Glossary:T

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Telekinesis

The psionic ability to move or manipulate physical matter without physically touching it, especially over long distances.

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Telepathy

The psionic ability to send or receive thoughts directly into or from other minds. A person with this ability is usually called a telepath.

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Teleportation

The ability via psionic or artificial means to transport oneself or other people or objects from one point in space to another without having physically traveled the distance between. A person with this ability is usually called a teleporter.
(See Also: Nightcrawler, Sidewinder or Vanisher)
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Terrigen Mist

A mutagenic, or mutation-causing, substance discovered by the Inhuman scientist Randac. It is potent enough to cause any living organism to mutate from exposure to it, although the Inhumans zealously restrict its use to Inhumans only.

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Thermokinesis

Thermokinesis is the ability to manipulate heat, encompasing the ability to freeze things or heat things up.

Examples

(See Also: Cryokinesis, Pyrokinesis)
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Time Line

Also called reality line. The events of a particular reality that define its history.

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Time Travel

The process of leaving the timestream at a given point, traversing through the timeless realm of Limbo for a timeless interval, and re-entering the timestream at another point, not having physically aged in transit. Since every future is conditioned on present events, one cannot always return to a given future. Also, since traveling into the past affects history in some way, however minor, one can never physically travel to one's own past, only to timelines that become divergent because of one's interference.
(See Also: Divergence)
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Time

The multiverse-wide phenomenon that keeps all reality from happening at once.

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Timestream

The multiverse-wide phenomenon that keeps all reality flowing in the same direction, toward entropy. The timestream is not a literal place.

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TNT

Trinitrotoluene, an explosive. The power of high-yield explosives, such as nuclear bombs, is traditionally measured by the megaton, the equivalent of one million tons of TNT.

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Trade paperback

A trade paperback (TPB or simply trade) specifically refers to a collection of stories originally published in comic books reprinted in book format, usually capturing one story arc from a single title or a series of stories with a connected story arc or common theme from one or more titles. Traditionally, a trade paperback will reproduce the stories at the same size as they were originally presented in comic book format; recently, however, certain trades have been published in a smaller, "digest"-sized format, similar in size to a paperback novel. This smaller size is intended to appeal to newer generations of American readers whose first exposure to a comic book format was the English-translated reprints of digest-sized Japanese comics, also known as manga. The term graphic novel is sometimes used interchangeably, but many people maintain that the terms are distinct.

Further Information

Additions and omissions

A trade paperback will usually feature some additional artwork, such as alternate cover art or pinup galleries by guest artists, not released in the standard issues. Additional story material that was not available in the series itself may also be included, primarily "preview" or "extra" stories presented exclusively on the Internet or in comics-industry publications such as Wizard. Many feature introductions written by prominent figures, some from outside the world of comics — for instance, The Sandman: Worlds' End features an introduction by author Stephen King.

While there have been exceptions, as a general rule of thumb, trade paperback will not feature fan mail, special foil or embossed covers. Where the original serialised format included back-up stories not related to the main arc, these may also be omitted, and, in what is now a largely discontinued practice, it was common in older trade paperbacks to use only small excerpts from certain stories, or to omit pages from the main story related to other subplots.

Readers and collectors

For many years, trade paperbacks were mainly used to reprint older comic-book stories that were no longer available to the average reader, when original copies of those stories were scarce and hard to find, and often very expensive when found due to their rarity. However, in the first years of the 21st century, comic book publishers began releasing trade paperbacks of collected story arcs within a few months of those stories' publication in comic-book form (sometimes within the same month that the final issue reprinted was originally released). This was found to be an excellent way to draw new readers to a series — where before, one would have to hunt for individual back issues to "catch up" on a series, now a reader coming into an already established title could purchase the previous issues in trade paperback form and have access to the entire series' worth of stories to date.

As the trade paperback versions are usually cheaper than buying the individual comics and presented without any advertisements at all, many comic book fans choose to hold off on purchasing the individual issues and only follow the stories when they come out in trade. This can sometimes help a series whose sales are flagging, much like how a film that performed poorly in movie theaters can gain new popularity in home video formats; in a few instances, significant trade paperback sales have even revived a series that had been cancelled or slated for cancellation. However, only buying a series in trade format can also hurt a title; despite the growing popularity of the trade paperback, the serialized, individual issues are still considered the primary mode of sale by comics publishers, and if a series is not meeting sales criteria for individual issues, it may face cancellation no matter how well the collected editions are selling.

A significant benefit of the trade paperback version is that it is often available in bookstores, from smaller booksellers to the larger suppliers.

Unlike the individual issues, the trade paperback has almost no collector's value, and will probably not appreciate in value, as the releases of the trade paperbacks are not restricted, and more could be printed at any time. On the other hand, some trade paper backs of Star Wars Dark Horse comics go for hundreds of dollars on eBay, showing many trade paperbacks do indeed have a value to the right fan.

There are some criticisms of trade paperbacks by some writers and artists in recent years. They argue that because of the popularity of trades that they are forced to produce five or six issue arcs simply because this is the ideal size of a trade. In their perspective this can be quite limiting in in the length of a story and pacing as the size is now set. This however is also countered by placing several short arcs in one volume and in the case of longer arcs — the Metal Gear Solid comic adaptation was released in two separate trades.

(See Also: Graphic novel, Comic book)
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Transformation

To change in form, appearance, or structure; metamorphose. Look at Puma for example.

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Triploid

A triploid is a human being born with three sets of chromosomes. They are sometimes confused with Mutants.
(See Also: Mutant)
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Troll

A certain humanoid being native to Asgard.

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Tsunami

Tsunami was a failed imprint of Marvel Comics founded in January 2003. Marvel's goal was to create comic books that would appeal to manga readers. Other than in the art, the titles shared little in common, with, for example, Runaways and Sentinels being aimed at children and younger teenagers and Mystique touching on espionage and darker themes better suited for an older audience.

The results were a mixed bag. While New Mutants, Mystique, Runaways and Sentinel earned critical acclaim and a devoted fan following, Human Torch, Namor and Venom were complete flops, with the last surviving to issue 18 only on the back of exceptionally high initial sales. Many comic book fans regarded the entire imprint as a cheap attempt by Marvel Comics to capitalize on the growing popularity of Japanese manga. (though the Marvel Mangaverse was a much more blatant attempt at this)

The imprint was discontinued in late 2003. Mystique was the longest continuously-running survivor - lasting until issue 24 overall, although it was folded into the regular, mainstream Marvel Comics imprint and had a change of writer as part of the X-Men: ReLoad event after issue 13, while New Mutants, also part of ReLoad, was relaunched from issue 1 as New X-Men: Academy X at the same time. Venom and Runaways carried the imprint branding for the longest period, lasting until issue 18, after which Runaways was briefly cancelled before being relaunched as part of the Marvel Next initiative, while Venom was cancelled outright. The other series were cancelled with issue 12.

Since then, Runaways has received a boost from high Digest-sized trade paperback (TPB) sales, which was one of the reasons for its relaunch, while Sentinel was also revived, as a five-issue miniseries, for the same reason. However, Human Torch also received a single digest without signs of revival.

New Mutants received a single standard-size TPB, of its first six issues, as well as complete collections in the same format of its successor series, New X-Men: Academy X, which was revamped shortly after House of M as simply New X-Men. Mystique and Venom were fully collected as standard-size TPBs, but shows no sign of being revived.

Namor has not been collected, nor are there any reports of it being so in the remainder of 2006.

Titles

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