Historic Hooded Hour Humanoids

Many were the Masters of the Moment in the Multiverse. And yet, our four Hooded heroes and hindrances bore remarkable similarities to one another. Each tried to twist time, sequester each second, hijack each hour.

In Earth-One’s reality, there were two diametric dichotomies who each manipulated moments, one for evil and one for good. Destiny and Time Trapper on the surface proved identical, each clad in purple ropes with hoods masking their their facial features and cloaks enveloping their form. Each carried hourglasses, each sought to mold the futures of mankind as they saw fit, one to endless humanity and one to protect it. Each being opposed Superman with his Justice League of America allies, who opposed those enigmatic entities' agenda yet never could truly contain him. 

Destiny prevented Superman from saving citizens of Metropolis from a runaway bulldozer, causing them to save themselves instead and control their own future. Time Trapper prevented a younger Superman, Superboy, along with his 30th century teammates in the Legion of Super-Heroes from piercing the time barrier 30 years in their future using his "Iron Curtain of Time".

In Earth-Two’s reality, there also was a Destiny and a variant of the Time Trapper, with the former a purple business suit clad vagrant and the latter being a purple robe clad wanderer. The business clad mystery man once met Hourman while portraying radio performer “Doctor” Destiny. This meeting with the Man of the Hour motivated Destiny to engage in a crime crusading career. Decades later, the robe clad Time Trapper of Earth-Two interacted with Superman and the Justice Society of America when they searched through time for Vandal Savage.

Destiny-One primarily used Prof Davis and his fellow Challengers of the Unknown the advance his purposes, while Destiny-Two had behind the scenes gifted Rex “Hourman” Tyler with the ability to develope probability predicting software in his Crime-Caster to help he and his teammates in the Justice Society fight lawlnessness. While it was suspected that Time Trapper was a future version of one of his mortal foes from the Legion of Super-Heroes, his Earth-Two counterpart was revealed to be a clone of a Law’s Legionnaires member.

Interestingly, Destiny expressed unease at the unpredictability of the Challengers while begrudgingly working with them behind the scenes. Hourman opposed the synthetic copies of Destiny created by the sinister scientist T.O. Morrow, himself a master of time who fabricated a small army of purple hooded "Destiniouds". 

And just as Earth-One Time Trapper ferociously faced his former self, the Legionnaire named Cosmic Boy, so too the Earth-Two Time Trapper battled the Legionnaire he was cloned from, Sir Justin aka the Shining Knight... then later impersonating him in order to return to an ancient Camelot conquered by Vandal Savage after which this faux-Knight faded from history. Whether the Knight-Time Trapper operated behind the scenes through the centuries as had his counterpart the Cosmic-Time Trapper, his ultimate influence upon the past present and future has never been revealed, nor have the effects of his actions throughout time.

Miracle Medicines Manufacture Meta-Human Marvels

Many catalysts imbued various humans throughout the Multiverse with a wide range of superhuman abilities. From intense solar radiation to divergent gravitational forces, from lightning bolts to hard water, from white dwarf stars to atomic radiation, from genetic mutation to biological adaptation. Such were the catalysts that spawned the Supermen, the Flashs, the Atoms and the Aquamen of Earths One and Two.

But there were other means, developed by scientists, to unlock metahuman potential in themselves and others. Among these were miracle medicines or divergent drugs, such as those considered below. These examples are both a small sampling of the many possible chemical combinations potentially available in each universe.

Zoologist Kirk Langstron of Earth-One sought to harness traits found in the unique flying mammals which inspired his personal hero, the Batman, Through his Bat-Gland serum, Langstrom was able to transform his body into Man-Bat, a hybrid hero blending but human and bat into a new life form. Initially, his transformations affected his mind, until Batman was able to help him regain his sanity. Man-Bat would oscillate between hero and villain, using his wings to glide, his sonar sense to navigate and his superior strength to subdue his foes.

Chemist Rex Tyler of Earth-Two developed the Miraclo pill, enabling him to obtain superhuman strength, speed, durability and agility for one hour at a time. As the Hourman, he successfully carved out a costumed career for himself, soon after becoming a founding member of both the Justice Society of America and the Freedom Fighters. However, addiction to Miraclo caused Rex to experience adverse affects, leading him to partially retire until he could reformulate his miracle drug into a safer compound.

Research assistance Duncan Pramble of Earth-Two worked alongside an archaeologist when he discovered an ancient elixir known as Liquid Light, which when ingested caused Pramble to mutate into various bodies. Each body had its own superhuman abilities, which he used unsuccessfully as the supervillain Multi-Man, as the Challengers of the Unknown defeated him time and again. The team’s resident scientist Prof Riley developed an anecdote that neutralized Liquid Light's effect, no doubt guided by the man named Destiny* who like Tyler’s alter ego Hourman was a crusader for good.

Rex Tyler eventually developed a variation on his Miraclo treatment, creating a Black-Ray device which helped him unlock the pills powers by bathing in its radiation. Eventually, Tyler developed a safer version of Miraclo, perhaps derived from investigating the foe of his Justice Society ally Doctor Fate. That foe, Mister Who, had himself developed the Z-Solution which allowed him to transform into various forms similar to that displayed by both Multi-Man and Garfield "Changeling" Logan of Earth-One, whose father treated him with to save his life. Having observed how Mister Who displayed no detrimental physical defects to his solution when both Doctor Fate and Hourman battled him, Tyler may have adopted part of Who's formula and integrated into his reinvented Miraclo pill.

* Hourman met his universe’s Destiny on February 1942 when he was radio personality “Doctor Destiny”. Once Hourman exposed a villain's attempting to manipulate the "Doctor", Destiny was motivated by Hourman’s heroic example to become a protector of the innocent himself in the early 1940s (in Quality Comics). And Destiny returned the favor to Hourman, gifting the masked men his predictive aptitude which the Man of the Hour programmed into his Crime-Caster computer decades later, which Tyler used when first encountering Red Tornado and his creator T.O. Morrow.

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Synthetically Super-Strong Scientists: Prof and Hourman

“Prof” Walter Haley and “Hourman” Rex Tyler were adept at conceiving chemical concoctions in their costumed careers. While Tyler was a leading chemist at Bannermain Chemicals when he invented the Miraclo pill, Haley was a retired skin diver and oceanographer.

Using his discovery, Tyler adopted the alias of Hourman, shortly afterward after this he would found the Minute-Men of America on Earth-Two. Decades later, Haley would be a co-founder of the Challengers of the Unknown on Earth-One. Tyler refined Miraclo to activate with black light, while Haley devised an antidote for the liquid light which empowered his arch-foe, Multi-Man.

Prof was later revealed to have a connection with an enigmatic entity known as Destiny, a hooded individual who was a guiding force of the Challenger's just as Rex's alter ego Hourman was for the Minute-Men. 

An Earth-Two version of Destiny, a man clad in a purple suit and tie, was active around the same time. This enigmatic figure first appeared when he was used as a pawn in a case involving Hourman and the Minute-Men of America. Following this, “Doctor” Destiny intervened  during the final tragic case of the masked man known as 7-11, a former judge turned prisoner turned hero. While the Man of the Hour gave the Doctor a heroic inspiration to imitate, Destiny gave Hourman predicative calculations the masked man incorporated into his Crime-Caster computer.

However, there was still a symbiotic link between Destiny and Prof that seemingly caused Haley and his comrades to become susceptible to  occasional superhuman transformations. Early in his career, Haley would, like Tyler, gain superhuman strength and physique on more than one occasion. In the first instance, this was due to being in an alien atmosphere with his teammates.

Soon after, an alien hero journeyed to Earth-One to aid Prof and the Challengers in defeating invading giant extraterrestrials. During this adventure, Prof was treated by an alien hero for a serious injury using a chemicaly-based healing chamber, and gained temporary superstrength. In fact, this fantastic foursome's hidden benefactor Destiny had himself displayed superhuman abilities, enough to rebel the full force of Superman during one encounter between the two!

Just as Rex Tyler felt anxiety and withdrawal symptoms from overuse of Miraclo, until he found a non-addictive derivation of the pill, so too Prof had his own inner torment from time to time. In one instance later in the Challengers' history, an evil virus spawned from a computer infected Haley's mind, causing him to temporarily go mad. While not possessing immense strength, he became  uninhibited around others. He would eventually be cured of this condition.

Still, the greatest resource these two men possessed consistently through physical ups-and-downs was their indominable intellect, which guided the Challengers and Minute-Men in their various adventures throughout the years. This same genius-level prowess would be relied upon by the Justice League and Justice Society, whom they were allies with from the very beginning, helping these teams combat world-threatening foes of various types.

Mystery Men Known as Destiny

Who these men actually are, what were their birth names, and how they became the enigmas they would develop into...all unknown. Nevertheless, each had a unique insight into the world upon which they were born to walk.

On Earth-One, Destiny was an unknown entity who observed the goings on of mankind from afar, and on one occasion intervened in the affairs of Superman whose heroics were causing the city of Metropolis from becoming dependent on the Man of Steel. Another Destiny of Earth-S manifested much the same as far as character traits and abilities.

On Earth-Two, Destiny appeared in a purple business suit, often involved in a minor crime of some sort despite being homeless, first appearing when the former District Attorney turned convict turned masked manhunter known as 711 lost his life to a criminal. This world's Destiny took a more proactive role in humanity's matters than had the robed Destiny.

While it is indicated that Earth-One's Destiny was ancient, his Earth-Two twin first appeared in the early 1940s. Regardless, both men seemed intuitive towards dangerous situations arising among mankind, and responded in a heroic if passive fashion. Around the same time, a hooded protector known as Hourman also appeared on Earth-Two, the counterpart of Walter "Prof" Haley, one of the Challengers of the Unknown whom the Earth-One Destiny worked alongside. Hourman and the Earth-Two “Doctor” Destiny met when the Doctor was being manipulated by a criminal. Inspired by the Man of the Hour’s heroism, Destiny became a crimefighter. Hourman also benefited from Destiny, using scripts from the “Doctor’s” earlier radio show to program his predictive Crime-Caster computer, which analyzed probable futures to protect the innocent.