DC SUPER HEROES: HOURMAN
Here is a series dedicated to the kid in me. All things super hero. To this day I still have my comic book collection, each placed in plastic bags and boxed in my closet. With this summer being the Summer of Super Heroes in the movies, I thought this might be a fun series to put together. PLEASE NOTE: This is a very busy road at times. I tried to place each cache where there is ample space to pull completely off the road. Please watch for traffic and the other hazards that are found in this area, including our slithery friends. I hope you enjoy this series.
Hourman (spelled Hour-Man in his earliest appearances, also referred to as the Hour-Man, and the Hourman) is the name of three different fictional DC Comics superheroes, the first of whom was created by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily in Adventure Comics #48 (April 1940), during the Golden Age of Comic Books
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 vitamin's effects lasted, before returning to human levels.
Another Hourman, an android from the 853rd century that was modeled on Rex Tyler's DNA, served with both the Justice League and the Justice Society for a time. He often perceived himself as Rex and also as Rex's descendant. Originally possessing the time-manipulating cosmic artifact known as the Worlogog, he divested himself of most of its power at the suggestion of Snapper Carr and went about learning to be human. After failing to stop Extant from escaping a fight, Hourman quit the JSA and began travelling through the timestream, returning when he received a distress call from the JSA. As noted above, he is currently believed to have been destroyed at the hands of Extant in Rex's place, although the time-traveler Rip Hunter mentioned that his actions would leave him inactive for a relative year, indicating his probable return. The android also, before he died, gave his hourglass to Rex Tyler, who hopes to rebuild him. The android briefly used the alias Matthew Tyler and was often simply called Tyler.
Neither Rex nor Rick have any innate powers (though it was theorized once that their powers derive from a metagene, like most DC superheroes). Any superhuman abilities they display are derived from the use of Miraclo. Taking the drug grants a user several abilities for the span of an hour. Most obvious are the superhuman strength, durability, increased resistance to physical damage (to the extent of being impervious to small arms fire) and speed enhancements. Other, lesser known and mentioned powers include night vision and the ability to survive underwater. Rex and Rick both took Miraclo in pill form, but Rick currently uses a transdermal patch.