Torquemada

"Be Pure! Be Vigilant! Behave!"

- Torquemada's catchphrase

Tomas de Torquemada was the main antagonist in the 2000 AD comic book series Nemesis the Warlock. He is an xenophobic supreme ruler of Termight (Earth in the far future) with an immense hatred of aliens, who he considers "impure".

Childhood
As a child, Torquemada embarked on a crusade against all alien life in the galaxy on what he though was a 'children's crusade' but was betrayed by the head of the crusade and was sold into slavery and ended up being a slave to aliens for five years. He eventually managed to escape from them and returned back to Earth, hating aliens more than ever.

Becoming Ruler of Termight
After working as the head of the Tube Police on Termight, Tomas eventually became the head of the entire Termight Empire and, using the quasi-religious police force the Terminators, ruled the empire with an iron fist. Tomas's philosophy was that all aliens are evil and had to be exterminated in order to leave the universe to be taken over by humanity.

Nostradamus
Tomas's older brother, Nostradamus de Torquemada, was originally the Grand Master of Earth. When the two brothers went on a expedition through the Time Wastes to the Earth millions in the future. They discovered that humanity became an ocean of red slime called the 'Primords' and wanted the pair to join them in their blissful state. Instead, Tomas burnt the 'impure' Primords to use them as fuel and the tortured spirits of the Primords eventually became the hate-crazed and wrathful beings called 'Monads'. The Primods got revenge by controlling the human diving suits to and proceed to attack the rig that was burning the Primords. They force Nostradamus to drink the red slime and Tomas abandoned him to his fate in order to become Supreme Leader of Termight, declaring Nostradamus dead. Nostradamus eventually escaped but went insane and Tomas and his family sent him to an insane asylum and pretend that he was Tomas's senile grandfather.

Destruction of his physical form
After an teleport accident caused by Tomas's arch-nemesis, Nemesis the Warlock, his physical form was destroyed and he relied on possessing bodies in order to continue existing, but the side-effect was their bodies rotted rapidly. He also killed Brother Behell, who tried to other throw him and takeover Termight. This caused his first wife, Candida, to go insane and was institutionalized until she recovered her sanity and Tomas killed his second wife, Sister Sturn, in order to re-marry Candida.

New Torquemada
After Tomas de Torquemada was seemingly destroyed, an version of him from earlier in his personal timeline that was taken by Thoth, Nemesis's son and became the new Torquemada. The other Torquemada found himself in the future where he had been dead for ten years and was shown respect by a giant robot statue that crushed the 'impure' to death in its 'forgiving' embrace. The other Torquemada was arrested for impersonation but the new ruler of Termight realised that he was the real McCoy but publicly executed him anyway in order to prevent public disturbance and their new-found reconciliation with aliens. Thoth then put Torquemada into a time loop where he was burned at the stake by the original Torquemada repeatedly.

Finding Thoth
Nemesis eventually rescued Tomas from his horrific fate with help from Purity Brown and Candida in order to lure Thoth out. Thoth escaped into the Time Wastes and Tomas, Nemesis, Purity, Candida and the ABC Warriors went looking for him and travelled millions of years into the Earth's future where humanity was extinct and watched the sun (the red giant) set over the red sea and Nemesis reveals about humanity becoming Primords and Tomas burning them in order to get fuel and transformed into the crazy, hate-filled Monads.

Final defeat
During Tomas re-marrying Candida on live TV, Nemesis appeared with Candida willingly escaping from the temple with him and ending the wedding disastrously. Humiliated, his regime started to collapse but he still had one last move left, where he stole Nemesis' Blitzspear and then Hypogeum in order to activate the 'Generation Bomb' which will destroy all alien DNA on Earth. Before he could activate it, Nemesis contaminated Tomas with alien DNA using his claws before using his powers to make sure he dies with him. When the bomb exploded, Nemesis, his blitzspear and Tomas de Torquemada were merged and fell into the timestream for all eternity.

Tomas de Torquemada's family
His family were:
 * Murcalla de Torquemada (Mother, alive)
 * Nostradamus de Torquemada (Older Brother, alive but insane due to the Primords torture)
 * Candida de Torquemada (First Wife - Annulled. Second Marriage Interrupted, alive)
 * Barbarossa de Torquemada (Son, dead)
 * Pandora de Torquemada (Daughter, dead)
 * Sister Sturn (Second Wife, killed by Tomas in order to re-marry Candida)
 * Atilla de Torquemada (Son by Sturn, alive)

Personality
He is generally portrayed as being an cruel, xenophobic and evil man with no redeeming features. While he is a family man (being distressed that his children were killed by Nemesis during his escape and loves Candida to the point he consorted with aliens in order to prevent her from divorcing him.), he willingly killed his second wife, Sister Sturn, in order to re-marry Candida and gleefully abandoned his older brother Nostradamus in the Earth's future just to gain power. He is evil to the point that his previous incarnations were Colonel John M. Chivington, Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, Adolf Hitler and the original Tomas de Torquemada. His catchphrase was "Be pure! Be vigilant! Behave!"

Powers and Abilities
Leadership Skills, Charisma (able to inspire his Terminators), Possession of bodies but the side-affect was they rotted quickly, Able to exist for some time in spectral form.

Trivia

 * Candida's pet name for Tomas was "Tom-Tom".
 * Tomas has written an book called My Struggle.