show, as they are relatively new characters that debuted in episode 2 of season 4. Still, they are not original characters as they are based on the already existing characters in the comics, so let’s see a bit more about their history.

Terra is Markovian Princess that belonged to several notable teams

Terra was born as the daughter of the unnamed king of Markovia. She always had the potential for geokinetic powers, which made her a perfect candidate for metahuman power activation. Her geokinetic powers were activated through psychological means, but she never exactly became a superhero.

Terra was a member of several notable teams, including Outsiders, Project Defiance, Ravagers, and Teen Titans.

Volcana is a New God in comics, but metahuman in DCAU

In the comics, Volcana debuted back in 1996 in ‘Action Comics’ #725 as a New God with pyrokinetic powers, so she is a relatively old character. Fans mostly know the DCAU version of Volcana, who is a metahuman instead of a New God. Volcana is notable for being a Superman villain.

Tefe has the most confusing parentage

It was mentioned in the show that Tefe is a child of Swamp Thing, and this is true. However, her parentage in the comics is incredibly confusing since she has a spiritual father, a biological father, and a mother.

To start from the beginning, Tefe was originally a seed of The Green’s essence called The Sprout that was supposed to replace The Swamp Thing, but in order for the Sprout to take over Swamp Thing’s duties, it’s going to need appropriate human host, that will have to die. Swamp Thing wanted to avoid bloodshed and devised a plan for Abigail, his wife, to become pregnant so The Sprout could be put inside the unborn child.

Since Swamp Thing couldn’t father the child directly, he manipulated Constantine into taking over that task. Tefe was conceived as a spiritual daughter of Swamp Thing and the biological daughter of Constantine and Abigail Holland.

Due to this, Tefe has a connection with the Green that gives her mastery over plant life. Due to her connection with the Red, she has mastery of animals, and because Constantine is her biological father, she has a taint on her soul.

In the comics, Tefe is female, which is in contrast with the show’s non-binary identity.

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