#60: Running The Clock / Man Of The Hour

“What is this?”

“We’re sailing above the time vortex. A maelstrom of cataclysmic proportions was rolling toward the present day. I had to pluck you out of the time stream before the effects caught up with you.”

“But we have to go back, before--”

“Listen to me, we can’t. These, these Tick Tock Men are powerful. They did something even I wouldn’t dream of doing. They erased a fixed point in time and now the world is unravelling. To go back to the present day would doom you and end the legacy of Hourman. We have to be patient, to choose our moment.”

“How can I trust you? You’re a monster.”

“You know nothing, Rick Tyler. But I know everything. The timestream is an open book and I’ve just started reading. I have seen your father die. And when we restore the timelines to their proper order, my first order of business will be to watch you die. Again and again.”

“I was wrong. You’re not a monster. You’re the devil.”

“Ha, you’re too kind. But if I’m the devil, then what we’re about to face is so much worse. The Tick-Tock Men are from the 38th Century. They stole technology from the Lord of Time and have travelled back, corrupting the timeline with every stop. It’d be beautiful if it wasn’t so insane.”

“But why?”

“Because an Hourman made their lives a living hell. Because your father didn’t hold a door open for them one day. Because your grandson bullied them at school. We’ve got seventeen centuries of history to choose your mistakes from but quite simply: I don’t know.”

“I thought you knew everything?”

“Listen. Their vendetta spans the centuries and if we don’t find the right point to intervene, all of reality will fall. So what do you, boy? Per Degaton and Hourman, to the ends of time itself?”

Rick Tyler looked down from the large, circular platform Per Degaton piloted, at the swirling tendrils of pure time energy that swam around them. He could see reflections from his life spanning the decades, swimming in the colours that came together to make time.

Rick pressed the button on his wrist that sent Miraclo into his bloodstream.

The hour of power had begun.

“To the end,” said Hourman.


“This is a massive change of pace,” said Jesse Chambers.

It was something, all right. New York at night, two young heroes out on the town, not a villain in the sky and not a worry in the world.

Jesse wore a red t-shirt with her ‘Cyclone’ logo airbrushed on it. Hair down, a pair of jeans, a leather jacket, some Doc Martens and Jesse was set.

Rick had complimented her when she had opened her door to commence their night and she had played it down. Rick played the flirt well but she saw past it. He was a genuine guy, always doing his best by anyone. She liked it. She liked him. But her mom had always told her that you can’t give the game away too early or they’ll stop trying so hard.

Rick Tyler had asked her out the week before, during a fight with Doctor Aesop and his Fables. She couldn’t tell if the burst of confidence was due to the Miraclo high, but she hadn’t said no, so it’s wasn’t like it was an issue. Their patrols were usually quiet, a chance to do some crime-fighting out from the watchful eyes of the Justice Society, but when Jesse had said yes. Rick had nearly back-flipped out of the fight.

“I know, right? It’s all well and good running across rooftops and beating up time-travelling Nazis, but sometimes you just want an easy life. I get that. I want that. The world just gets in the way most of the time.”

Rick smiled and ran a hand through his hair. He wore a Dark Side of the Moon shirt and his own jacket was black with a yellow interior. On the subway, they joked about their inclination to wear civilian clothes that so closely resembled their superhero costumes. Why wouldn’t they, when they looked so good wearing them?

“I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

“Makes a change,” said Jesse. “I thought I was the one supposed to be a motor mouth.”

“C’mon,” said Rick. “I’m not falling into that trap. Speedsters. Pssh. C’mon.”

“Speedsters what?” said Jesse. She leaned toward him and smiled, and he laughed. She touched the side of his head with hers and then shoved him on the arm. “Yeah, sometimes we get a bad rap. I was hanging out with Wally--”

Rick glanced at her then looked at his feet. “Kid Flash?”

“Yeah, yes,” said Jesse. “And he was saying that people always expect him to run his mouth, to have zero impulse control, but that’s never been him. Not for the Flash either. They’re practically stoic. I mean, look at Jay.”

“Guy has the patience of a saint,” said Rick. “My dad sings his praises. Calls him the heart of the Justice Society.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Jesse. “Your dad must have plenty of stories. My dad, he’s, well, he’s got his photos, but no stories. He stills run with the others—the other speedsters-- but it’s like he doesn’t have a chance to slow down and talk to me.”

Jesse curled her lip and shook her head.

“I never told anyone that before.”

“You can always talk to me,” said Rick.

“Ah, you lump,” said Jesse. She punched him in the arm and he smiled, rubbing his arm and feigning pain. “We’ve just lived different lives. You and me, it’s all so different.”

“Sure,” said Rick. “Some of us are raised by superheroes some of us are raised by supervillains. Doesn’t mean at the end of the day we are what we were raised to be.”

Jesse turned away. “I’m not a bad guy.”

“No, I’m not saying that,” said Rick. “My dad, he was all about academics, about science, it’s how he made his fortune and it’s how he became Hourman. Me? I don’t really care about all of that, not really. I’m, I’m, well, I’m trying, but I’ve always tried, and it’s never clicked. Not in the way my dad wants it. I like watching movies and running track and being part of the wrestling team. I like being the complete opposite of my dad. It’s always been hard, being like this, but at the same time, he loves me. Him and mom, they both love me, and that’s not going to change because I’m not the man he raised, or tried to raise.”

Rick trailed off.


“I think I love her,” said Rick.

Rex Tyler grinned. “Think? You can’t propose on a ‘think’, kid. You have to be sure.”

“Okay, okay, I knowI love her. Jeez, I loved her the first time I set eyes on her. I can’t even put into words how much she means to me, so, yeah, I know.”

Rex patted his son on the back and pulled him down slightly so their heads were touching. “Rick, if you love her, you go for it. You fight for her. You do everything you have to do and you do not let her go.”

“Wow, sounds so straight forward, pop,” said Rick. “Now, are we going to stand on this rooftop all night or are we going to, uh, bust some heads.”

Rex grinned. They were perched on a rooftop, looking down at a gaggle of uniformed men currently moving electronics merchandise from one tuck into another.

“You’re sounding more and more like your mom every day,” said Rex. “So, what’s her name?”

“Leena,” said Rick. “You’ll love her.”

“Leena?” Rex wanted to say more but smiled instead. “Good for you, son.” He took a container from his pocket and held a single Miraclo pill out in front of his face. The moonlight glinted across the cerulean pill in an arc. “Are you ready?”

Rick pushed the button on the wrist of his right hand gauntlet. Rex swallowed the pill.

The two men gained height, ever so slightly. Their muscle mass increased. Their pupils dilated and grins spread across their faces. Miraclo was reacting to their body chemistries, doing all the wonderful things that Miraclo was designed to do.

“Hourman,” said Rick.

Rex nodded in acknowledgement. “Hourman.”

The two men leapt over the edge of the building and down to the thieves below.


Rick stood at the end of the hall, an unimpressed expression visible beneath his cowl. “You again?”

“You’re not gonna get off easy this time, Hourman,” said Tremor. He rubbed his hands together and his vibrant, blue body vibrated, the air around his frame shimmering as his powers activated.

As ever, the only features Rick could make out were the villain’s mouth and eyes.

Rick began to pace from one side of the corridor to the other, blocking the exit with his body at all times. “I beat you and your friends last time, carted you off to jail nice and easy, so what’s this? Work release?”

Tremor grinned. “We have our ways, Hourman. Powers on high looking out for us.”

“Next thing you’ll be unionizing,” said Rick.

Tremor nodded slowly. “Shows what you know.” He slapped his palms together in front of his body and a blast of vibratory waves shunted outward.

Rick dove to the side, rolling out of the way. He looked back at the door he had just come in from, and saw nothing but debris. His cape was frayed and tattered, caught in the blast radius of Tremor’s powers.

Tremor sprinted forward growling, but Rick was on his feet in seconds. Tremor reeled his hand back, the air shimmering at his fingers, but Rick punched him hard in the jaw, sending him back a few steps.

“Just quit now, before you end up in traction,” said Rick.

Tremor rubbed his jaw. “Ow.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Rick. He felt sweat roll down his temple. “Just surrender, it’ll be better for the both of us.”

Tremor began to laugh. “That barely hurt. Like a god damn love tap. I kinda enjoyed it.”

“Hourman’s hitting like a girl? Is that what you’re saying, Trem?” The statuesque beauty known as Lagomorph kicked upwards, Rick’s cape wrapping around her foot, and slung him across the wall in one swift movement. She placed her hands on her hips and flicked her blonde hair away from her mask. “You’re lucky to have survived it then.”

“Nah, doll, not at all, I wouldn’t be so insensitive,” said Tremor.

“For Christ’s sake.” Jongleur tutted as he strolled in through the hole in the wall. “Could we stop being so damn stupid? Look at him. Look at ‘Hourman’. He’s inches shorter and packing less muscle mass. Whoever this is, he’s barely able to put up a fight.”

Rick groaned. His cowl had been tight around his neck and pinched into his skin. He hurt all over, not just from this alteration but from the beatings he’d taken over the last few weeks. He was an idiot to come here in his current condition. He was stupid putting on the costume when his body was no longer capable of processing Miraclo.

“Don’t move, grown-ups are talking,” said Jongleur. He plucked a bauble from his garish jester cap and threw it at Rick, an explosion of confetti and streamers animatedly wrapping themselves tightly around his body and restraining him. He toppled to the floor and cried out in shock.

“So what do we do?” said Tremor.

“I think there’s only one option,” said Jongleur.

“We kill him,” said Lagomorph. “Once and for all.”

“And if it’s not him, if it’s not Hourman, at the end of the day we’ve made an example. We’re not to be trifled with,” said Jongluer. The three of them turned their attention back to Rick, who struggled against the restraints. “Let’s do this.”


Why was the windshield shattered? Alarms blared all around him and the sky had gone black. What was going on? Rick glanced behind his shoulder, and saw that his car had been severed in two by an unseen force. His head hurt, and with a tentative touch he could see blood falling from a wound. What had just happened?

{Hourman, do you hear me? Rick, do you read?}

The words were fuzzy but he recognised the voice in his head. “Jim?” Coming to his senses, he closed his eyes and responded telepathically via the Justice League psychic link. {Jim?}

{Thank God you’re alive, son. We just go to the scene and found the back half of your car outside the force field. Are you injured?}

{I think I’m concussed, Jim. There’s a weird echo to your voice.}

{The force field is trying to block our psychic link, but Nicole is pushing through, so we have that for now. Majestros is trying to punch a hole through but it’s not working. Katma is on her way. Listen, the Red Morgue are here for a reason, and you’re the only Leaguer on scene, you need to get to cover before they descend.}

Rick pulled himself from the wreckage and nearly fell over. He stumbled to the passenger seat and took out the bag containing his costume and wandered awkwardly over to the emptied shopfront nearest to him. He slumped down behind the counter and began to put on his gauntlets.

{Rick, can you hear me?}

Rick pushed the button on his gauntlet and felt the pain and weight fade from his body.

{Hourman online. Justice League on the scene. Guardian, tell me what I need to do.}


The man wheezed inside his mask, the life support system built into the armour he wore keeping him alive.

“Do you… recognise it… Hourman?”

Rick’s head was heavy, his thoughts blurred. The memories of the beating he had taken at the hands of this man and his lackeys was still ringing around in his skull.

Rick grimaced. “Ninety-Minute Man. You’re wearing the Ninety-Minute Man armour.”

“Oh, yes…. with… a few… alterations…”

“Well look at you, whoop-di-doo,” said Rick.

A metallic palm slapped Rick so hard across the face that a molar came loose.

Tyler growled and cursed under his breath.

“Untie me then try that again.”

“Not yet,” said the armoured man. “You… made me resort… to using this… contraption… to stay… alive. A walking… iron lung… is what I’m… reduced… to wearing...”

The man readjusted the tubes that fed his mask and loud hissing filled the room. Blue coloured gas escaped from the seals in the armour but faded soon after.

“Ah. That’s better. For a while, at least,” said the man. His voice was still muffled, but whatever he had done to the seals of his armour made his voice clearer, less delayed.

“Take ownership of your mistakes,” said Rick.

“Quiet,” said the man, his voice rising with a gravelly roar. “Because of you it has come to this…”

Rick strained against the restraints. Even with his weight training he didn’t have the strength to snap them. Without a hit of Miraclo, he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

“I always envied you and your family. But with the hindsight now afforded to me, you were always so broken. Addicts and perverts.”

The man picked up Rick’s gauntlets from the table behind him and considered them. He pushed the Miraclo delivery button and the mechanism hissed ineffectually. He pressed the button again and again, and a thin stream of chemical residue trickled to the cold concrete floor at his feet.

Wasted hours of power, draining away.

“Your father’s innovations, his theft, it was always about furthering his agenda, furthering the legacy of Hourman. But what would you be without the drug?”

“A better man than you,” said Rick.

The armoured man dispensed with the slap and punched Rick to the ground with a solid, balled fist. The blow split the young man’s lip and sending blood flying to the floor.

“Learn your place,” said the man. Rick’s vision was blurry, but he could see his captor’s hands shaking. This man was angry. Angrier than Rick thought he had any right to be. He’d faced fanatics before. He’d faced madmen and despots. But this was anger beyond all that. “Your gauntlets deliver a transdermal hit of Miraclo through your skin and directly into your bloodstream. Your father’s idea, I assume?”

“Wrong,” said Rick. “That was me.”

“I should have guessed. Your father was an unimaginative thief. But I always did prefer a pill-popping Hourman.”

The armoured man took a small container from a compartment in his suit and shook it in front of Rick’s face. It rattled, filled with translucent, cerulean pills.

”Miraclo, the wonder drug. Gives the user enhanced strength, endurance, speed, cognitive functions, for one hour. Sixty minutes. How restrictive. Imagine, if there were not any restrictions in place, you would not be so weak right now.”

“I would be a monster,” said Rick. “Like you.”

“You would be free. Without constraints. Without weakness.”

The man kicked Rick hard in the stomach, knocking the wind straight out of him.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do that.”

The man dragged Rick up by the throat and punched him in the face.

“Or that.”

“Stop messing around,” said Rick. He spat blood on the man’s mask. “You don’t scare me. So just do what you’re going to do and stop boring me.”

“Messing around?”

The man dropped Rick and stormed out of the room. He returned shortly with a hooded woman bundled over his shoulder. He dropped her to the ground and the cry she let out caused Rick’s hairs to stand on end.

“No,” said Rick. “No, you bastard--”

The man wrenched the hood off the woman’s head and revealed her to be Wendi Tyler, Rick’s mother.

“R-Richard? What’s going on?”

“I’m just sorry daddy Hourman couldn't make it,” said the man. An amused lilt had added itself to his muffled voice. “But mother and son will do.”

The man pulled a pistol from his back and levelled it at Wendi’s head.

“Let her go,” said Rick. “Just let her go, please, I’m begging you, please.”

“Funny how a big man’s bravado fades when you point a gun at his mother’s face.” Rick could hear the man laugh inside his helmet. “I will let her go, if you do as I say. And what I say is sacrifice. I have spent years engineering Miraclo beyond the parameters your father designed into it. You’ve seen the results. Fought them. Our lives are intertwined, Rick. They always will be.”

“Oh, God,” said Rick.

The identity of the man dawned on him.

This man was supposed to be dead.

“Just, just let her go. C’mon, she’s got nothing to do with this.”

The man shook his head. “I’m dying, Rick. So that means you have to die too.”

The man pushed a button on his gauntlet and the armour groaned angrily. Tubes began to glow and fill with a liquid that Rick couldn’t identify.

“The Ninety-Minute Man armour has kept me alive but I’ve just activated the enhancement engine that gives the wearer super powers. Radium. Radioactive. Deadly. This is it, Rick. This is the endgame.”

“Then kill me,” said Rick. “If it saves her, kill me.”

“No, Richard, no,” said Wendi.

“Too easy,” said the man. He dropped the pills at Rick’s feet. “You know how much I like to play with daddy’s secret recipe, Rick. Enhance the brain. Enhance the metagene. Enhance beyond Miraclo’s boring parameters. Enhance, enhance, enhance. I made those pills just for you. Miraclo but with an added bonus. It’ll give you the sixty minute hit you crave, and then it’s all you’ll ever want ever again. The most addictive variant of Miraclo ever created. And the pills daddy makes? The ones Daddy Hourman feeds you? They won’t even compare but you’ll want to fill your face in an attempt to stop your bones from itching with the want. So take one. One is all it’ll take. Take one and become like me. A dead man. If you don’t, your mother dies.”

Rick’s eyes widened.

“Don’t look so surprised, it was always going to end in addiction for you, ” said the man. “There are ten pills. How long do you think you could last before your body screams for the next hit? Ten doses designed to never be replicated, never recreated, so when they’re gone all that’ll be left is a lifetime of agony, just to save one woman’s life.”

Rick shuffled toward the container.

“Richard, don’t,” said Wendi. “Don’t, please, don’t.”

Rick used his chin to remove the cap of the container.

The man nodded slowly in his armour.

“It was always going to end like this.”

The pills rolled freely from the opened container.

A cerulean pill found its way in front of Rick’s mouth, and the modern day Hourman glanced down at it before levelling his eyes at the man who held his mother at gunpoint.

“I’m going to kill you,” said Rick.


“Rick? Hello-oo?”

Jesse tapped Rick on the temple lightly. The action wrenched him from his daydreams.

“Are you okay?” said Jesse.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m great,” said Rick. “Really great.”

“So what are you feeling tonight?” said Jesse.

“Hey now, I’ve got the entire night planned out. Abruzzi’s for dinner. My dad always said they did the best slice in the city, even when he was a kid, then there’s the Nicolas Winding Refn marathon at the Continental.”

Jesse looked shocked. “That show’s been booked out for weeks. I tried getting tickets when it was first announced but they were gone like that.” She clicked her fingers to make her point. “How’d you even manage it?”

“My friend Marky works the box office.” Rick’s expression darkened. “We have an… ‘agreement’.”

“Oh, so mysterious,” said Jesse.

Rick’s face lit up immediately. “Nah, I slipped him a fifty and he put aside two tickets, done and done.”

“Classy,” said Jesse. “I love Drive. Gosling. Phew.”

“Gosling is great in Drive, and Jeez, it may get a bad rap, but Only God Forgives, wow, so amazing,” said Rick. “But you’ve got the Pusher trilogy. Mads Mikkelsen! Brilliant actor. Just brilliant.”

Jesse had seen Rick enthusiastic before,but he was practically leaping out of his skin with energy. “Mads Mikkelsen? The guy from Casino Royale? Cries tears of blood?”

“Yes, he’s in, like, every good film ever,” said Rick.

“Oh, Rick, Rick please,” said Jesse. She batted her eyelashes. “Tell me more, please. Educate me. I beg of you.”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that,” said Rick. “We’ve got the whole night ahead of us.” He held out his arm. “Shall we?”

Jesse smiled and linked arms with him. Their night had begun.