JLA Presents: Hourman

Morrison's JLA run was a big deal back in the day. So it is not surprising that we got a number of spin-offs that were connected in some way to what Morrison was doing. Many of them were bad like JLA: Paradise Lost that focused on Zauriel. Even Aztek, despite Morrison's direct involvement, never really became a must-read for me. So I was not in a rush to try Hourman's ongoing when many shorter stories weren't any good. And on top of that it was written by this Peyer guy.

What was my problem with Peyer? I tried his JLA: Tomorrow Woman and thought that it was terrible. He did write some DC One Million tie-ins and I wasn't impressed by them either. Then there was this interview about the time he was editing Morrison's Doom Patrol where he basically says that he didn't understand it. And he is going to write an ongoing using Morrison's character? Thanks, but no. On the other hand it was drawn by Rags Morales and some people with decent comics opinions kept saying that it is actually a good run. So I figured what the hell, I surely have read worse Morrison related comics than this. Eventually I tried it and... loved it.

But before the ongoing Peyer and Morales did another Hourman story in JLA in Crisis one-shot. It was a Secret Files type publication that covered various events that Justice League participated in. It had a story with Flash reliving these events and causing damage to the world. Hourman steps in to solve this problem and thats that. It is not a bad story all things considered, but at the same it is nothing special nor similar to what this team would do on Hourman's ongoing. I'm glad that I read it after I already decided to try the ongoing, otherwise it would have probably been another strike against Peyer for me. 

So whats so great about the ongoing? To me many time travel stories are not interesting because they treat time travel as rather mundane thing. Time travelers are usually either regular people or they get crazy despite time travel being depicted as fairly straightforward thing. Peyer's Hourman stands out because he is, well, weird. If regular person wanted to meet someone from another country he'd call him or fly/drive there, Hourman? Hourman time travels to the future (or past) when the said person will be at convenient location for him. Then at some point he might use time vision to look at how his friends are doing in the past, you know, maybe they need some help? If not then he'll continue doing whatever he is currently doing. And hey, Peyer actually delivered a solid Tomorrow Woman story on a second try in Hourman #2.

Weirdness extends to other things as well. He doesn't understand what it is like to be human or superhero and him learning these things is the core premise of the series. Naturally this leads well to comedy and Peyer/Morales not taking things too seriously. I was not a fan of JLI or Doctor Fate ongoing and other similar books, so comedy often doesn't work for me. But here it worked, there was enough "natural weirdness" that justified funny bits that otherwise would feel forced or "fake".

A good chunk of the series is spent on Hourman's legacy, after all he is based on old JSA character. I never cared about the original and I can't say how faithful Peyer was here while trying to fix some old continuity and characterization problems. To me most important thing is that it didn't detract from the main story and made sense. Another problem that this series tries to fix is Snapper Carr. I never liked the character and he is one of the reasons why I'm not a big fan of many Silver Age Justice League stories. Here he is main supporting character and teaches Hourman how to be human while at the same he learns few things himself. First and probably last time that I liked Snapper Carr. Besides that we also get some new concepts like timepoint, JLA One Million focused story arc and one of the better uses of Amazo as a big bad. Fun stuff.

While the series had some fill-in artists Morales draws majority of it and it looks real good. Over the years he has drawn some popular stuff like Hawkman by Johns, Identity Crisis and obviously Morrison's Action Comics, but for some reason he never really became a big deal artist. I don't really understand why that is and sadly, if I'm not mistaken, DC has not reprinted this run. A shame that so much of his early material is not easily available.

Peyer also wrote DC 2000 miniseries that features Hourman for few pages. He doesn't play a big role there since the focus is more on JSA than other characters. But speaking about JSA - Hourman's ongoing has a crossover of sorts with JSA's ongoing, but I didn't read JSA issues and didn't have any problems with understanding what was going on. 

Due to being a time travel, having connections to JLA and JSA Hourman keeps appearing here and there and maybe at some point in the future I'll try to cover his further adventures. But to wrap this one up - Hourman by Peyer/Morales is definitely worth reading. JLA in Crisis? If you want more Hourman.