"It's the hour of my revenge! The revenge of Yama, son of Mephisto!" (Yama's grand introduction at the end of his debut story arc)
Yama
Blackie Dickart
Power Level: 7;
Power Points: 118;
Hero Points: 1
STR: +1 (12),
DEX: +3 (16),
CON: +2 (14),
INT: +2 (14),
WIS: +3 (16),
CHA: +2 (14)
Skills:Deception 4 (
+6), Expertise (Charisma, Circus artist) 4 (
+6), Expertise (Intelligence, Arcane) 6 (
+8), Insight 3 (
+6), Intimidation 6 (
+8), Perception 3 (
+6), Ride (
+5), Sleight of Hand 5 (
+8), Stealth 3 (
+6)
Feats: Attack Focus 2 (ranged), Connected, Defensive Roll 2, Distract (Intimidation), Dodge Focus 3, Equipment 1, Fascinate (Intimidation), Fearsome Presence 4, Improved Initiative 1, Ritualist, Skill Mastery 1 (Intimidation, Sleight of Hand), Sneak Attack 1, Startle, Taunt, Throwing Mastery 2
Powers:
Mesmerism (Array 14; PF: Alternate Power 1; 29pp)
- Base Power: Hypnotic Gaze (Mind Control 7; Extra: Duration 2 [Continuos], Effortless; Flaw: Sense-Dependent [sight])
- AP: Master of Illusions (Illusion 7 [all senses]; PF: Progression 7 [1000 ft. radius]; Flaw: Phantasm)
Equipment:
- Dagger (+1 piercing damage; crit 19; 10' [thrown])
- Derringer (+3 ballistic damage [lethal, full power]; crit 20; 20'; conceable)
Combat: Attack +5 (+7 ranged; Grapple: +6); Defense +6 (+2 Flat-footed); Initiative +7
Saves: Toughness +4 (+2 Flat-footed), Fortitude +5, Reflex +5, Will +7
Totals: Abilities 26 + Skills 18 (36 ranks) + Feats 24 + Powers 29 + Combat 16 + Saves 9 + Drawbacks 0 = 122
Complications
- Debt (to the Dark Prince): Like his father, Yama stroke a deal with many demonic entities to gain power.
- Enemy (El Morisco): After the Egyptian scholar Ahmed "El Morisco" Jamal helped Tex to thwart his plans Yama decided that he's next on his "to kill" list.
- Hatred (Tex): Yama took up his father's mission of revenge.
- Obsession (wealth and power): Similar to his father, Yama's only desire after killing Tex is accumulating wealth and power.
- Split Personality: After failing to destroy Tex and the pards for the third time, the demons ripped Yama's powers out of him, causing him a bout of depression and to develop a split personality.
The Son of Mephisto (Tex #120-122) is one of the most spectacular and, deservedly, beloved story arcs of the entire run of Tex. It is often considered the highest point of the supernatural stories of Tex and introduced Yama who, unfortunately never lived up to his spectacular debut. In my book what makes
The Son of Mephisto a memorable story is that Tex and the pards are completely unaware of Yama until the very end. The story runs for rougly 350 pages, but the pards only see Yama around page 320. They know his name, but they have no idea of who or what he is until the very end. During the entire arc the reader follows two intertwining storyline, alternating the focus between Tex and Yama. This was a typical trick of Bonelli senior that used it as a way to prevent the story from becoming stagnant, but in The Son of Mephisto it reached its full potential, thanks to the fact that the pards had no idea who they were facing.
Blackie "Yama" Dickart was the suddenly introduced offspring of the old warlock, but this was (fortunately) addressed in universe. Years before, after escaping from jail, Mephisto lived for a while with a travelling cricus, continuing to work as a stage magician, but also getting into a relationship with the local soothsayer, Myriam. Despite posing as one, Myriam had actually some very weak psychic powers and helped Mephisto develop his own. After he started to push himself way beyond the border of sanity, Myriam tossed him out, but she was actually pregnant. Years later after the cannons of Fort Myers leveled his hideout in the Everglades, Mephisto reached out to the Dark Prince one last time to pass his powers to the blood of his blood. At the time Blackie was still travelling with his mother and he was a circus knife thrower of remarkable skill, with little to no arcane knowledge.
After accepting his father's legacy and burning all the bridges with his mother, Blackie travelled to the Everglades and contacted some of his father's old allies. From the ruins of his father's old hideout he started working his revenge, sending little warnings and illusions to the pards, but always careful to make so that they seemed the work of Mephisto. After witnessing some of these manifestations the old medicine man of the Navajos created the silver bracelets to gave the pards a fighting chance, which also forced Yama to rely on indirect strategies. Tex and the pards actually took the bait, the went down hard on the voodoo fanatics that helped Yama and kept chasing them, straight into the ruins of Mephisto's old hideout. Here Yama pulled a spectacular reveal, burrying the pards alive inside the old dungeon. Unfortunately he didn't finish them off right away but, true to his father's dying wish, left them to root. This gave the pards a meager fighting chance, they used all their ammunitions to blast a small passage open and escape, but they weren't able to get their hands on Yama. To lure them into the dungeon, Yama had burried another man with them, a voodoo practitioner called Thomas. Filled with Anger Thomas returned to his compatriots and set out to kill Yama and destroy his lab, now set on a small ship, but this angered the Dark Prince that send a storm that swathed the ship across the Gulf of Mexico.
Yama survived and -- apparently guided by the ghost of his father -- to reach the Yucatan peninsula. Here he started creating a new cult, by tricking a group of indios to think he was the incarnation of Kukulkán and allying himself with General Mendoza the local and very corrupt governor, who helped him enslaving the indios and using them to mine diamonds. Warned by an old friend -- the former desparado Montales -- Tex and the pards arrived, but fell right into a trap. Tiger Jack gets captured and Yama destroyed his silver bracelet, negating one of the pards' mosr powerful tools against him. Unfortunately, Zamora's brutal regime drove the indios to revolt and this gave the pards a chance to strike. Cornered Yama tried to escape through the temple, but fell in a underground river.
Years later we discover that Yama survived, a minor demon called Aryman (similar to a human faced bat) saved him from the river and brought him to the upper layer of hell, to face the ghost of Mephisto. After his father gave him a much needed scolding, Yama set out to try to take down the pards again. This time his plan invoved an multi-pronged attack, using several group each one working to mask the efforts of the others. After the pards took down the initial assault of what was left of the old voodoo cult, Yama tried to ally with a group of alleged heirs of the ancient Aztecs. El Morisco, an old scholar and friend of of Tex and Carson, entered the picture, provinding the pards with some rings that replaced the old silver bracelets (although they lacked the nullify field effect), thanks to his knowledge of both Aztec and Egyptian magic. Despite all his allies and the help of his father's ghost Yama failed again and, during the final confrontation, he was apparently burned alive by the dark powers he served.
It took over 30 years before any writer find a good way to bring Blackie back. The revelation was that the Dark Prince actually punished him by ripping his arcane powers out of his body. This sent Blackie on a downward spiral, he returned to his mother and to his old life as a carny artist, but also started drinking, more or less the shell of the man he once was. He was also plagued by nightmares, rewatching again and again the moment of his last defeat. One fateful night he finally understood what really happened and marched into a weird tornado, convinced that it contained his old spirit. Myriam tried to stop him, but she died trying. The tornado indeed contained Yama's old spirit and, once again he set out for revenge. This time he decided to play it very safe: in the past he had done all the mystica heavy-lifting (like Mephisto), but now he recruited 4 very powerful wizards as his lieutenants. Nicknamed the Four Horsemen, these wizards put all their mundane and mystical means against the pards, but in the end Tex came through. Feeling his old enemy incoming, Yama had a seizure, as the personality of Blackie tried to reassert itself. One of his minions, under telepatic instructions from Mephisto, took him to safety.
So, here we are... Yama is really a character that most fans of Tex love to hate. His debut was a masterpiece, quite possibly the most beloved story arc ever, but not even Bonelli senior was ever able to recapture that initial feeling. Personally I think that the error was that most stories tried to showcase how Blackie was similar to his father, rather than showing how different they were. Mephisto, for all his power, was like a horror show, he laughed like a maniac, summoned illusions and played the role of the evil wizard to a T. Yama was, initially, more down to earth, he planned ahead, played a game of cat and mouse with the pard, trying to outsmart them, rather than overpower them. Unfortunately this element was lost in later appearences.
Right now Mauro Boselli, the lead writer of teh series teased that Yama and Mephisto will return in 2019, my guess is that the storyline starting this december (the anniversary issue) will feature them.