Time Traveling Troubleshooter & Troublemaker: Booster Gold and Landor

Michael Jon Carter was a star athlete in the 25th century until his career came crashing to an end when he became involved in a gambling scandal. As a janitor of the legendary Space Museum, he used his access of the faculty and its historical treasures that steal devices With these, he used a time travel machine to bring him to 20th century Metropolis to become a profit making superhero, competing with the more noble Justice Leaguer Superman.

Landor arrived from the 25th century seeking adventure, but found that without money his life would end up in destitution. Deciding to turn his keen futuristic intellect to crime to challenge the Justice Society who first inspired him into his new life, he faced six individual members of the team using tremendous gadgetry comparable to Booster's. 

Among the equipment that Carter "borrowed" was  a Legion of Super-Heroes flight ring from the 30th century, a mass dispersal device, energy absorbers and blasters, and a microcircuit weaved power suit with enhanced his own physical attributes including strength.

Among the devices which Landor invented was an electro-fan broadcasting radiowaves, super-dense ink, a flaslight turned disintegration beam, a washing maching generating force field, a lighter causing objects to disappear, a flamethrower pen, a vacuum-cleaner repulsion current, a ray-gun projecting red-beams comparable to Green Lantern's power ring.

Each time, Landor almost found triumph but ended up in failure... as each member of the Justice Society individually overcome each of his gadgets. Repenting of his ways and longing to return to his native era to once more have a peaceful if boring life, Green Lantern projected him back to the 25th century.

As for Booster Gold, while many of his tales after the Crisis on Infinite Earths had been told, it is uncertain which of these were canonical to his pre-Crisis existence on Earth-One** aside from his teamups with Rose "Thorn" Forrest, whom he assisted in battling the evil 1000 Gang in Metrpolis.

* Landor had a similar battle with the Justice Society as had Xotar with the Justice League. The Xotar of Earth-Two was a benevolent researcher who remained in 11,960 rather than be tempted by the equivalent of ancient technology he discovered, which was life-like paint from prehistoric Atlantis.

** It is documented that Booster Gold was in fact of Earth-One, as Thorn's pre-Crisis "DC's Who's Who" listing shows an image of her fighting alongside Gold.

Chrono Commanders of the pre Crisis Cosmos

Among the greatest criminal minds to attempt to bend time and space were the Lord of Time and Light, each of whom gathered vast forces from future eras to conquer the 20th century and other historical eras. As greedy geniuses these temporal tyrants tried various strategies to defeat their foes. The Time Lord persisted in his agenda against the Justice League as had Light versus the Justice Socialite known as Starman. Yet while it could be said that time was on their side, they failed to count the precious seconds between sweeping victory and bitter defeat, despite gains they each obtained time-to-time.

While the manner in which The Lord of Time obtained his time traveling technology was never revealed, except that he was from the year 3786* when presumably such equipment was readily available, he nevertheless showed adept skill at the intricacies in the flow of the fourth dimension. At a certain point, the warlord known as Epoch would even improve upon this science with his Eternity Brain, which was the mechanism through which he believed he would finally vanquish the Justice League who beat him twice before, although the League and Society actually saved him and reality from its evil program. 

Some of Time Lord's tales would be mirrored on Earth-Two by Per Degaton, the cosmic twin of the Legion of Super-Heroes member known as Brainiac Five, another time traveler occasionally prone to periods of madness. However, the actual doppleganger to the Lord of Time was a different man who only bent the future to his will once... the Light!

The Light was a brilliant scientist of the 20th century who had discovered shrinking technology and later engineered a massive submarine headquarters for his League of the Octopus. Each time, however, Starman stymied the Light's goals so that in his next power grab, the Light decided to "borrow" a fellow scientist's revolutary discovery.

As "the Unknown", the Light stole  time traveling technology from Professor Junper Grimm. This time machine allowed the Light and his minions to travel through time 2000 years into the future wherein he obtained an electro-cannon and Futurites which were giants of that far flung future. Still, Starman bested the time lord once more.

There were other temporal terrors unleashed upon the 20th century from the time stream. These included Neverwas whom the Justice League had to contain and return to its prehistoric native era, and its counterpart which tormented Earth-Two's Wonder Woman and her Holliday Girls allies when they faced criminal air pirates through several historic periods in time. 

Despite this, there were a few benevolent champions of time, such as Rip Hunter and his Forgotten Heroes on Earth-One and Rip Carter and his Boy Commandos who visited a variety of memoral past events in history. There was the Time Institute in the 30th century that bridged the gap to the 20th century of Earth-One, and the Time Trust of the 20th century that conversely bridged the gap to the 30th century of Earth-Two. Through these organizations, members of the Justice League and Justice Society from present day as well as the Legion of Super-Heroes and the Space Legion from a thousand years in the future all benefited from their research.

There were two other time traveling tyrants who tormented our twin teams in Xotar** of 11,960 AD and Landor of the 25th century. Xotar battled the Justice League early in their existence, while Landor*** quarreled with the Justice Society****.

* A future post will discuss the probable first appearance of the Lord of Time, versus the Flash, as well as a probable encounter the Light had with one of Starman’s Justice Society teammates in the future.

** The Xotar of Earth-Two was a benevolent researcher who remained in 11,960 rather than be tempted by the equivalent of ancient technology he discovered, which was life-like paint from prehistoric Atlantis. Instead, another time-traveling menace named Landor of the 25th century had a similar battle with the Justice Society as had Xotar with the Justice League.

*** Landor's counterpart on Earth-One was the good-natured yet greedyBooster Gold who likewise traveled from the 25th century in an attempt to exploit the 20th century with future gadgets.

**** Interestingly from a "Earth-Prime" publishing perspective, Xotar debuted in Brave and the Bold #29, while Landor appeared in All-Star Comics #29!