Hourman
1910 - Rex Tyler is born.
1922 - 12-year-old Rex Tyler gets his first chemistry set.
1928 - 18-year-old Rex goes to college to study the new field of biochemistry.
1932 - 22-year-old Rex graduates with a bachelors in biochemistry, and starts working at Bannerman Chemicals.
1934 - 24-year-old Rex develops Miraclo, and chooses to keep it secret given how dangerous it's use could be. He creates the identity Hourman, using his heroic adventures as advanced product trials as he works to refine Miraclo.
1938 - 28-year-old Rex uses his personal research with Miraclo to start Tyler Chemicals.
1939 - WW2 begins.
1941 - 31-year-old Rex joins the Justice Society when they are formed after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1945 - WW2 ends.
1947 - 37-year-old Rex realizes that he has developed a chemical dependence on Mircalo, redirecting his attempts to refine the drug.
1953 - 43-year-old Rex and the Justice Society are called before the Un American Activities Commission. They choose to disband and retire, but Rex's addiction proves to be not just to Miraclo, but to being Hourman. He continues to fight crime, now completely outside the law.
1961 - 51-year-old Rex dies while succumbing to his addictions, gunned down while fighting drug smugglers on a plane, falling to his death.
It's easy to look at the characters that are popular now and assume that these were always the banner characters for DC, but the fact is that they've actually undergone several titanic shifts in just what the company looks like and who their most popular pantheon of characters are. While the big three have basically always been at the center, the characters likely to be flanking them were very different, even if they were equally iconic. Some of those vintage heroes have modern antecedents, and some of them remain fascinating vintage ideas. There have been modern takes on Hourman, but he remains one of the truly great holdovers of DC's oldest era.
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Hourman's Comic HistoryHourman's first appearance was in 1940, in Adventure Comics #48, a creation of journeymen comic creators Ken Finch & Bernard Baily (Baily in particular is best known for his work in pre-code horror comics). 1940 was an absolute explosion of new superheroes all riding the wave of popularity from Superman, but certain characters, particularly ones from the incredibly popular DC anthology series, really stood out as being the new archetypes of the genre. Hourman was immediately successful, appearing on the cover of every issue for the next year in a publication that also featured huge characters like Sandman and Starman, but also appearing in the debut issue of All-Star Comics before becoming a founding member of the Justice Society.
Rex had a pretty simple story; he was a chemist who developed a vitamin (drug?) that gave him enhanced strength and invulnerability, but only for an hour; so he had to plan out his adventures carefully, keeping track of his "power hour" with the hourglass on his neck. It was a clever idea because it infused his superheroic adventures with a certain heist energy, but I think it also really played into the ongoing childs power fantasy of comic superheroes, suggesting that anyone could take his pill and have the same adventures. |
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Rex's appearances followed the same model as many of the classic golden age heroes, being retroactively reimagined as happening on Earth-2, appearing in crossovers between the Justice League and Justice Society over the years, and then being rethought AGAIN as World War II heroes after the Crisis on infinite Earths in 1985. In the aftermath of the crisis, we got an entirely new Hourman in the pages of Infinity Inc. This was Rick Tyler, the son of Rex, and had a costume so unmemorable I literally forgot it existed, despite owning every issue he ever appeared in wearing it. In the late 90's we actually got a totally new, wildly inventive Hourman; and android from the 853rd century named Matthew Tyler, who actually had honest-to god time-travel powers and allowed TONS of time traveling shenanigans to take place as he served on both the Justice League AND the Justice Society, before finally sacrificing himself to save Rex. We can't use this character, obviously, but while he was around he was actually a really well conceived, fun character to follow.
In the meantime, After Matthew's time as Hourman, Rick returned to the spotlight, actually wearing a costume far closer to his father's and serving full time as a member of the Justice Society. He was now married to Jessie Quick, and both characters were largely defined by that relationship. In Jessie's case, it really diminished her, since she was such a dynamic character on her own, but for Rick it actually heightened his profile and allowed him to have lots of singular heroic moments that he probably wouldn;t have had otherwise. |
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Our Hourman StoryWe're choosing to just focus on the classic Golden Age Hourman; Rex Tyler is an iconic part of this era of DC's history, and while there are plenty of modern takes on his son in a lot of expanded media, all of them are really just an attempt to modernize this classic character, and we honestly don't actually think he needs to be modernized.
So who is our Hourman? The concepts at play that make him unique are actually surprisingly inventive, and even more evocative NOW than they were when they were first invented. The idea that he has to carefully plan his adventures because of the time limit is immediately interesting. He winds up being one of the more powerful street-level heroes of his era, but still has to use his brain to use his powers effectively and that lends itself to all sorts of cool stories. Even more interesting, however, are some of the ideas that have been introduced retroactively, particularly in the pages of James Robinson's Golden Age story. The idea that Miraclo is ultimately addictive, or more accurately, that the rush of being a hero empowered by a drug is actually addictive makes such a compelling concept. We're actually using that in our story, including the idea that the Justice Society was forced to retire, but that Rex simply couldn't let go, and continued to become Hourman illegally right up until his death makes him such a fascinating inclusion in the larger mythology of heroes in this version of the DC world. |
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