Time Trouble: A Golden Age comic book adventure starring Hourman
Time Trouble
A Golden Age comic book adventure starring Hourman

Featuring:
Jack "Battling Jack" Murdock
Pinky and the Brain

1.

In the wartorn world of the early 1940s, chess prodigy Simon Shersky dazzled thousands with his simultaneous exhibitions. Little Simon moved from country to country, and city to city, charming everyone with his gentle personality, then wowing them with his unparalleled vision at the chessboard. The latest stop on Simon's worldwide chess exhibition tour was Appleton City, New York, where reporter Michelle "Dare" McNair was on the scene.

"What is your secret to winning, Simon?" the ace reporter asked.

"It is simple, ma'am," said the little boy with a European accent. "I'm just trying to get my pieces into play. It's like your American game basketball, or a company with many employees, or..." Simon shuddered. "...war. Everyone has to cooperate."

"And when you lose your games, Simon? Reports say you often get into 'time trouble'. Would you explain that?"

Simon Shersky blinked, then excused himself as politely as he could. "I'm sorry, ma'am. I'm so tired from travel, and I have hundreds of chess games to play tomorrow. I must go. I'm sorry. Thank you for visiting with me."

McNair watched the youngster wander off. "Tommy, you're a nerd. Did I say something repellent to nerds?" she said.

Photographer Tommy Carson was packing his camera equipment. "You asked him about the flaw in his game, Miss McNair! The chess world thinks Simon Shersky could be an all-time great if he'd only keep out of time trouble!"

"But what is it, Tommy?"

"A chessplayer gets, say, three hours to make 50 moves. But if he doesn't make all 50 moves before then, he loses, just like if he were checkmated on the board!"

"Well, can't he just move faster?!"

"Some of them get hooked on it! Once they do something fantastic while they're almost out of time, they get themselves into worse and worse time trouble, trying to replicate the rush!"

2.

Meanwhile, in an Appleton City science lab, biochemist Rex Tyler was taking notes while a one-ounce mouse pushed a 10-pound barbell weight clear of a hole. Then the mouse scurried into the hole for a bit of bacon.

Tyler peered into the mouse cage at the nibbling mouse, and then he looked at a stopwatch. "All right, you want to try again?" the chemist said, replacing the weight and the mouse. The mouse braced itself against the obstacle and shoved, but this time it wouldn't move. The mouse stepped back, and Tyler imagined that the rodent looked perplexed.

Tyler picked up the mouse again, and put him down in a maze. The mouse shuffled through the maze toward the bacon at a normal speed. Minutes before, the mouse was on the food in the blink of an eye.

He looked at his stopwatch again. "You're not Mighty Mouse," he said, chuckling at his own joke. "You're Hourmouse."

Through a series of fortunate accidents and experiments, Tyler had discovered a miraculous agent which gave its user superhuman speed and strength for a short time. Tyler would not dare experiment with human subjects, but was testing the stimulant himself as the masked crimefighter Hourman!

"OK, my turn," Tyler said, and he swallowed a Miraclo pill. In an instant, he was out of his lab coat and in his yellow-and-black costume. Hourman wore an hourglass on a cord around his neck, which he turned. Before the first grains of sand hit the bottom of the timepiece, Hourman was off at super speed.

3.

Across the room, another laboratory mouse was having an insightful moment. "That's it, Pinky! If we gain control of that energizing substance, and combine it with my superior intellect, we can take over the world!".

4.

Jack Murdock's grandparents were among the thousands of Irish immigrants who settled in the impoverished west side of Manhattan. A subpar professional boxer, Murdock never got out of Hell's Kitchen. Sometimes he earned a few bucks as an enforcer, intimidating and terrorizing some other unlucky saps who owed money to Murdock's boss.

Murdock said a little prayer, because he was about to add breaking and entering on his list of crimes. "Don't fuggin' knock," said the boss, "just beat downa door, maybe catch 'im before he hides anyt'ing, or maybe inna act, eh, Jackie boy?"

Murdock sighed, then prayed again, and wrapped a scarf around his face a few times for disguise. Before throwing his weight against the door, Murdock tried the doorknob. He felt a little smart when the door swung open, and he found the boss's debtor, Willie Wetzel, in his underwear, eating a TV dinner with the radio on.

Murdock advanced upon Wetzel, who began cowering. The hired muscle toppled the man's table, sending his food and radio flying. With one backhanded swing, he knocked Wetzel over in his chair, and the man shrieked for mercy.

5.

Back at the office, Jack Murdock solemnly threw a few bills and some change on the boss's desk. "Dat ain't enough to cover 'is vig. Maybe you ain't persuasive enough, Jackie boy."

"Willie said he had a job lined up. Easy money," he said.

Suddenly furious, the boss — a much smaller man — struck Murdock in the face, which the prizefighter hardly felt. "An' suppose the job conveniently takes 'im outta view. Then we might have to renegotiate your wages, know what I'm saying, Jackie boy?".

"Please, boss," Murdock said in a voice like gravel. "He said he was gonna knock over some fruity chess game in Appleton City wit' no security and lotsa money."

"When."

"Tomorruh."

"Get outta my sight, Jackie."

With his head bowed, Jack Murdock left the building.

A lieutenant who had watched the whole exchange spoke for the first time. "You want I should tail Willie?"

"You, an' some other guys. Let 'im do 'is job, and then you do yours," said the boss.

At his fleabag apartment, Jack Murdock peeked into his son's bedroom. He wasn't surprised to find Matt asleep at his desk with his face plastered in a schoolbook. Jack stepped inside, and gently moved the redheaded boy out of his chair and into bed.

"Attaboy, Matty, you work hard and make something of yerself," he murmured. When he closed Matt's bedroom door behind him, Jack murmured again: "Don't be like me."

6.

Hourman raced unseen through the streets of Appleton City, faster than human eyes could track. He wondered if he was running as fast as Earth's mightiest hero, Superman, or even as fast as the Flash!

The sand in the hourglass around Hourman's neck signaled that end of his superpower was near. Hourman challenged himself with the narrowest U-turn he could make at superspeed, and then burned a trail toward Dr. Rex Tyler's science lab.

But as Hourman sped through the city, he heard a cry: "Stop! Help! He's got my purse!"

A petty thief fled the scene. Onlookers took a few halfhearted steps in the thug's direction, some of them thinking about what the world was coming to, when pursesnatchers were daring in broad daylight.

Hourman turned resolutely in the perpetrator's direction, but then had a moment of panicked indecision. Time was running out. The Miraclo was about to fail! What am I going to do? he thought, while precious seconds ticked away.

The hero determined to do good, and despite the risk, he chased the robber. In a beat, Hourman found him rifling through the purse for its valuable contents. The thief glanced up, and his jaw dropped while his brain formed the words "aw, no, costumed creep". At great speed, Hourman stiffened his arm and made a fist, plowing straight into the crook's jaw. The punch landed with a sickening crunch, and the bad guy went flying, before crashlanding in a pile of refuse, out cold.

A crowd gathered to praise the hero, and police arrived to haul off the crook. Dr. Rex Tyler in his yellow cowl and cape very patiently waited for the crowd to disperse before walking back to his laboratory at most unsuper speed.

7.

Back at the science lab, two genetically-enhanced laboratory mice moved stealthily toward Dr. Tyler's miracle drugs, pushing a cart with an elevating platform.

"Jeepers, Brain, I'm getting tired," said one. "If this stuff works, it'll be much easier to push the elevator cart back! Haha! Narf!"

"Pinky, don't be an idiot. We'll be able to move worlds, Pinky!" But until then, Brain huffed with exertion. The mouse with the oversized cranium imagined masses fleeing his superpowered self in fear and awe.

The lab mice parked the cart under the high shelf on which Dr. Tyler stored Miraclo. Brain stepped aboard, and cranked a lever, which lifted the platform toward the ceiling. Pinky peered into the cage with the "hourmouse". The Miraclo test mouse was on its back, feet in the air, gasping. "Naaaaarf," Pinky said sadly.

High above, Brain's eyes were gleaming while he beheld the bottle of super stimulant pills. His mental picture of a world at his feet grew brighter, and with a grunt, he toppled the bottle. Miraclo pills scattered. Grabbing one under each arm, Brain leaped back on the elevator, and he cranked the lever in a hurry, dropping the elevator back to the table. "I've got it, Pinky! I've got it!" he cried.

"Hold on a second, Brain," said Pinky, gesturing toward the suffering mouse inside the cage.

Brain scratched his chin. Then he punched a small bit of Miraclo from the purloined pills, and threw it between the cage wires toward the other mouse.

The mouse in withdrawal caught a whiff of the drug, and gobbled it up. In an instant, the hourmouse bounced to its feet, seeming to sparkle with energy and light, and began racing around the cage.

Pinky was cheered. "Zounds! That seemed to do the trick!"

Suddenly, the hourmouse screeched to a halt. The mouse froze for a moment, and in that moment, seemed to age and wither before Pinky's and Brain's eyes. Hourmouse creaked and shuddered, and then fell flat to the floor of the cage, dead.

Pinky and Brain looked at each other. Without a word, Brain hopped back up on the elevator, hoisted himself toward the shelf, returned the stolen pills, and was soon back to shoving the elevator cart back toward their place in the lab.

"What do you want to do tomorrow night?" said Pinky.

"The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!"

8.

Dr. Rex Tyler was relieved to get back to his laboratory without being seen, a costumed superhero without his superpowers! He was more relieved that he didn't encounter another villain. That would have been more than embarrassing, probably fatal.

Dr. Tyler thought that he should perhaps carry a supply of Miraclo with him while he was adventuring. He turned to the shelf where he stored it, and found the pill bottle upended. That's odd, he thought, sure he would've remembered spilling it himself. He glanced at his costume, and wondered if he would look less super if he had pockets. He considered an alteration to the hourglass around his neck, one that would enable the carrying of a pill or two.

His internal musing was shattered when he discovered the dead hourmouse. The mouse looked shriveled, and its fur had fallen out in patches. Dr. Tyler immediately formed the hypothesis that the Miraclo caused a fatal acceleration of the aging process. He gulped, because he had taken a corresponding dosage, according to his weight relative to the mouse's weight.

The chemist glanced back toward the shelf with the overturned bottle. Then he looked back at the dead mouse. His eyes darted back and forth. The mouse is in the cage, Dr. Tyler said inwardly and scientifically, don't be a fool.

Still wearing his Hourman costume, but with the black mask and yellow cowl pulled down, Dr. Rex Tyler sat down and wrote careful notes pertaining to his lab mouse.

9.

Jack Murdock answered a knock at his door, and found the boss's lieutenant plus a couple of local hoodlums, whom Murdock invited inside with some hesitation.

"Battling Jack," said the lieutenant, employing the nickname Murdock used in the boxing rings, neither with awe nor respect, but an air of derision.

"Yeah," Murdock grunted.

"You're coming to apple town wid us. We're gonna play some chess," the lieutenant said, and the hoods laughed at his joke.

Murdock deduced the plan right away. "N-no. The guy said he was doing that job so he could pay the boss. Why can't we just let him do it."

"Don't be a dumb goon yer whole life, Battling Jack. Bigger payday this way."

"N-no!" Murdock stuttered again. "I ain't gonna do no job where the mark is gonna have a piece. I ain't."

Then the lieutenant showed Murdock his own piece. "I din't ask you, Battling Jack."

Murdock's shoulders slumped, and he reached for his coat.

When the group was out the door, Jack Murdock's son was on the phone. "Operator, I need the Appleton police."

10.

There was a ring of tables on the floor of the Appleton City Odeum with a chessboard on each table. Spectators filled the hall to watch little Simon Shersky take on one hundred or more chess opponents at the same time.

Simon stepped from one board to the next, considering the games for just a few seconds before making his move, and moving on. He looked calm and unruffled, while the many adult faces on the other side looked concerned, worried, and nervous.

It was a quiet spectacle, and Willie Wetzel was correct in thinking that there would be no security working the door. In fact, it was just a couple of old ladies collecting board fees and spectator donations. It was gonna be easy peasy, Willie told himself.

11.

Dr. Rex Tyler was learning that to be an occasional superhero adventurer carried some overhead. When he ran around town on Miraclo, his body was ragged and sore after the Miraclo wore off.

So he fashioned an exercise room in which he prepared Dr. Tyler's body for Hourman's stress. He'd begun practicing martial arts, to give Hourman skill to go along with his strength. He listened to police band radio.

Appleton City wasn't a big port city like Gotham, and it was the opposite of Metropolis. It was mostly apple orchards not so long ago, and the traffic on the police band was typically light. Then he heard the dispatcher's voice: "Cars in the vicinity of the old theater. Lookout for possible disturbance."

"This is Car Oh-Two. We're around the corner."

"Roger that, Car Oh-Two, and thank you."

12.

All Willie Wetzel had to do was wave his handgun at the women with the cashbox, and they gave it up without a peep. Easy peasy, he said to himself again, and then he bolted for the door. That's when they started screaming.

Wetzel was halfway out the Appleton City Odeum door when he spotted the uniformed cops suddenly running up the steps at the sound of screams for help.

Behind him, people were pouring out of the theater to answer the cries. Panicked, Wetzel fired a shot into the air, which sent the crowd scurrying and screaming. Amidst the confusion, the crook ran into the theater.

13.

The cops called for help. "Dispatch, this is Car Oh-Two at the Appleton City Odeum. Robbery in progress. Shots fired."

"Roger, Car Oh-Two. Be careful." The dispatcher called in the troops. "All units respond to the Appleton City Odeum. Robbery in progress. Suspect is armed and dangerous."

Sirens began to blare around the quiet city of Appleton. Outside the odeum, the gang with Jack Murdock aborted their mission, and turned tail for Manhattan.

In Dr. Rex Tyler's chemistry lab, Dr. Tyler had swallowed a tab of Miraclo, and there in his place stood Hourman! With a burst of superspeed, Hourman answered the police call.

In the blink of an eye, Hourman was at the scene. Cops had surrounded the Odeum, and were cordoning off the area. "'Ey," said a cop. "Ain't you the mug who nailed that pursesnatcher yesterday?"

"Yes, sir, Officer," said Hourman.

The bystanders were suddenly abuzz at the appearance of a costumed crimefighter.

The cop looked around for superior officers, then let Hourman past the barrier. "You ain't never saw me, and neither did none of the rest of you!" said the cop, who wasn't going down for aiding a costumed vigilante. Hourman raced past the barrier, through the maze of cop cars, up the steps, and into the theater. The cop in charge moaned into his radio: "Oh, no. The superguy in town? He wears black and yellow, is that right?"

"That's right, Chief," said the dispatcher.

The head cop hoped that these clowns would stick to big cities like Keystone and Gotham. Then he hoped he'd get along with this one in black and yellow, and that he wasn't a major pussy like Superman in Metropolis.

Inside, Willie Wetzel had grabbed a hostage. Stricken with fear, Wetzel had little Simon Shersky in a headlock, and Wetzel held his gun to Simon's head. Wetzel also clung to the cashbox, in case he managed to get out of this. Other chessplayers and spectators who hadn't made it outside cowered and hid behind whatever cover they could muster.

Then Hourman burst into the room. A woman screamed, certain that gunfire was about to begin.

Hourman stopped in his tracks at the sight of the hostage. Wetzel dragged Simon back a few feet, away from the hero. "S-stay back! I'll waste this kid, I swear it!"

Hourman was frozen. Was his Miraclo speed sufficient to wrest the gun away before the hostage could be harmed? Was he himself bulletproof? The sand in the hourglass around Hourman's neck continued to fall. In less than an hour, he'd be a chemist in a Halloween costume again.

"The police have you surrounded. There's no way out," Hourman said.

"N-nuh uh! Yer gonna let me walk, and so are the cops!" Wetzel yelped, wide-eyed and crazy.

Hourman remained still. He heard a voice inside his head ask if there were a handbook for superheroes, and did it cover hostage situations.

Then little Simon Shersky lifted his foot, and stamped down hard on Wetzel's foot. Simon threw an elbow jab as hard as he could. "Augh!" screamed Willie Wetzel. "You little!" Wetzel squeezed the trigger, and his gun sounded.

A blur of black and yellow streaked across the room, and Hourman knocked Willie Wetzel to Yancy Street.

Cops poured into the room. Simon Shersky lay on the floor, bleeding, amidst dozens of spilled chessboards. A call went outside, and medics were swiftly at Simon's side. In a minute, the little chess genius was being carted to an ambulance. Hourman strode beside the cart. "Hang on, son! You're going to be all right!" he said.

Simon opened his eyes, and looked at the costumed superhero. "Sometimes," said Simon, referring to Hourman's indecision and his own, "you just have to move, hero."

The End

***

About this story

In the 1930s, Popeye the Sailor was just some ruse to get kids to eat their vegetables. It wasn't for 50 years that someone insisted that Popeye was a cocaine fiend.

Similarly, the 1940s DC Comics character Hourman was an innocent, minor league hero, whose Miraclo pills were without side effect, until newer writers suggested that Dr. Rex Tyler — and his son Rick, the Silver Age Hourman — were drug addicts.

Until addiction made him a bit interesting — that is, the Golden Age hero Hourman had modern-day Marvel Comics-type 'issues' — Hourman was maybe the lamest superhero of all. Here was this guy (neither as strong as Superman, nor as fast as the Flash, and no other powers to speak of) who couldn't be counted on in a fight that lasted more than 60 minutes, because it was written that he couldn't safely take more than one Miraclo dose per [some arbitrary time unit]!

But that built-in weakness was another aspect of the character that made Hourman intriguing to me, while providing another fuel for addiction (some writer said Tyler was addicted to crimefighting, which made it tougher for him to kick Miraclo). I think Hourman would hook himself on "time trouble" the same way many chessplayers do. With time running out, Hourman would save the day, and what a high that would be. But only by getting closer and closer to losing the game on time can the addicted chessplayer's high continue, and Hourman's "time trouble" compulsion would mean the grisly death of hundreds of innocent bystanders someday. Stay tuned for that.

Jack Murdock is a Marvel character. He provided muscle for Hell's Kitchen criminals, and he was a bum in the ring. Then once upon a time, Jack Murdock failed to throw a fight he was supposed to throw, and got himself killed blah blah blah. His son Matt grew up to be my favorite comic book hero, Daredevil. Matt Murdock's not addicted to anything but shitty relationships. Stay tuned for that, too.

The laboratory mice Pinky and Brain live in the WB Animaniacs universe, but in one of the best "Pinky and the Brain" cartoons, the mice discover baby Kal-El's rocket ship before Martha and Jonathan Kent. The door to any Pinky/Brain/DC crossovers is wide open, therefore.

Michelle McNair and Tommy Carson are Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen doppelgangers of Appleton City. Simon Shersky the boy chess prodigy is based on Sammy Reshevsky, who had to do simultaneous exhibition tours in Europe in the '40s.

Even after putting Golden plus Silver Age characters from different comic companies in the mix, plus Pinky and the Brain, I almost had Kenny McCormick blown away by gunfire at the end. I think that would've been cool.