Rip Hunter
Rip Hunter is a male comic character who features in DC Comics.
Contents |
Biography
Pre-Crisis
Ripley Hunter
Brilliant students Rip Hunter and Jeff Smith met in college, and while they were working on their doctorates they pursued time travel research. Together they completed a prototype time sphere, but found that no power element could withstand the heat the sphere generated. Smith and Hunter were competing with fellow student John Charles James for a generous grant, and James taunted them, telling them he d surely win because his rocket engine was near complete. Later that day Rip and Jeff discovered a slagheap with a mysterious element that had survived the disaster. They used it to make their time sphere functional, and won the grant. (DC Comics Presents v1 #37)
Rip s former classmate John Charles James broke into his New England lab, knocked out Jeff Smith, and stole the back-up time sphere. James still resented the fact that he lost his grant to Rip, and wanted revenge. James clearly didn t know how to operate the time sphere, and was traveling randomly through the time stream. Rip assembled his crew, Jeff, Corky and Bonnie, and tracked James' chronal energy to the year 4784. They were taken prisoner by futuristic humans, until they convinced them they were not friends of James, who d stolen one of the nexus-gems that powered their city. The team made amends by diving into the ocean to find a new gem for the future humans. The ocean was blood-red, and Rip chose not to speculate on what happened to the water supply. Following the chronal trail they ended up in New Mexico, 3709 BC, where James had terrorized a group of native Americans. James appeared, pulled a gun, and took Jeff hostage, so he could learn how to operate the time sphere. James returned to their college days, and tried to wreck the prototype time sphere. Rip and company followed, warning James that if he changed history there would never have been an operational time sphere and they d be trapped in the past. James was fueled by revenge, and did not care, but the team forced him to flee. Rip rammed his time-sphere into the back-up, knocking it out of commission, and knocking out James. Returning to the present he realized the back-up crashed and burned, leaving behind the nexus-gem James used to fuel it. The wreckage had been discovered by his college self, as had the nexus gem. Instead of destroying Rip s career, James had actually left behind the element that would make the prototype time sphere functional. (DC Comics Presents v1 #37)
The Immortal Man later gathered Rip and a number of other heroes and asked them to aid him in combating Vandal Savage. He told them they were Forgotten Heroes, but they could still make a difference. Immortal Man told them Vandal Savage infected Superman with time-seeds from the time pyramids. As the seeds dropped in Metropolis Park they turned it into a prehistoric jungle, which quickly spread to the heart of Metropolis. Rip investigated the original time pyramid created during the Big band, but the trip aged him into an old man. He returned to the Big Bang with Superman, who destroyed the pyramid. The pyramids to disappear from the present, and Rip regained his original age, but Superman was lost in the timestream, and Rip Hunter returned to the present without him. (Action Comics v1 #553)
Hunter reunited with some of his Forgotten Heroes teammates, as well as cosmic heroes Adam Strange and Captain Comet, in a quest to defeat the Anti-Monitor once and for all. With the help of Brainiac, they journeyed to Apokolips, where the tyrant Darkseid used his advanced science to peer into the Anti-Matter universe and aid Alex Luthor, Superman, and Superboy-Prime in the ultimate destruction of the Anti-Monitor. With the Anti-Monitor dead, Luthor, Superman, and Superboy-Prime sealed themselves in a protective 'heaven' dimension, and Darkseid sent the heroes back to earth. (Crisis on Infinite Earths v1 #11)
Post-Crisis
Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.
Post-Flashpoint
Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.
Hunter later encountered Sarko who resented the dismantling of the Sinestro Corps of his time period after their leader Soranik Natu allied with the Green Lantern Corps. Rip chased the zealot across decades in both the past and future in an effort to stop him actions. Arriving in 2047, Hunter came to find that the timeline had been corrupted with one of its notable effects being that there were no Green Lanterns. Rip then decided to travel to an earlier period in an effort to fix it. Thus, he believed the yellow light of fear was extinguished leaving only the Green Lanterns present which was why he went back in time to remove them from existence. (Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps v1 #19) Travelling to 2017, he emerged weakened on Oa to warn the Green Lantern Corps that they had been erased from history before passing out. (Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps v1 #18) After regaining consciousness, he briefed the Green Lanterns of the danger posed by Sarko where at that moment Oa came under attack from the villain's prism beasts. (Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps v1 #19)
Overview
Personality and attributes
As a Time Master, he was charged with protecting the past, present and future. (Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps v1 #19)
Powers and abilities
He was regarded as a next-level science genius. (Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps v1 #19)
From a future point in time, he was provided a green Power Ring that had been given to him by a future version of John Stewart. It was provided so that Hunter could show himself to be an ally to the Green Lantern Corps. The ring was set to have data and communication capabilities and lacked the power to perform any will-based functions. Stewart had said that Hunter was not qualified to be a true Green Lantern as he was never chosen by a ring. (Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps v1 #19)
Notes
- Rip Hunter was created by Jack Miller and Ruben Moreira where he made his first appearance in Showcase v1 #20 (May, 1959).
In other media
Television
- In the Arrowverse, Rip Hunter made a number of appearances in the shared continuity setting.
- In The Flash, Rip Hunter was mentioned by name in the 2014 live-action television series episode "Fast Enough" though he did not make an appearance. He was mentioned by the Reverse Flash when Cisco Ramone had created a Time-Sphere with Wells commenting that Rip Hunter would have been impressed with it and he built the first of these machines. He later said that Rip Hunter was an interesting man to encounter.
- In Legends of Tomorrow, Rip Hunter appeared in the live-action series where he was portrayed by actor Arthur Darvill. He was shown to be from East London in the 22nd century who had joined the ranks of the Time Masters to safeguard the timeline. During this time, he was known as Captain Rip Hunter and he broke the rules of the Time Masters in not engaging in romantic relationships or having children. In 2166, he had a wife and a child named Jonas but the two were killed by the immortal Vandal Savage who had conquered the world. Captain Hunter grieved and vowed revenge against Savage where he petitioned the Time Masters to intervene but they refused as they did not want to tamper with the timeline. This caused Rip Hunter to steal the timeship Waverider with its onboard AI Gideon where he went to the modern day to recruit Ray Palmer, Sara Lance, Jefferson Jackson, Martin Stein, Khufu, Kendra Saunders, Captain Cold and Heatwave to stop Vandal Savage. In "Blood Ties", it was shown that Hunter had tried to kill Vandal Savage long ago but failed and this assassin was known as Gareeb among the order that followed Vandal Savage. After defeating the Legion of Doom, Rip Hunter departed the Legends as he sought to fix the damage done to the timeline. Over the course of five years, he built the Time Bureau to repair the damage done to the timeline caused by the actions of the Legends that led to anachronisms forming in history with displaced animals, objects or people appearing in wrong settings.
Appearances
- Showcase v1: (1959)
- DC Comics Presents v1:
- Time Masters v1:
- Booster Gold:
- Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps v1:
- Blue & Gold v1:
External Links
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