This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at some of the Golden Age stories of DC’s Hourman.
ADVENTURE COMICS Vol 1 #48 (Mar 1940)
Title: Presenting the Hourman
Villains: Jewel thieves Randall and Kennedy
Synopsis: At Bannerman Laboratories, chemist Rex Tyler secretly concocts a new drug he calls Miraclo. That drug grants him the strength and speed of 10 men for one hour. Rex adopts the costumed identity Hourman and advertises in the paper that people can seek him out if they need help.
In this debut story, Hourman recovers a woman’s stolen jewels and brings down the two-man theft ring. The city in which he operates is named Appleton.
NOTE: Over the years, changes would make it so that Miraclo granted Rex Tyler the strength of 50 men. Due to parental concerns about promoting drug use since Rex popped Miraclo pills, for a time it was changed to a Miraclo RAY that would increase Hourman’s strength. Other times it was retconned so that Hourman’s costume was enchanted and it was the source of his powers.
Ultimately, it always came back to Miraclo being a designer drug that Rex Tyler had concocted. In modern DC stories it is even said that the formula powering Batman’s foe Bane is an offshoot of Miraclo. Continue reading
UNDERWATER HOUSE (1899) – Written by Frank Bailey Millard, this short story was first published in the March 1899 issue of The Black Cat magazine. 
SPIDER-WOMAN Vol 1 #17 (Aug 1979) 
Our heroine slips away from Eric to try getting back her costume without exposing her secret identity. At one point, the drunken woman dressed as Spider-Woman falls off the deck of the mountaintop disco. Jessica uses her powers to save the woman and recover her costume before the drunk knows what’s what. 
MARVEL TEAM-UP Vol 1 #53 (Jan) 
The genetically engineered human/ animal hybrid creature Woodgod (at right) – also immune to the nerve gas – is still being contained in the depopulated town by Major Del Tremens and his troops at Tranquility Base, who caused the nerve gas leak. 
THE ULTIMATE INHERITORS (1914) – Written by Berg Bellair. This is a very entertaining work of vintage or “ancient” science fiction and is especially noteworthy for the way it anticipates the many “big bug” movies of the 1950s and later. 
CAPTAIN WIZARD 
AT THE EARTH’S CORE (1914) – This tale was originally serialized in several issues of All-Story Weekly in 1914, then was assembled in novel form in 1922. American mining heir David Innes and his much older inventor friend Abner Perry test-drive Abner’s diesel-punk subterranean tunnel-drilling vehicle the Iron Mole. 
DYNAMO 
BLACK LION 
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