Joshua Clay

Joshua Clay
Tempest in flight, art by James Fry
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Showcase #94 (August 1977)
Created by	Paul Kupperberg (writer) Joe Staton (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Joshua Clay
Team affiliations	Doom Patrol Black Lantern Corps
Notable aliases	Jonathan Carmichael, Tempest
Abilities	Kinetic energy blasts, flight

Joshua Clay (Tempest) is a fictional character, a member of the superhero team Doom Patrol in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Paul Kupperberg and Joe Staton, he first appears as the hero Tempest in Showcase #94 (August 1977).

A member of the second Doom Patrol, Joshua Clay is the first DC Comics hero to use the name Tempest. Along with Captain Comet, he is one of the few DC Comics heroes initially identified as a mutant.

Joshua Clay was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of five children. His parents struggled to keep their family together in the middle of what was at that time one of the worst slums in the country. At sixteen, Joshua joined a street gang called the Stompers, and eventually, as a result, wound up being given a choice between prison and service in the United States military. Joshua chose the army and was trained as a combat medic and shipped off to Vietnam.

Less than a month before the end of his tour, Joshua witnessed the attempted massacre of an entire village of Vietnamese non-combatants by his sergeant. Horrified, Joshua unconsciously triggered his powers, blasting the noncom, apparently killing the man. The stress of this discovery led Clay to go AWOL and flee the country, eventually returning to the U.S. Clay spent the next ten years living as a fugitive. The sergeant eventually becomes Reactron, a repeated foe of the Doom Patrol.