Twice-Told-Tales: Miniaturized Masked Menaces

Among the various rogues who faced the Atoms, the balding bad-guys David Clinton and Kale Zercoff were the most malevolent foes they ever faced. Both men based their crimes around their mastery of time, with Clinton the masked menace known as Chronos, and Zercoff as the henchman of Per Degaton. Initially small-town felons operating on Ivy Town of Earth-One and Calvin City of Earth-Two respectively, David and Kale first faced their worlds’ Atom one-one-one before eventually teaming up with gangs of goons who faced their arch-enemies’ teams, the Justice League and Justice Society.

After a series of battles throughout the years, Chronos sought to change his modus operandi, seeking to steal rare coins from four key locations in Ivy Town. First, he stole Scandinavian coins then French and Spanish coins before targeting American coins with his fourth burglary. The Atom was somehow tipped off the the perpetrator of these thefts, confronting Chronos on his fourth outing. However, an electrified force field around the Time Thief knocked the Tiny Titan unconscious, and when he woke up the Atom discovered his foe had stolen his shrinking belt. Impersonating the Atom, Chronis met the police lieutenant on charge of this criminal case, to try and discover how he slipped up and revealed his identity to his foe.

Decades earlier, the individual members of the Justice Sociery were each tasked with a hundred thousand dollars which combined they can donate to war orphans of Europe. In his futile attempts to obtain his portion of the proceeds, Johnny Thunder encounters two crooks dressed as Sandman and the Atom, threatening local gangs in an attempt to obtain protection money from them. Johnny’s Thunderbolt quickly exposed the pair, a crook disguised as the Sandman*, with the Atom impersonator** being Kale Zercoff himself. Seeking revenge against the Mighty Mite who defeats him months earlier, while Johnny and his T-Bolt were subduing he and his cronies, 

Ray “Atom” Palmer was able to escape the syrup-filled blender his enemy left him trapped within, thanks to his secondary size-changing glove controls. Facing his arch-foe once more, the Atom was able to outmaneuver and capture Chronos, who subconsciously avoided stealing coins with names that sounded like his criminal alias.

Al “Atom” Pratt was working the obtain his portion of the war orphans donation funds, when Zercoff was captured by his Justice Society teammate in the fall of 1941. Nevertheless, Kale would be freed by the summer of 1947, whereby he was recruited as the principal lieutenant to temporal tyrant Per Degaton's militia which inially defeated the Justice Society. On this occasion, Kale was finally able to knock out the Atom, although his victory was only temporary before once more returning to prison.

* This fake Sandman’s Earth-One counterpart dressed as the Sandman, and drugged police scientist Barry “Flash” Allen during a masquerade party the night that Professor Zoom aka the Reverse Flash murdered Barry's wife Iris’. While that Sandman armed his sand-gun with narcotics, which he used on his victim, the Earth-Two psuedo-Sandman seemed to have standard armament in his sand-gun.

** Zercoff somehow managed to portray himself as short as his foe, the real Atom, who was 5 foot 1 inch tall., However, unlike Ray Palmer, Al Pratt did not possess shrinking technology. It could be theorized that Zercoff hired a co-conspirator who was taller than himself, who impersonated the Sandman, thereby presenting an optical illusion making himself short in comparison when both are standing side-by-side. As seen in their two direct confrontations, Zercoff was much taller and far bulkier than the Atom.

Brilliant Belts Bend Bearers’ Being

The men known as the Atom. Ray Palmer and Al Pratt, were themselves prominent physicists based in the parallel college metropolises of Ivy Town and Calvin City. Besides their roles as professors teaching the next generation in their university classes, they spent their idle time inventing amazing devices they used in their costumed crime fighting. Among these were belts that channeled cosmic forms of energy to bend matter in revolutionary ways.

Ray developed his bio-belt made from a fragment of a white dwarf star, which allowed its wearer to change his size. Al devised his vibratory belt which could shift his molecules from his native universe of Earth-Two into that of his counterpart’s on Earth-One. This became  personal teleporter which Al-Atom no doubt used in his own world during future adventures.

These belts had controls within their belt buckles that activated when their wearers pressed their interfaces. Whether Al-Atom used his vibratory belt on additional cases to teleport to different locations is undocumented, alright the fact that he appeared during some contemporaneous cases with the Justice Society at various locations seems to indicate that he has used it for this purpose, in much the same manner as Ray-Atom uses his shrinking belt to allow him to travel through telephone lines across the globe when needed.

On one occasion, Ray-Atom's arch-enemy Chronos captured his foe and stole his belt, pretending to be Atom to confuse the local police. Unknowingly, Chronos left Atom in his costume, not realizing that his enemy had palm controls that also allowed the Tiny Titan to change his size... thus escaping his trap and defeating the Time Tyrant.

On a later occasion, Al-Atom used his vibrating belt to journey to Earth-One and enlist the aid of his counterpart, not realizing that Ray-Atom was affected by a cosmic phenomenon that made him an immature and combative version of himself. During the battle, Ray-Atom disabled Al-Atom's belt, allow eventually was restored to his senses by his cosmic twin.

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Misplaced Mechanized Motorized Marvels in the Multiverse

The six members of the Crime Champions wielded wonderous weapons against their arch-foes of the Justice League and Justice Society. Three of these supervillains originated on Earth-One, and the other three resided on Earth-Two. Among their number, two of these felons possessed mechanized marvels which they employed in various capers throughout the years.

Chronos designed his Flying Sundial, a gigantic hover craft with a protective dome allowing him to traverse various environments. Aboard this vessel, he carried numerous time-themed gadgets along with smokescreens allowing him to travel undetected.

Fiddler designed the Fiddle Car, a custom-made automobile in the shape of a gigantic fiddle on wheels affording him high-speed travel across various terrains. Within this vehicle, he carried numerous music-themed gadgets along with exhaust pipes emitting thick smoke cover.

During the Crime Champions' inaugural case, Chronos brought his Flying Sundial to Earth-Two when he faced members of the Justice League*. Years later, following his Injustice Society's latest defeat, Fiddler retrieved his Fiddle Car left behind on Earth-One when he faced the Teen Titans. While both villains were captured by their opponents and returned to their native Earths, their vehicles were left behind, Chronos and Fiddler rebuilt their Flying Sundial and Fiddler Car, or had already possessed a second set of these vehicles back on their native Earths. 

Hence, Earths One and Two each had a Flying Sundial and Fiddle Car, although those motorized marvels left each other’s world evidently collected dust from disuse after their former owners left them behind.

* Interestingly, during this same adventure, the Batman and Wonder Woman of Earth-One were seen on piloting a Batplane and Invisible Plane on Earth-Two when they battled Doctor Alchemy of the Crime Champions. Alchemy transformed these planes into winged horses in an attempt to throw the Justice Leaguers to their death. Although this scheme was unsuccessful, it was not shown what became of these transformed horses. Did they stay in those forms or revert to their motorized versions? 

It seems likely that, in fact, these were solidified energy constructs created by Doctor Fate when he brought the Leaguers to Earth-Two, using his atomic restructuring powers (since there is no record of either hero/heroine meeting his/her counterpart on this occasion and borrowing their vehicles for this adventure). These planes allowed Wonder Woman and Batman to reach their destination.

Twice-Told-Tales: Danger - Dinosaurs at Large!

It is the summer of 1977 on Earth-One, and the summer of 1968 on Earth-Two. Each world finds themselves plagued by disturbances in time, with humans shifted from the centuries they were born into past eras, with monsterous dinosaurs taking their place in the 20th century. The cause for these odd occurences on parallel worlds is due to green caped time-masters wearing white masks, genetically modified opponents they must face, and cosmic radiation due to celestrial objects. These three factors conspire into strange tales.

On Earth-Two, the villian known as Psycho-Pirate secretly manipulates a fallen felon named Gat Benson, using remnants of the green Starheart meteor to transform him into a giant. Causing terror due to both his appearance and radiation he emits, Gat attracts the attention of the Justice Society charter member known as the Spectre. 

While attempting to use time-suspension and altering time cycles in order to calm an anxious crowd, Spectre inadvertently teleports some citizens of Gateway City to America' colonial era and prehistoric era. While attempting to retrieve these innocents, he exposed some of them to predactory pterodactyls and draws a tyrannosaurus rex back to the present. After battling the beast, Spectre returns it to its era.

On Earth-One, the villian known as Chronos secretly used his temporal technology to retrieve a comet from the future, a comet with special powers over time. Inadvertently, the comet is pulled along with it the crew of future Colonel Tommy Tomorrow into a prehistoric era, where they faced predactory pterodactyls and a tyrannosaurus rex that mutated into the humanoid Tyranno Rex. 

While using his vessel to transport his crew and the comet through a portal back to the future, they end up meeting Captain Comet. As an honorary member of the Justice League, he was working with other Leaguers to subdue the time-displaced dinosaurs. When Tomorrow's vessel arrives in the 20th century, in includes a stowaway in Tyrano Rex, seeking to reclaim the comet. During a battle with Captain Comet and Chronos, Rex in transformed back into a T-Rex, then sent back to its own time.

The villains, Psycho-Pirate and Chronos, are each brought to justice by the heroes with the help of Tommy Tomorrow and Jim Corrigan. While the green meteor globe on Earth-Two is dropped and thus smashed to pieces, the comet is destroyed as well. The Globe was tied to Earth-Two's Green Lantern and his power source, while the comet quite possibly was the Earth-One version of the comet that Lantern's old foe Vandal Savage gained his immortality from centuries earlier on his native world. And while their schemes with these extraterrestrial objects failed, Chronos and Psycho-Pirate would extract from this situation the means to gain greater manipulations over that which they craved. For Chronos, actual time travel that he would use versus the World's Finest Team of Superman and Batman, and for Psycho-Pirate, control over the emerald energy of the meteor through Green Lantern.

Crime Champions Create Criminal Chaos Cunningly

The Crime Champions were the first of its kind, two separate supervillain teams that merged into one combined group, with three members in each unit plundering their own worlds while spending their ill-gotten loot on a parallel planet. Although they caused the Justice League and Justice Society considerable grief on both worlds, they were eventually defeated.

The members would disperse, with the Earth-One Felix Faust and Doctor Alchemy hatching separate schemes before both seemingly repenting of their criminal lives, and their ally Chronos joining the Injustice Gang, while the Earth-Two Wizard, Icicle and Fiddler would each join later incarnations of the Injustice Society.

Then years later, the Johnny Thunder of Earth-Two requested that his Thunderbolt take him to meet his criminal counterpart on Earth-One, however as with their first encounter (which both forgot due to the T-Bolt) the crook waylaid his innocent natured twin and commandeered his powers. Orchestrating a scheme whereby the Thunderbolt cause all Leaguers to be rendered unconscious while the reconstituted Crime Champions each take over portions of Earth-One, the Society intervened yet nearly all perished until the Leaguers were revived and aided their dopplegangers. This due to the clever actions of the heroic Johnny versus his villainous twin, and at the end of the tale there would no longer be a Crime Champions evermore! 

Between these two occasions, the Wizard and his five criminal compatriots had attempted to stage a coup on Earth-Two after their initial defeats in an attempt to avoid capture. The Justice League and Justice Society employed the teamwork necessary to capture their amoral adversaries. This would be repeated years later on Earth-One during a similar plan by these costumed crooks.

One of the Crime Champions, Felix Faust, encountered his counterpart Kent Nelson in battle during this initial team up of the twin Justice teams. Nelson as Doctor Fate defeated Faust, which would later motivate Felix into adopting the costumed identity of his world's Doctor Fate that battled Superman and Green Lanterm of Earth-One. This same enmity between these two was replicated with their recurring foes, which they encountered on at least two occasions. These adversaries were Phantom Strange and Lando the Unknown, men of mystery and means.

Phantom Stranger and Faust first fought when Stranger was made an honorary member of the Justice League during a case. Later, the two opposing forces came to blows when the Stranger was allied with various unaffiliated heroes like himself. Both times, the Stranger gained the upper hand on Earth-One's faux Fate, Felix.

The once "heroic" Lando the Unknown adopted the alter ego of Krishna Das, pretending to predict the future for his own greedy goals. Doctor Fate had initially been bested by this turbaned tyrant, but turned the table on his foe in March of 1943. 

However, Das escaped using his abilities, and in May of 1943 adopted another alias...as Mister Fortune! Lando's true allegiance was finally revealed as a Nazi collaborator seeking to undermine trust in democracy and influence Americans into placing their trust in a German empire. In this role, Lando once more ran afoul of Doctor Fate during a case involving the Justice Society.

The connection between the Earth-One Johnny Thunder and his Crime Champion ally Felix Faust would be similar to that between the Johnny of Earth-Two and his Justice Society ally Doctor Fate... as both worked together only on the opposite side of the law from their doppelgängers. However, Faust would eventually turn to the side of good after extensive therapy, something that Lando no doubt would have benefited from following his fall from grace.

Phantom Stranger would assist the Justice League in several adventures following his initial clash with Felix Faust. These included the League’s battles with:

• Versus the Key
• Versus the Shadow Thief and his allies Minister Blizzard, Captain Cold and the Icicle of Earth-Two
• Versus Count Crystal (while Crystal’s counterpart Frederic Vast faced the Justice Society alone)
• Versus The Red Tornado Construct entity
• Versus the Key once more, along with Star Tsar and the Privateer
• Versus the “Fiend with Five Faces”
• Versus the alien War-Kohns
• Versus the Appellaxians

Lando eventually returned when he and Ian Karkull traveled from the past to recruit Vandal Savage, who was fleeing the combined might of the Justice Society following their invasion of Savage’s artificial world Colu-Two. What became of Lando/Krishna Das/Mister Fortune following this final appearance was his transformation into a shadow being like Ian, who was eradicated from existence when Karkull’s plot to assassinate future presidents of the United States was thwarted by the Justice Society. Doctor Fate and his teammates ended up absorbing the abilities of Lando and Karkull.

Time Travelling Tyrants Terrorize Tiny Titans

Time is fluid and constant, ever present and a fourth dimension necessary to move reality along from moment to moment. In this modern age, it was only a matter of...time... before villains would learn how to harness this power and bend it to their wicked will. Such were men named Clinton and Kale.

David Clinton decided to synchronize his thefts in such a manner so as to escape the law, using time-based gimmicks in his escapades. Unfortunately for him, he started his crime spree in the small college burg of Ivy Town, the home of his future arch-enemy. The local superhero, the Atom, was the costumed alias of Professor Ray Palmer who discovered the ability to shrink and control his weight. The Atom proved to have better timing than Clinton's alter ego of Chronos defeating time and again, despite the various devices which the villian created. Among these were exploding hourglasses, wristwatch weapons that projected razor sharp minute and hour hands, and a flying sundial. Eventually, Chronos learned to control time itself, slowing it down and traveling through various historical periods.

The time thief eventually joined various criminal organizations with fellow masked marauders. The first of these was the Crime Champions of twin Earths, when he met Atom's Justice League as well as the Justice Society and its Atom of Earth-Two.

The Justice Society of America which first quarreled with the time traveling villain Per Degaton and his chief henchman Kale Zercoff. Kale like Clinton was a bald felon with a knack for joining gangs. In Kale's case it was a gang of thugs dressed like Degaton whom Kale recruited for Per's illegal enterprise as his chief henchmen. 

Apparently, Degaton heard about Zercoff's former criminal career as a saboteur, working for a foreign government. On that occasion, Zercoff and a confederate attempted to damage a steel mill which young college student Al Pratt happened to be visiting. As the Atom, Pratt overpowered Zercoff, who seemingly perished.

Chronos had also joined a gang, known as the Injustice Gang of the World, which battled the Justice League of three separate occasions. Each time, Clinton and his cronies were manipulated by master villains who had their own diabolical agendas, that each failed in the end.

Kale Zercoff ended up alive and well, and followed his boss Degaton to ancient Greece, with the goal of changing history. And the first Justice Society member that Kale traded blows with? The Atom, renewing their conflict from years earlier. Despite scoring a temporary victory, Per and Kale met bitter defeat when Atom and his allies restored history to normal, erasing their altered timeline.

Kale would return at least twice more, once aiding Degaton against the Society and their League counterparts, and during the Crisis assisting the Ultra-Humanite in the modern-day who was attempting to steal a space shuttle for his own sinister ends. Degaton would himself join the Injustice Society of the World with several henchmen, of whom Kale was possibly among them during their initial clash with the Justice Society that led to the Time Tyrant’s defeat.

While Kale never reached the legendary status of Chronos, both menacing men were tied with time... ultimately running out of it during their failed crooked chrono-careers.