Tornado (occasionally Toronado) is a horse ridden by the character Zorro in several films and books. Tornado is said to be intelligent and fast. His name is pronounced in the Spanish way, "tor-NAH-do" (except in the 1998 movie The Mask of Zorro). Being as jet-black as Zorro's costume enables horse and rider to more easily elude capture at night. Background Over the decades and the many stories, the specific details of Tornado's history and personality differ considerably. In the 1957 TV series, Tornado is a fast, strong and smart horse, who can be summoned with a whistle, able to obey verbal and non verbal commands to bring something, like keys to a jail cell, or to do some task. In the second season episodes that take place in Monterey, he is replaced by an equally fast and strong white horse named Phantom, the former steed of a murdered Army lieutenant. Phantom seems to have his own grudge against the same outlaws that Zorro is fighting, due to their having murdered his former owner. In the 1990 TV series, after Diego/Zorro's first exploit (freeing his father and Victoria Escalante from jail), he decides that he needs a fast horse that nobody in the area has ever seen. He and Felipe (the "Bernardo" character for this series) come across the yet-unnamed black horse and give chase. In a small valley, they came across the horse protecting his sick foal. Diego tends the foal and persuades the horse to accompany him and Felipe back to Zorro's lair. There, Felipe comes up with the name "Toronado" because of the horse's strength and speed, and Toronado seems to like the name. In the series, Toronado displays considerable intelligence and initiative, such as freeing and chasing away the troopers' horses, or leading Felipe to help Zorro when Zorro has been injured or incapacitated. In the film The Mask of Zorro (1998), when Diego returns to his home after being imprisoned for twenty years, he finds that everything, including the original Tornado is gone. (The novelization states that Tornado probably stayed in the area for as long as possible for love of his master before wandering away.) His successor, Alejandro Murrieta, finds his own horse which he names Tornado after the first horse, and the novelization suggests that it may be the son of the earlier Tornado. It is an intelligent animal, but was at first poorly