Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Batman and Hourman



Here's a little change of pace with and old school look cover. Hourman is another one of those great Earth-2 characters that did not have a counterpart on Earth-1, making him even more intriguing to me as a young reader. Plus he had a great hook - powers for only an hour at a time, never knowing the optimum moment to begin the power boost and always running the risk of losing it at a critical moment. Unfortunately, the hour of power was originally administered through taking a drug - a Miraclo Tablet... that and the loose fitting mask that many artists struggle with have I think held him back from breaking through to the big leagues. Those are relatively easy problems to overcome so I hope to see this character grow in popularity in the years to come. Hey, sometimes it takes half a century or so...

6 comments:

Rick L. Phillips said...

Everytime I see Hourman I think of the 1960's TV show Mr. Terrific. He had powers for only 1 hour too but it was done for comedy. Maybe you can find a Dell or Gold Key book based on that TV series to create a team-up with him.

Beachy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Beachy said...

Tick Tock Tyler, man of the hour. :-D

They just need to have him "Pym up." He's taken so much Miraclo that he can just trigger the effect when he wants to. It drains his body, so he then has to rest for 23 hours to recover from it.

Ross said...

Yup, that'd be my solution too.

Cabin Campbell said...

Another great one, Ross. Ah, Earth 2, my favorite Earth.

Anonymous said...

Hi. Sorry this is coming in 2+ years after the fact, but I just discovered the site recently.

I've always kind of though that Hourman and Dr. Mid-Nite kind of kept each other from getting ahead. They're too similar, both in terms of their costumes, and being heros with serious limitations on their powers, thus making it difficult for the powers that be to focus on either one of them.

Personally, I'm a Dr. Mid-Nite man, so if there can be only...one (groan), I'd prefer him, but either way. I think that might be the key though.

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