Candida De Torquemada

     Being the wife of the most evil man in the universe is bound to take its
toll as Candida discovered first hand.  Her story can be reduced to "From
rags to riches to total insanity" but here's the high points.  The daughter
of a working class or "prole" family she caught the eye of the Grandmaster
Tomas De Torquemada and after a whirlwind romance found herself the wife of
the richest and most powerful man in the world.  He was also, as mentioned
before, the most evil man in the world which was why he was the richest and
most powerful man in the world.
     For more about Candida's husband and the world they lived in drop by
Purity's page,  This page focuses on Candida.
     Despite Tomas's little quirks Candida stood by her man (her resolve
perhaps strengthened by the mysterious deaths of his previous wives after
they quarreled with him) and produced the heirs Torquemada needed, Barbarossa
and Pandora, assuring her position as Grandmistress.  Despite the obsessive
attention of Grandfather Nostradamus (who turned out to actually be Tomas's
disfigured older brother) life was sweet for the former prole.
     Then things began going very wrong.  Torquemada was transformed into a
phantom who possessed the dead and fed on the lifeforce of others to sustain
himself.  Trapped in a nightmare Candida was relieved when Nemesis was the
only one to walk away from what should have been his final showdown with
Torquemada.  Losing her imperial position when Mazarin took power wasn't as
welcome but Candida had plans to regain her throne.  Now freed from her undead
husband she began working on molding her son into the successor to the
Grandmastership and herself into the media heavyweight to help him do it.
     Unfortunately Nemesis' son Thoth began meddling with time and brought an
earlier version of Torquemada from before his transformation forward in time.
This lead to a chain of events resulting in the death of both her children
and a visit the to distant future to witness the end of the world.  Denied the
chance to escape her grief by merging with the primord groupmind and a suicide
pact with Nostradamus she collapsed into madness.  Ironically Tomas returned
them both to their own time and not only regained his throne but became
revered as a diety.  Sadly Candida was no longer in any condition to
appreciate his return to power as we see in "Torquemada the God" (art by Kevin
O'Neill)




     Even in the far future TV newscasters will do inane human interest
stories.  But they don't make much of an impression when you're as far gone
as Candida





     After starring in 2000AD's first (and only?) photo story in prog 534
Candida faded into the background.  The Nemesis Saga rolled on but it wasn't
until a Winter Special five years later that writer Pat Mills returned to
finish her story in "Bride of the Warlock".









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