The Hour-Man

Rex Tyler, a research chemist, discovered Miraclo, a pill that granted him superhuman strength, speed, and durability for exactly one hour, inspiring him to become the costumed hero Hour-Man and fight crime during that fleeting window of power.

Few heroes capture the electric optimism of the Golden Age quite like The Hour-Man, who burst onto the scene in Adventure Comics #48 in 1940, brought to life by the creative team of Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily. A genuine DC original from comics' earliest era, this character carved out a place in the pantheon at a time when the medium was still inventing its own rules. With appearances spread across Adventure Comics and the wonderfully evocative New York World's Fair Comics, The Hour-Man kept remarkable company — sharing pages with the likes of Wesley Dodds, The Sandman, and Rex Tyler — and boasts a collector-significant key issue among their dozen catalog appearances. Brief in their original run but undeniably part of the Golden Age foundation, The Hour-Man is exactly the kind of discovery that reminds you why digging into DC's earliest years is such a rewarding adventure.