Zari Tarazi

For the DC's Legends of Tomorrow​ episode, see "Zari".

Zari Tomaz
Biological Information
Species	Human
Status	Alive
Universe Information
Home universe	Earth-1
General Information
Occupation	Vigilante Criminal hacker (formerly)
Affiliation	Legends
Family	Unnamed (father) Unnamed (mother) Behrad Tomaz (brother; deceased)
Actor	Tala Ashe

"People always fear what they don't understand, and that fear turns them into monsters. But we can't let it turn us into monsters, too. We have to be better than them."

—Zari Tomaz^[src]

Zari Tomaz, known as Z to her friends and Khaahar to her brother, is a computer hacker, rogue time traveler, a member of the Legends and wielder of the Air Totem, one of the Six Lost Totems of Zambesi. She was an anti-government hacker who fought against the organization A.R.G.U.S. in the year 2042 alongside her brother, Behrad until he was killed. When Zari first encountered the Legends, she tricked them into helping her retrieve Behrad's totem back from an A.R.G.U.S. black site. She eventually apologized and agreed to join the Legends as a full-time member.

Biography

Early life

Zari and her family before her brother's death.

Zari Tomaz was born a few years before 2018. She grew up in a Muslim family and lived in Seattle, Washington.

When Zari was young, she refused to participate in the fasting of Ramadan, despite her mother's efforts. Nonetheless, Zari was taught by her mother how to cook Iftar and grew to understand the importance of family whilst celebrating Ramadan.

In 2021, A.R.G.U.S. began taking control over the United States and instituted a dictatorship, including banning all religion and meta-humans. As a result, Zari and her family were persecuted for practicing Islam. Together with her younger brother, Behrad Tomaz, Zari became part of the resistance in adulthood, fighting against A.R.G.U.S.'s control of her home.

Working with the Legends

One night in 2042, A.R.G.U.S. raided Zari's family's home, killing Behrad and confiscating his amulet. Zari and her parents were forced to flee and began living in a remote camp.

Sometime afterwards, Zari was captured by A.R.G.U.S. during an attempt to take back her brother's amulet. As they were transporting her to a prison facility, the truck was stopped by Kuasa, giving Zari time to escape before the former could kill her.

Zari made her way to a hideout, where she was found by the Legends. An A.R.G.U.S. drone found them, but Zari was able to hack it, allowing her to escape. She headed to a bar, where she was intercepted by Mick Rory, attempting to befriend her. They were interrupted by Kuasa, who was fought by Sara Lance. Rory quickly caused a diversion, allowing them to escape and return to the Legends' timeship, the Waverider. Zari agreed to help them capture Kuasa, only on the provision that they help her rescue her brother from an A.R.G.U.S. black site. They infiltrated the site and as all of the inmates escaped, triggered by Jax, Zari went to retrieve an amulet. She admitted to the Legends that she'd played them, but only as the amulet had been her brother's. She went outside, using the amulet to fly away. Zari made her way to her family's camp, followed by the Atom, but found it to be completely destroyed and them not there. Suddenly, Kuasa arrived. Working together, Ray and Zari were able to incapacitate Kuasa, allowing them to run away, but she stopped them in her tracks again. However, the Legends suddenly appeared, providing backup, forcing Kuasa to withdraw.

Joining the Legends

They returned Zari to her hideout, where Rory and Amaya Jiwe convinced her to join the Legends. Amaya explaining that Zari's amulet was in fact a totem, similar to her own. She offered to teach Zari how to use her powers, which the latter accepted.

On the Waverider, Ray tried to have a team building routine in honor of Zari joining the group, which she thought was pointless. She then watched Ray disappear in front of her which was a result of him dying in 1988. When the team prepared to travel back to save him, she was excited to actually time travel. They went back to 1988 and she suffered some side effects from the trip as she began speaking French as Ray reappeared. Zari was amazed at how different the world was in 1988 as opposed to 2042. They found young Ray Palmer and followed him to his home where they learned that Ray had a small Dominator in his bedroom. Zari was told all about the team's last encounter with the Dominators and they made a plan to sneak into Ray's room the following day to take the alien back.

The two found the Dominator named Gumball, but found that young Ray was still home and was heading back to the room. Zari hid under Ray's bed while Ray shrunk down. She then watched as young Ray took the Dominator to watch Singin' in the Rain. But, Ray's mother had come home as she had been called about Ray skipping school. She became nervous when Mrs. Palmer was close to discovering Gumball and asked for a distraction. When young Ray took Gumball and grown-up Ray into his bag to run, she went after him but he accused her of only wanting Gumball and ran away from her. She tried to go after him but she lost him in the woods. She then found him in a small tent that he made where he roleplayed being Sir Galahad. She didn't want to play pretend with him but Ray told her that she had to think like a kid to get through to him and played along. Young Ray finally came out with Gumball but they were then ambushed by Smith and his agents.

Zari, young Ray, and older Ray fly away.

She was rescued by Ray and the duo saved young Ray and Gumball. When escaping from the agents she used her totem to transport herself and little Ray in the sky like E.T. They eventually made it to the other Legends and the Dominator queen, who was reunited with her child. Later on, Zari convinced little Ray to go trick or treating with her and the other Legends, though she was not a fan of the costume she was wearing. Later on, she bonded with adult Ray by giving his team building exercise a go.

Zari went to eat breakfast with Sara, Amaya, and Stein though she was surprised at their simple choices to eat when they could have any food they wanted. As she had gone through life on meager rations, she told them that from now on she would 'eat like a queen'. She then asked if they could take the Waverider to 2041, as that was the year that her brother had been killed so that she could try and save him from A.R.G.U.S. Sara and Amaya told her that she couldn't as it could create unforeseen consequences to the timeline. Before she could try to argue more, Nate called the team to the bridge. There he explained about outlying anachronisms and that one of them had been in 2042 where they had met Zari. He found another in Victorian London that seemed to be a series of vampire attacks.

Zari was in her room cleaning when she was approached by Amaya. Amaya wanted to talk with her about her totem but Zari was short with her about it. When Amaya pointed out that it was her brother's legacy, she angrily pointed out that she didn't want to talk about her brother especially when she and the others were telling her that she couldn't save him even though she now had a chance to. This ignited her totem that seemed to resonate with Amaya's and she explained that the reason she hadn't returned to Zambesi was that the two of them were connected. They then went to the bridge where she met Rip Hunter. Rip Hunter explained to them that he was on the hunt for an evil being by the name of Mallus and the vampire attacks were connected to him.

When Nate had been kidnapped by Sir Henry Stein, Zari went with the team to infiltrate the Order of the Shrouded Compass and rescue him, as well as find the rogue vampire. She infiltrated the club with the team and she was asked to sit for a seance with Nora Darhk. Zari's disbelief was evident to her and she told Zari that she too was a skeptic before she realized her power. Nora then went into a trance and Zari heard her speak out in her brother's voice. Zari then heard her younger brother say that it was her fault that he died as she didn't protect him and had run away. Zari tearfully tried to plead to her brother but Amaya broke the seance up. Back at the ship, Zari told Amaya that she did indeed run and left her brother to be killed by A.R.G.U.S. She also didn't want her totem anymore as it was a reminder that she should've died that day, not her brother.

Crisis on Earth-X

When most of the heroes were on Earth-X, Zari along with the rest of the Legends rescued the rest of the heroes who were trapped in the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator. She later joined Team Flash, Team Arrow, and the rest of the Legends and helped them repel the Earth-X Nazi forces.

The timeline destroyed

Zari wakes up as a cat in the destroyed timeline.

During one of the Legends' missions, John Constantine and Charlie were in the jump ship, working on a secret side mission to save John's ex-boyfriend Desmond and restore Charlie's shape-shifting powers, but Zari intercepted them and brought them back to the Waverider. There, John told them about Neron, a demon who had sent Desmond to hell and had been hunting John down ever since. Zari left to search for loopholes, but Charlie shape-shifted into John as the real John snuck off the ship. Zari dragged Charlie onto the jump ship and followed him to New Orleans, where he broke up with Desmond, driving the latter out of town. The two girls began quickly flying home to warn Sara of John's actions, but a temporal explosion hit the jump ship, knocking them both backward. When Charlie came to, she was excited to have her powers back, but soon realized that Zari had been turned into a cat.

Baffled by Zari the cat, Charlie decided to bring her back to the Waverider, but not before she dropped herself off at a casino in Las Vegas 1962. When Charlie met Custodians of the Chronology there and followed them to the Waverider, she heard Zari in the library, and wondered why she was a cat, to which Gideon, who had a holographic full-body human model, explained that the Custodians became homicidal due their disastrous encounter at Woodstock, and that the Fairy Godmother, who was also presumably killed, turned Zari into a cat. After the Custodians tried to kill her, Charlie escaped to the jumpship with Zari, flying to the Time Bureau Headquarters in 2018.

The three Legends escaping the Custodians of the Chronology, with Ava's and Mona's help.

Charlie then located John there and showed Zari to him, who transmogrified her back into human form, but ultimately returned her back to a cat, as she threatened to set the timeline back to its original course. Trying to return to the jumpship, they had an encounter with Mona, Ava and again with Custodians of the Chronology, but the three Legends managed to flee, setting a course back to Woodstock 1969 and preventing Sara's death by shooting the unicorn from the jumpship.

Unfortunately, it still didn't solve Zari's cat predicament, so they headed back to the Time Bureau, only for Charlie to see new plaques of commemoration for Nate, Ray, and Mick, who were killed in one of their missions, and meet the new version of the team, the Sirens of Space-Time, who told her of the three's tragic demise by the hands of the Fairy Godmother. Charlie briefed John and Zari on the situation, before the Sirens found her out, but successfully escaped and set a course back to Salem 1692, with John and Zari. After Charlie and John saved Nate, Ray, and Mick from the Fairy Godmother, they returned to the jumpship and found Zari, who was happy not to be a cat anymore until the others helped her realize that she had become a talking puppet.

Zari wakes up as a puppet in the destroyed timeline.

Searching for an explanation, John was told by the Puppets of Tomorrow that Mick made a bond with the Fairy Godmother, turning the Legends into puppets and becoming his new partner in crime, information that he then shared with Zari and Charlie. Charlie and John continued on to fix the mistakes in the timeline, which returned Zari to her human form, until there were no more commemorative plaques of the team in the Time Bureau Headquarters. Zari and John were just learning about it from Charlie, when John suddenly collapsed due to the amount of timelines he was currently experiencing. Zari was listening while Charlie tried to persuade John to make the compromised timeline work, but he realized that nothing they do will be in their favor, and told Charlie to have hope in her powers as he did with saving Desmond. When Charlie disagreed and tried to fight them, Zari used her air totem to knock her out and fled with John.

Zari reconciles with Charlie as the latter teases her.

Charlie, eventually realizing that she was what the Legends needed to be peaceful to the fugitives, infiltrated the Waverider and distracted a still-homicidal Sara as John did his part in New Orleans. Zari was waiting on the jumpship when a time wave, caused by the past John and Desmond's restored love, reverted the timeline to its original state. Charlie, Zari, and John then returned to the Waverider, and rejoiced as time was finally and truly fixed. The two girls then left John to tell Sara their time-traveling tale. Once they were in private, Charlie apologized to Zari for stuffing her in a backpack but also, more importantly, for getting off on the wrong foot. Charlie explained that she kept coming back to Amaya's form not because of her attractiveness, as Zari pointed out, but because it was the form she had when she joined the Legends, the first ever team that held a special place in her heart. Zari forgave Charlie, telling her that destroying history for personal gain had happened to almost everyone on the team, including herself. The two reconciled, and Charlie teased Zari about finding Amaya, hence her, attractive.

Personality

"Hey, I know what it's like to lose the people you love in a senseless war. It makes you desperate, but... if you really want peace, it starts with you."

—Zari Tomaz^[src]

Haunted by the loss of her brother and hardened from years of growing up in a dystopian future where she and other meta-humans are hunted, Zari generally presents herself as a cynical and gruff survivor who prefers to keep other people at arm's length, also being reluctant to join the Legends due to not feeling like any sort of team player. She tends to resort to sarcasm and/or blunt honesty as a means of communicating feelings, a quality she shares with Mick.

Zari has a very reserved personality, never wanting to show vulnerability. Instead, she tends to bottle up her emotions of sadness, likely because that’s what she’s done/had to do her entire life. Similarly, she seems to have slight anger management issues that cause her to do selfish acts regardless of their effect on the timeline. However, she opened up about this to Sara Lance, who understood and promised to help her express her emotions in a healthy way.

However, Zari's disposition is not entirely sour; besides her sense of humor, she is shown to have some talent in video games and enjoys them, and more noteworthy, could show empathy and compassion as the situation warranted, such as when she connected with Ray Palmer's child-self and actually did so more successfully than Ray himself. Her display of similar empathy and kindness to Prudence Hawthorne and a young Nora Darhk would seem to suggest that she has a general soft spot for children.

Zari was also just as devastated emotionally by the death of Martin Stein as all of her teammates were. Upon the news of his sacrifice, she sat with Ray, Nate, and Amaya as they mourned and even attended his funeral. All of this indicates that despite her outer image of hardened survival instincts and practiced cynicism, there is a kinder and gentler side to her as well.

Zari has great pride in her Muslim roots as it is the only thing that she believes still keeps her connected to her family. Even throughout her time-traveling adventures with the Legends, she honored her traditions by celebrating Ramadan even though the hunger was making her incredibly irritable.

Powers and abilities

Powers

• Air Totem: Zari's powers come from the Air Totem, a totem that channels and harnesses the power of the air.
  • Aerokinesis: The Air Totem grants Zari the power to manipulate and generate the air, bending it in whichever way she wanted.
    • Air Blasts: The totem allows Zari to fire offensive or defensive blasts of air from her hands.
    • Vortex Generation: The totem allows Zari to generate a powerful vortex to shield herself. It's unknown exactly how powerful it is, although in the medically-induced virtually reality Gideon put her in, Zari utilized this power in an attempt to protect the rest of the team and the ship from a bomb.
    • Flight: The totem allows Zari to fly and she can also give others this ability, as shown with a young Ray Palmer.
    • Deoxygenation: Zari has demonstrated the power to siphon the air out of people's lungs, which would eventually kill them. However, she has never used it to that extent.
• Totem recall: Zari has the ability to "call" her totem to her if she currently does not possess it.

Abilities

• Genius-level intellect/Computer specialist/Master computer hacker: Zari is a highly intelligent, experienced computer hacker, as she was able to hack into an A.R.G.U.S. drone to escape from it. She was even able to hack into the Waverider's subsystems, although Gideon knew about it after she did so. Zari even created an advanced computer simulation that would allow the Legends to find "loopholes" in the timeline if needed when fixing anachronisms.
  • Bilingual: Zari is capable of fluently speaking English and some Arabic.
  • Expert engineer: Zari proves to be a capable engineer, able to easily repair the Waverider. After the departures of Jefferson Jackson and her co-engineer Wally West, she is now the main engineer of the ship.
  • Timeline/Reality awareness: Zari has an adept ability to find small "loopholes" in the timeline that she can break without severely damaging it. She has used this skill to send Helen of Troy to Themyscira, making her an Amazon warrior, and save the life of Jane Hawthorne.
• Violinist: Zari is shown to be a skilled violinist, as she taught herself how to play the violin during a sedative-induced simulation. After waking up, she flawlessly performed Vivaldi's '"L'inverno" (Winter) Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, 4 'Winter': Largo'.
• Expert combatant: Zari is shown to have well-coordinated fighting styles such as boxing, as seen during the resurrection of Damien Darhk and while saving Helen of Troy. Zari was even skilled enough to hold her own against Sara Lance for a time when the latter was possessed by Mallus.
• Culinary expertise: Having been taught by her mother, Zari is an excellent cook, particularly with her cultural dishes; she prepared an entire Iftar feast to celebrate the end of Ramadan.

Equipment

• Totem wristband: When Zari's necklace was burned in Salem, Ray made her a special bracelet that allows her to bear the Air Totem at all times. He also programmed it to have the functions of a smartwatch and a pedometer.
  • Air Totem: All of Zari's powers came from her totem, which allowed her to manipulate the air.
• Super suit: During the Nazi invasion in 2017, Zari received a practical suit in black and gold from the Waverider's fabricator.

Former equipment

• Totem necklace: Zari originally summoned the power of the Air Totem by touching a golden necklace that contained it. The necklace was burned when she was accused of being a witch in Salem.
• Halloween costume: Zari's first costume was an all-white Halloween costume, which she disliked and replaced it during the Nazi invasion in 2017.

Appearances

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

Season 3 "Zari" "Phone Home" "Return of the Mack" "Helen Hunt" "Welcome to the Jungle" "Crisis on Earth-X, Part 4" "Beebo the God of War" "Daddy Darhkest" "Here I Go Again" "The Curse of the Earth Totem" "No Country for Old Dads" "Amazing Grace" "Necromancing the Stone" "I, Ava" "Guest Starring John Noble" "The Good, The Bad and The Cuddly" Season 4 "The Virgin Gary" "Witch Hunt" "Dancing Queen" "Wet Hot American Bummer" "Tagumo Attacks!!!" "Tender is the Nate" "Hell No, Dolly!" "Legends of To-Meow-Meow" "Lucha de Apuestas"

Trivia

• Zari is a fan of musicals.
• She knows how to play the violin.
• Zari has at least minor claustrophobia, a fear of confined spaces.
• She loves cats.
• Zari is the sixth character in the Arrowverse to have an episode named after her in a civilian sense, after Sara Lance, Felicity Smoak, Harrison Wells, Oliver Queen and Alex Danvers.
  • She is also the third character in the Arrowverse to have an episode title be solely her name, after Sara and Alex.
• According to her rap sheet, which was pulled up by Gideon before she joined the Legends, Zari was charged with burglary, larceny, grand larceny, identity theft, trespassing, digital trespassing, meta-human smuggling, and conspiracy.
  • Zari was also charged with multiple religious infractions, due to her being Muslim and the fact that religion is apparently illegal in 2042.

Behind the scenes

• In DC comics, Adrianna Tomaz is known as the superhero Isis. She is able to use a mystical amulet (identical to her totem on the show) to harness the Powers of Isis using the incantation "I Am Isis", granting her power over the elements. She also has a little brother who becomes the superhero Osiris. Her amulet and her brother's powers were given to them by Black Adam, who Isis was in a relationship with. The two eventually married and ruled Kahndaq. The character originated from a Captain Marvel TV show before being introduced into the DC comics.
• Zari's full name is "Zari Adrianna Tomaz" but it has never been stated on screen.