Warning Spoilers

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow ended its first season last night with Rip Hunter and his team of heroes having defeated Vandal Savage and facing their next mission which is to protect the time stream now the Time Masters had been destroyed. Just as they were about to hop on the Waverider, they are presented with a damaged Waverider coming out of space/time and a mysterious individual exiting and warning the team about beginning their journey.

The individual?

That’d be Rex Tyler… DC Comics’ Hourman, who also mentions he’s a member of the Justice Society. This shouldn’t be a shock as the character’s Hourglass has been seen on Rip’s ship during the first season.

Created by Ken Fitch and Bernard Baily, Hourman debuted April 1940 in Adventure Comics #48. In comics, Tyler discovers a miracle vitamin called Miraclo that gives increased strength and vitality and forgoes normal testing on mice and gives it to himself. The abilities last for just an hour. Tyler decides to use his abilities to help those in need and first goes by The Hour-Man. Tyler was also a founding member of the Justice Society of America and a member of Uncle Sam’s Freedom Fighters as well as the All-Star Squadron.

Of course things got grim and gritty and miraclo became addictive and the character died along with other Golden Age heroes in what might be pertinent to the show.

In the story Zero Hour, Hourman along with other Golden Age heroes seemingly died fighting a time-traveling villain named Extant (and Hourman was rescued by another Hourman… because… comics).

Zero Hour, published in 1994, featured the villain Extant, Hawk from the duo Hawk and Dove, who had acquired temporal powers. Extant decided to use those powers to unravel the DC Universe timeline and in a confrontation with members of the Justice Society of America aged several of them. In reality, the real evil was the Green Lantern Hal Jordan who called himself Parallax, gone insane, and having decided to remake the universe in hopes to stopping the events that caused him to go nuts and murder a bunch of people.

While it’s unknown exactly the background of this Hourman, the fact is the character has a history dealing with time, and a crisis involving time and the Justice Society. We’ll find out the details when DC’s Legends of Tomorrow returns this fall.