Hourman (android)
Hourman is a male comic character who features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Origin
Shortly after its construction, Metron appointed Hourman as his heir and entrusted him with the Worlogog. The Worlogog was an ancient artifact containing a map of space/time from Creation until the End of the Universe in miniature. The Worlogog, in form of a stone, had been lost for centuries on Earth until it was unearthed by a LexCorp requisition team and was dubbed the Philosopher's Stone. Lex Luthor, not fully understanding the stone, used it to manipulate the alien Jemm with his Injustice Gang against the Justice League of America. The Justice League notably Batman, Martian Manhunter, and Superman defeated Luthor and as Superman stood ready to destroy the Worlogog, a temporal split was created. (JLA v1 #12)
After the celebrations had finished, Hourman felt inadequate since he had been used so easily by Solaris as the carrier of the Hourman Virus. Deciding that he needed some more personal growth, he travelled back to the 20th century, since there he could truly grow, unlike in the wondrous 853rd century. Thus he arrived at the Justice League Watchtower, where he would serve as a replacement for the Martian Manhunter (who was on a temporary leave of absence). Immediately upon his entrance, he made somewhat of a temporal snafu, by asking if he had arrived before or after the invasion of the 5th dimension.
He arrived at the Justice League Watchtower, having signaled ahead that he was coming. He did not truly fit in with the League, however, and used his time-vision on multiple occasions to skip over conversations he deemed unnecessary. Eventually, a few members of the League decided to call him on it and decided that Batman would be best to talk some sense into Hourman.
Although annoyed by their interference, he explained to Hourman the worth of thinking before acting. Hourman took the advice rather literally and used his time-vision to learn the history of the Justice League through Batman's experiences. From those experiences, Hourman decided that the best person to guide him through his personal growth was the former mascot of the League, and normal human, Snapper Carr.
Hourman sought to better understand his existence leading to him deciding to meet Snapper Carr in order to learn from him. During this time, he came to be referred to as Tyler by Carr due to his gene-ware descended from the original Hourman. After a brief rash attempt at understanding Amazo, he decided to divest himself of the power of the Worlogog thus greatly reducing his power as he came to see that his omnipotence was a barrier in helping himself learn from his mistakes. (Houman v1 #1)
Hourman began to ruminate over his existence as he observed the primary facility of Tyler Chemical that would one day create him. At this time, Jay Garrick arrived to give Hourman the news but the android was already aware that Wesley Dodds had died. (JSA Secret Files and Origins v1 #1) He came to attend the funeral for the Sandman Wesley Dodds at the Valhalla Cemetery alongside the members of the Justice Society. The gathering was interrupted by Jared Stevens who was mortally wounded and died from his wounds. At that moment, the undead Sons of Anubis arrived in order to claim the artefacts of Fate leading to a fight as Hourman along with the superheroes battling them. The defeated the undead mummies whereupon Scarab arrived who warned of a great threat and that only the JSA could help stop it. (JSA v1 #1) He was dispatched with a team to Vancouver that was one of three sites that was suspected to hold the Fate-Child who was prophecised to become the new Doctor Fate. Whilst there, they went to find the new born child only to find the boy being taken by a woman dressed up as Hawkgirl who attempted to flee with the boy. However, she was stopped by Hourman who used his time-vision to determine that she was Kendra Saunders where she revealed that she had been sent to protect the Fate-Child from the Dark Lord. At that moment, the heroes including Hourman were struck down by their foe who was revealed to be Mordru. (JSA v1 #2) He participated in the battle against the sorcerer alongside the Justice Society who fought their foe in the Tower of Fate where he was seemingly destroyed with his head being the only thing that survived. (JSA v1 #3) After Mordru's defeat, the Justice Society took the remains of Hourman back to their headquarters to mourn him but the android managed to restore himself now that they were out of the Tower of Fate. This saw Hourman join the ranks of the formally restored Justice Society of America that sought to fight new threats in the world. (JSA v1 #4)
Whilst possessed, Courtney Whitmore managed to use the cosmic energy from her belt to knock Hourman down and free him from the shadows. He then aided the team against their possessed comrades by using his time vision to Jay Garrick to slow the speedster down allowing them to exorcise him. (JSA v1 #9)
During the fight, Hourman extended his hour of power to his compatriots to give them each a chance of fighting Extant. Together, they managed to defeat their foe who attempted to flee into the timestream but was thwarted by Metron along with Atom-Smasher. In the aftermath, Metron departed with the Worlogog where he expressed his disappointment in Hourman. Tyler then determined that there was a pattern in his existence that led to him not acting at critical junctures which was responsible for the dangers they faced and he decided to tender his resignation from the JSA until he resolved this crisis within him. (JSA v1 #15) He decided sometime away through time where he came to enjoy himself. Tyler then received a call for aid from a T-Sphere leading to him returning to the present on-board his time ship to help the Justice Society when they wanted to recovered the critically injured Rick Tyler who was trapped in the Time Point. He recovered several Justice Society members that included Rex Tyler, Pieter Cross and Jay Garrick where they went into the Time Point to help heal Rick Tyler's injuries. Once the surgery was complete, the android Hourman used his control of time to aid in the healing process. By this point, the time within the structure in the Time Point was over which meant that Hourman had to return to the moment of his death otherwise the timestream itself would collapse. Rather than see his father die, the recovered Rick Tyler decided to jump into the timeline to take his fathers place in history. (JSA v1 #65)
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Hourman remained in the far future of the 853rd century where he was a member of the Justice Legion when reality was being unravelled by the awakening of Perpetua. She sought to claim the scattered pieces of the Totality from various points of history in order to remake the Multiverse to her vision. Thus, Brainiac was sent to bottle the various future timelines and invade them in order to claim the Totality fragment. This saw his forces attacking the Justice Legion with Farris Knight hiding the Totality piece in his Cosmic Rod and placing it within Hourman. The team later fell under Brainiac's control where they fought some of their ancestors in the Justice Leaguw who had arrived to find the cosmic relic. Wonder Woman managed to free Hourman from Brainiac's control through the Lasso of Truth whereupon he helped free his comrades. (Justice League v4 #32)
Overview
Personality and attributes
The fact that he was 2 years old was shown as he tended to be immature, self-centred and unsocialised. (Hourman v1 #1) In time, he came to learn to enjoy himself and become his own person. (JSA v1 #65)
Powers and abilities
As a highly advanced android, he was a Tyler Chemorobotics Diamond-Generation intelligent machine colony. (DC One Million v1 #1) His biosoftware replicated the Tyler family DNA that meant that he was the direct descendant of Rex Tyler who was the first Hourman. (JLA v1 #28) As a machine colony, he was able to repair his body even after it was badly damaged so long as a component of it remained. (JSA v1 #4)
He sensed time the way others read facial expressions with the past, present and future being all the same to him. (JSA Secret Files and Origins v1 #1) The time vision could even operate on undead mummies thus devolving their bodies to dust, turning their wrappings into their original fruits and the gold into ore. (JSA v1 #1) Hourman could even used his ability against speedsters to slow their relative time to hundred billionth of normal time. (JSA v1 #9) Hourman could use this ability on others to enhance their natural healing process by speeding time in that localised area. (JSA v1 #4) He could create a temporal distortion field around himself and others that led to them being slightly out of sync with others perception of time allowing Hourman and his allies to appear invisible. (JSA v1 #6)
From his mentor Metron, he was gifted the Worlogog that granted him mastery of time and space allowing him to travel through deep time. (DC One Million v1 #1) He later decided to remove his capacity for omnipotence by divesting himself from the Worlogog. Thus, he broke it down to tachyons which he sent back into past moments. However, he retained a small fragment thus giving him one hour periods of time vision along with more limited fuel for his timeship. (Hourman v1 #1)
Notes
- Hourman was created by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter where he made his first appearance in JLA v1 #12 (November, 1997).
Appearances
- JLA v1: (1997)
- DC One Million v1:
- Hourman v1:
- JSA Secret Files and Origins v1:
- JSA v1:
- Justice League v4:
External Links
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