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Post by chadwilliam on Sept 1, 2022 12:12:53 GMT -5
I really enjoyed this thread, M.W. right up to the end. I have to say, if you're "not really confident" in your writing skills, I have to wonder who is. Immensely enjoyable and you kept me hooked even when the Man of the Hour did not. There is something I want to interject which I suspect you'll find interesting. Big Bang Comics has been publishing "new" Golden/Silver/Bronze/Modern Age comics on and off for nearly 30 years right now with results which often would look like the real thing if the sources of their inspirations weren't so obvious. Too clever and earnest to be a rip-off, I regard what they do as an homage, though I would never pretend that their "Knight Watchman and Kid Galahad", "Utliman", "Blitz", and so forth aren't take off's on Batman, Superman, and The Flash. As it relates to this thread... So devoted to the idea that the Golden/Silver/Bronze Age comics they created in the 1990s should look like the real thing, Big Bang even created a detailed history of their company, their editors, writers, artists, and titles to enhance the sense that these characters existed if not in our world, then one very similar to it. To that end, their homage to Jim Steranko's two volume History of Comics set included some details on superheroes created especially for their equivalent two issues in Big Bang Comics #27.One of whom is Vita-Man... So an Hour-Man take-off, obviously. Given all of your speculations regarding why certain things changed about the strip, here's a sort of 'What If' in that it presents how Hour-Man could have turned out. I like the idea of an Hour-Man who has a different Miraclo pill for every ability - one for speed, another for strength, another for stamina, and so forth - but due to dangers of the pills when more than two are taken at once, has to guess which enhanced abilities will serve him best before he even fully understands the intricacies of the case he's jumping into. Though the above write-up served as Vita-Man's comic book debut, Big Bang did eventually get around to giving us a solo tale of his in World Class Comics #1.
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 1, 2022 16:11:32 GMT -5
Thanks, chadwilliam ! That's an excellent addendum to the Hourman retrospective, something I absolutely would have featured if I'd been aware of it! It shouldn't surprise me that Big Bang had their take on the Man of the Hour, and that's a pretty clever variation. One of the things I considered writing about here at the finale were ideas on how one might revamp/reboot the character, but I didn't consider different varieties of Miraclo--pick one and hope it was the right choice for the job!
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 2, 2022 11:19:01 GMT -5
This character started off as an Hourman swipe, and I'm working on stories featuring him with an Hourman vibe.
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 2, 2022 13:16:00 GMT -5
This character started off as an Hourman swipe, and I'm working on stories featuring him with an Hourman vibe. Why it is, indeed! The swipe is from a mirrored image of ADVENTURE COMICS #52: Thanks for the obscure bit of Hourman info! From what I can figure out, the character depicted in the swipe went unnamed, and wasn't featured in the WEEKENDER comic, itself. What are you calling him in your stories, "The Weekender"?
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Post by zaku on Sept 2, 2022 14:03:42 GMT -5
Issues 60-62 finally address a long-dangling plot thread: in one of the JLA/JSA team-ups in the 70’s (JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #171, Oct 1979), the original Mr. Terrific was murdered by a villain called the Spirit King. The villain got away and was never brought to justice for his crime, and this arc was intended to rectify that oversight. I think the oversight was already rectified in Spectre Vol. 3 #54 (1997) set immediately after the JLA story. The JSA arc is chronologically set after that
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 2, 2022 19:00:09 GMT -5
Thanks for the correction. You're right, the Spectre handled it, as is fitting, and the JSA issues were in the aftermath of that.
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Post by zaku on Sept 3, 2022 8:23:06 GMT -5
Just wanted to add that Hourman makes an appearance in Doomsday Clock, but I've no idea which version he's supposed to be.
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Post by MWGallaher on Sept 3, 2022 8:45:34 GMT -5
That premature tease of the JSA appears to have a mix of whatever the upcoming series' counterparts to the originals are, as well as some of the legacy versions. Since much time has passed, this year's revival series may or may not clarify whether this is the original or one of the Rick Tyler versions. Thanks for posting it, zaku; whoever it is, it's the precise moment of return of some Hourman to the current DCU.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Sept 6, 2022 10:52:28 GMT -5
This character started off as an Hourman swipe, and I'm working on stories featuring him with an Hourman vibe. Why it is, indeed! The swipe is from a mirrored image of ADVENTURE COMICS #52: Thanks for the obscure bit of Hourman info! From what I can figure out, the character depicted in the swipe went unnamed, and wasn't featured in the WEEKENDER comic, itself. What are you calling him in your stories, "The Weekender"? Precisely. I then had to come up with a reason why a guy would only fight crime on the weekends, and fingered him for that reason as an Hourman take before I actually knew this was a swipe! As a hint: Weekender's counterpart on Earth-1 is named "The Shabbos Goy." Issues 60-62 finally address a long-dangling plot thread: in one of the JLA/JSA team-ups in the 70’s (JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #171, Oct 1979), the original Mr. Terrific was murdered by a villain called the Spirit King. The villain got away and was never brought to justice for his crime, and this arc was intended to rectify that oversight. I think the oversight was already rectified in Spectre Vol. 3 #54 (1997) set immediately after the JLA story. The JSA arc is chronologically set after that
As a special bonus: this story is written in a matter which makes it completely coherent as an Earth-2 story. It also gave us the new Mr Terrific (whom I like better here than in his later incarnations, personally).
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Post by MWGallaher on May 12, 2024 14:15:11 GMT -5
Here's something I overlooked when this thread was active: The Hourman Slurpee cup from 1973: This cup used Bernard Baily's splash page art from ADVENTURE COMICS #55, October 1940, and includes Minutemen of America members Jimmy Martin and Thorndyke, both of whom were eventually co-stars in the Hourman feature. As seen on the full checklist below, was the 54th out of 60, as depicted in the advertising. As I recall, these cups were not issued sequentially, and they weren't numbered on the cups themselves. Since 7-Eleven was my primary source of comics purchases, I accumulated many of these, including Hourman. There were some real disappointments to be drawn from the collection, like Ma and Pa Kent, and I didn't appreciate that the source material seemed to be whatever was convenient, including official (but often out-dated) licensing images like The Joker, cover corner illustrations like Aquaman and Green Lantern, and random panels that happened to feature a Superman or Batman Family supporting character.
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