Rip Hunter
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This comics-related article or section describes an element of the series in a primarily in-universe style. Please rewrite this article or section to explain the fiction more clearly and provide non-fictional perspective. |
| Rip Hunter | |
 Art by Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Showcase #20 (May 1959) |
| Created by | Jack Miller (writer) Ruben Moreira (artist) |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Richard "Rip" Hunter |
| Team affiliations | Linear Men Forgotten Heroes |
| Abilities | Genius level inventor. Time-traveler. Skilled in fighting styles and martial arts from every era of history. |
Rip Hunter is a DC Comics character who first appeared in Showcase #20 (May 1959), then his own series which ran for 29 issues (1961-65). He later starred in the eight-issue Time Masters series (1990), written by Bob Wayne and noted author Lewis Shiner. He was created by Jack Miller and Ruben Moreira.
A major flaw of most time-travel fiction is that the time-travelers are magically able to converse fluently with the natives in every century they visit. This problem was acknowledged (but never clearly explained) in the original 1960s run of the comic book Rip Hunter, Time Master. In nearly every issue, as the team were about to begin another time-trip, either Rip or one of his crewmates would make a reference to their "speech-translator disks". Rip and his three crewmates wore bright green uniforms with high collars and red highlights, with a circular spot in each collar (directly above the throat). Although the principle was never explained, somehow these disks would translate the spoken words of these 1960s Americans into the language of whatever time and place they were visiting, and would also enable Rip and his crew to understand the locals. Star Trek: The Next Generation later employed a similar device in the crew's communicators.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Rip Hunter
Rip Hunter is an ordinary man who uses his Time-Sphere to travel through time. Aided by his friend Jeff Smith, girlfriend Bonnie Baxter, and Bonnie's kid brother Corky, they have many adventures in time.
After falling from the public consciousness, the Challengers of the Unknown find Hunter and his team in 12,000,000 AD, slaves of the dictatorial Sun Lords. With the help of the Challengers, Swamp Thing, and Deadman, they break free of the Sun Lords' control and defeat them[1]. Some time later, they travel to the dawn of time where they encounter a mysterious yellow pyramid. It ages them many years before returning them to the present. Shortly thereafter, Hunter is recruited by the Immortal Man as part of his team, the "Forgotten Heroes". With Superman's help, they are able to destroy the mysterious pyramids and stave off an alien invasion[2].
The Forgotten Heroes stay together as a group until the Immortal Man is killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. During that event, Hunter helps the heroes of the Multiverse again travel to the dawn of time where they face off against the Anti-Monitor. The battle effectively destroys the Multiverse, creating the single reality of New Earth.
Hunter reunites with some of his Forgotten Heroes teammates, as well as cosmic heroes Adam Strange and Captain Comet, in a quest to defeat the Anti-Monitor once and for all. With the help of Brainiac, they journey to Apokolips, where the tyrant Darkseid uses his advanced science to peer into the Anti-Matter universe and aid Alex Luthor, Superman, and Superboy-Prime in the ultimate destruction of the Anti-Monitor. With the Anti-Monitor dead, Luthor, Superman, and Superboy-Prime seal themselves in a protective "heaven" dimension, and Darkseid sends the heroes back to earth[3].
[edit] Pre-Crisis Rip Hunter in the Post-Crisis Universe
As the final effects of the Crisis take hold, Hunter discovers that he is now a man out of time without a home. No one remembers that he existed. Even his old time traveling teammates have no memory of the Pre-Crisis world. Rip himself has been replaced with a new Post-Crisis doppleganger, also a master of time travel (see Post-Crisis Rip Hunter, below).
Determined to find a link to the alternate realities and timelines he has experienced in the Pre-Crisis universe, Hunter begins recklessly traveling back and forth through time, seeking a break in the barrier that sealed this universe from all the others. His travels draw the attention of the Linear Men, a team of time cops from the future, charged with the preservation of the integrity of the timestream[4].
Impressed by Hunter, the Linear Men recruit him into their ranks. Now with white hair and bionic implants (to protect him from the stress of time travel), Hunter observes the timestream along with the other Linear Men. He appears to take up their mission, interfering with outside events only when necessary to prevent changes to the timestream (most notably during the Zero Hour event).
However, Hunter is just biding his time. In the mini-series The Kingdom, Hunter defies the other Linear Men and joins forces with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, as well as some young heroes from the future, to defeat the time-traveling villain Gog. As a result of the battle, he finally broke down the barrier to Hypertime[5]. In Hypertime, all timelines that have ever existed continue to exist, and by breaking the barrier, Hunter opens the door to infinite possibilities for adventure by traveling between multiple timelines.
However, Hunter doesn't have much opportunity to explore these possibilities. Shortly thereafter, the Linear Men, including Hunter, are destroyed during the Imperiex onslaught[6]. Although their consciousnesses survived and they eventually construct new bodies for themselves, they have been driven insane by the experience. The Quintessence disband the Linear Men and Hunter vanishes in a whirlwind[7]. Whether or not this is the final fate of the Pre-Crisis Rip Hunter is unknown.
[edit] Post-Crisis Rip Hunter
Rip Hunter spends his entire adult life preparing for enemies a time traveler would face. Fearing that someone might try to travel back in time and kill him as a child, he hides his true name, birthplace, and other details from the public. "Rip Hunter" is, in fact, an alias.
As the inventor of time travel technology in the Post-Crisis universe[8], Hunter aids heroes Booster Gold and Animal Man in their own time-traveling adventures before taking on the vast Illuminati conspiracy. During his battles with the Illuminati, Rip's relative Dan Hunter decides to stay in the past at the time of the Revolutionary War, becoming the Dan Hunter associated with Tomahawk, and starting the "Hunter family fortune." Hunter is eventually stranded in the prehistoric past[9].
Returning to the present by unknown means, Hunter begins protecting Earth's heroes from time-traveling villains. In one of his most notable adventures, he takes members of the modern day Justice Society of America back in time to fight the villainous Per Degaton[10].
[edit] 52
In the aftermath of the Infinite Crisis, Booster Gold, suspecting damage to the fabric of time, tries to contact Rip Hunter. Booster discovers his base of operations in an old concrete bunker in the Arizona desert. Unfortunately, the bunker is sealed with a time lock that will only open on January 1, 52 B.C.
When Booster Gold finally manages to enter the bunker, he found only a blackboard, a globe, and some pieces of paper filled with writings about the future - with references to facts and events like the mortality of Vandal Savage, the last Lazarus Pit of Nyssa Raatko, the appearances of the mysterious Supernova, the new Batwoman and Aquaman, his fear of being constantly monitored, the destiny of the New Gods after the disappearance of the old ones, a strange note about death by lead, multiple references to the number 52, and the sentence: "TIME IS BROKEN". A globe, marred with a red X, showed the sentence "World War III. Why? How?".
Hunter was not there, however, and his Time Sphere, resembling a Legion of Super-Heroes time bubble, lies broken. Amidst the chaos of the laboratory Hunter has left a note, accusing Booster Gold of having disrupted the flow of time. It is later revealed that the one accused by the note was, in fact, not Booster but Skeets, his robot companion[11].
Hunter proves to be a hard man to find. Although Skeets manages to kill many time-travelers including Waverider in his search for Rip Hunter, Hunter remains hidden[12].
Hunter finally emerges in the Bottle City of Kandor. Working with Supernova, Hunter has been trying to try to put together a machine that will "fix" time before Skeets can find him[13]. As Skeets appears hovering just outside the Bottle City, Rip orders Supernova to reveal his identity to Skeets as a distraction while he scavenges Supernova's outfit for materials to build a Phantom Zone projector. Using it against Skeets, Hunter and Booster flee, chanting a countdown starting from "52"[14].
Upon discovering Mr. Mind burrowing into Skeets' shell, Rip Hunter uses T.O. Morrow and the severed head of Red Tornado as a bait for the venusian worm[15]. Mr. Mind evolves into a nigh-omnipotent imago form, a hyperfly feeding on universes. Hunter then reveals to Booster Gold and Booster's ancestor Daniel Carter that the Multiverse is restored as 52 individual universes as a result of Alex Luthor's actions after he escaped his "paradise dimension". Mr. Mind seeks to devour every parallel universe.
Hunter combines Suspendium with Blue Beetle's scarab and Skeets' damaged, discarded shell into a trap to contain Mr. Mind's new form. Booster Gold and Supernova then hurl Skeets into the timestream, sealing the time-rift behind the droid to trap the worm in a timeloop, saving the Multiverse[16]. Hunter warns the others to keep the Multiverse a secret for the time being as he eagerly prepares to explore it.
[edit] One Year Later
In All-New Booster Gold, an incredulous Hunter admonishes Booster Gold for beginning to re-enter the public eye as a legitimate hero following the defeat of Mister Mind. Explaining that while the time that was "broken" has been mostly fixed due to their efforts, lingering anomalies in history prior to the multiverse's recreation have left key events in the pasts of its heroes open to manipulation by sinister forces.
After briefly sending Booster to save an airplane downed by Black Adam during his World War III blitzkrieg--one of whose passengers is Booster's own ancestor Rose Levin--Rip pleads with Booster to accept his destiny as the greatest protector the multiverse will ever have, though at the cost of going down in history as an incompetent dunce in order to preserve his own existence from time-traveling threats. Reluctant at first, Booster later acquiesces, but demands that in exchange Hunter later help him violate his code of not changing history "a couple times," starting with preventing the murder of Ted Kord.
Upgrading Booster and Skeets with future tech, Hunter has: given them the ability to withstand the ravages of time-travel; ensured that he can transport them anywhere and anywhen in time or recall them to his Time Sphere; corrected Skeets' historical records (in flux and distorted since 52); and equipped the robot with a chronal mapping system which will allow the detection of any temporal anomalies. Rip has also since changed his outfit from a futuristic red and green to a more classical Indiana Jones-type adventuring outfit.
As in 52, the blackboard in Rip Hunter's lab provides tantalizing, enigmatic clues and references to temporally-significant events, past and future.
In Carl Draper's Checkmate blog, reference is made to the Smith-Baxter Group, a time-travel consultency whose founders were trained by Hunter (presumably Jeff Smith and Bonnie and/or Corky Baxter).
[edit] References
- ^ Challengers of the Unknown #85-87
- ^ Action Comics #552-554 (Feb-Apr 1984)
- ^ Crisis on Infinite Earths #11
- ^ Legends of the DC Universe 80-page Giant #1 (Sep 1998)
- ^ The Kingdom #2 (Feb 1999)
- ^ Superman (vol. 2) #165 (Feb 2001)
- ^ Superman the Man of Steel #118 (November 2001)
- ^ 52 Week Six
- ^ Time Masters 1-8 (Feb-Sep 1990)
- ^ JSA #66, 68-72 (December 2004-June 2005)
- ^ 52 Week Nineteen
- ^ 52 Week Twenty-Seven
- ^ 52 Week Thirty-Six
- ^ 52 Week Thirty-Seven
- ^ 52 Week Fifty-One
- ^ 52 Week Fifty-Two
