Deadline just shared this bit of DC News: Warner Brothers and DC Films are developing a film featuring the Golden Age hero Hourman and have tapped writers Gavin James and Neil Widener to pen the story.
For fans of the Golden Age of comics and the Justice Society of America, this is amazing news. For everybody else, the reaction is probably more, “Wait, Who?” If you’re in the latter group, sit right there and I’ll tell you what you need to know.
Hourman (or The Hour-Man as he was billed originally) first appeared in 1940 in Adventure Comics #48. Adventure Comics was where a lot of Golden Age characters got their start. Sandman, Starman, and Manhunter all debut there in the 1940s. Hourman was a chemist named Rex Tyler. While researching vitamin supplements for his job, he discovered the “miraculous vitamin.” Miraclo, as he dubbed it, gave him superhuman strength and speed for just one hour a day. When the hour was up, he’d return to normal.
Hourman was created by writer Ken Fitch and artist Bernard Baily. Like other DC heroes who weren’t Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hourman faded into obscurity, only to return occasionally during the Silver Age as part of the Earth-2 universe annual team-ups between the JSA and Justice League of America.
Unlike many of the JSA team, Hourman did not have an Earth-1 doppelganger. So in the 1970s, when DC started to tell stories based on Earth-2 again, we discover that Rex has a son, Rick. Events would happen (Crisis on Infinite Earths) where Rick picked up the mantle of Hourman, and the Miraclo, from his father.
The third Hourman came from the far future (the 853rd Century to be exact). He was an android (though he calls himself as an “intelligent machine colony”) constructed by Tyler Chemorobotics, formerly TylerCo, the chemical company founded by Rex. Created in the far future from technology we could only imagine, his body and mind were based on Rex Tyler. Yeah, you read that right. Also, his powers did not come from Miraclo.
One thing about the magic pill, Miraclo. Like any drug, there are risks and side effects. Both Rex and Rick had to deal with issues of addiction, both to the drug and to the life of being a hero. Miraclo also caused Rick to become ill and giving him Leukemia.
Different versions of the character appeared across the DC television multiverse, both in animated and live action form. Most notably on the Arrowverse on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, where the team meets the Justice Society being lead by Rex (Patrick J. Adams) in 1942. Both Rex (played by Lou Ferrigno, Jr) and his son Rick (Cameron Gellman) play important parts on Stargirl. The CW attempted to develop an Hourman TV series in 2013, but it never made it past the scripting phase.
Which character version of Hourman will star is not known at this point. Along with the upcoming Blue Beetle, Batgirl, and Zatanna projects, it looks like Warner Brothers has realized there is more to DC than the Big Three.
