Hourman

Hourman's History

Scientist Rex Tyler, raised in upstate New York, developed an affinity for chemistry, particularly biochemistry. Working his way through college, he landed a job researching vitamins and hormone supplements at Bannermain Chemical. A series of discoveries and accidents led him to the "miraculous vitamin" Miraclo. He found that concentrated doses of the "miraclo" given to test mice increased their strength and vitality several times that of normal. After taking a dose himself, Rex found he could have superhuman strength and speed for the hour that the vitamin's effects lasted, before returning to human levels.

Keeping the discovery of Miraclo a secret, Tyler decided that human trials would be limited to the only subject he could trust: himself. Feeling that the Miraclo-induced abilities should be used for good purposes, he decided to use the abilities to help those in need; in other words, he would become a superhero, based in Appleton City.

He received his first mission by placing an ad stating that "The Man of The Hour" would help the needy. Tracking down one responder to the ad, he aided a housewife whose husband was falling in with the wrong crowd, and stopped a robbery. Using a costume he found in an abandoned costume shop, he started to adventure as The Hour-Man. egan to decline in the post-war years. Eventually, his adventures ended. However, with the resurgence of super-heroes in the mid-1950s and early 1960s, interest in the Golden Age heroes returned, and Hourman was soon appearing as a guest star in issues of Justice League of America. Like all the other Golden Agers, he was now considered an elder statesman of the super-hero set.

Unlike some other Golden Age heroes, his character would continue to grow more and more complex. The idea that Miraclo was addictive, combined with the suggestion that Tyler himself was addicted to crime fighting, made Hourman one of the superhero world's first cautionary tales. Rex would continue to fight both of his addictions throughout the rest of his appearances. His character was seemingly killed off along with other Golden Age heroes fighting a time-traveling villain named Extant, during the Zero Hour crisis, when Extant increased Rex's temporal rate to age him to death.[4] He was rescued from that fate by the third Hourman and put in a pocket dimension called the Timepoint. Rex would remain there for one hour, but that time would only pass when he was visited by his son, after which Rex would have to return to the confrontation with Extant so that history would unfold as it had. However, when Rick was wounded in a fight with Nemesis, he transferred himself to the Timepoint. Rex was sent back in the role of Hourman until the android Hourman returned to take the JSA to the Timepoint and retrieve Rick. When the Timepoint ended just as Rick's injuries had been treated, Rick and Rex fought to try and return to Zero Hour, but the android Hourman took his place in that battle. Rex now lives in semi-retirement with his wife Wendi, noting that he intended to rebuild his relationship with Wendi and also work on reconstructing the android Hourman based on his remaining pieces. Rex has his old Hourman costume, and a bowl full of Miraclo inside a secret compartment of the grandfather clock in his bedroom which opens when both hands are turned to 12.