Welcome back to the Society Pages, a column that looks back at the ‘modern’ history of the Justice Society of America. The main thrust of this column is to look at “JSA” and “Justice Society of America,” two ongoing series, written for most of their runs by Geoff Johns.

This week, we take a break from “JSA” to finish up “Hourman,” taking the book through literally thousands of years of DC stories.

Written by Tom Peyer and Christopher Priest

Penciled by Rags Morales, Steve Scott, Jason Orfalas, Howard Porter, and Tony Harris

Inked by Dave Meikis, Walden Wong, Andrew Hennessey, Norm Rapmund, Tony Harris, and Claude St. Aubin

Colored by John Kalisz, Heroic Age, and James Sinclair

Lettered by Kurt Hathaway The Man of the Hour’s time has run out, as Hourman’s road trip through time brings him and his friends to the end of his adventures! Join Snapper and the gang in bidding Tyler a tearful farewell, and discover what Tyler’s surprising new mission will be!

The final 15 issues of “Hourman” continue the first ten’s absolute commitment to building a character and a setting without compromise. What I mean by that is simple: the book never stops deepening its characters, even when engaging them in time travel and android shenanigans. Each character in the book, from the coffee shop clerk’s son to Hourman himself, is constantly revealing themselves to be well rounded characters.

The first arc of this set is a return to the “DC One Million” timeline that Hourman comes from, and shows how everyone from his time is disappointed in Ty’s decision to give up some of his powers. It’s an interesting choice, because the first ten issues are really about him gaining his humanity, and once he is comfortable in his skin, he is chastised for it. As enjoyable as the return to that timeframe was, part of the joy of the series is seeing Ty as the fish out of water, surrounded by his supporting cast. By bringing him out of that, the book felt a little lacking.

The following arc sees Hourman adopt a secret identity, the shaggy-haired Matthew Tyler, in an attempt to be more superheroic. It is a pretty useless exercise, but it shows his continuing attempt to improve himself, though we find out later that Rex Tyler programmed him to attempt to be more like a traditional superhero. This arc also sets up a supervillain cabal that operates out of shopping malls, which is a great touch.

Rags Morales continues to be the primary artist, and he is doing incredible work here. The most impressive issue of the batch is #16, where Morales retells the story of Snapper’s ‘betrayal’ of the Justice League. Morales sets the past scenes in a tone that is Silver Age reminiscent, but never devolves into pastiche. The issue wrings a lot of emotion out of that sequence, and we see just how much this event has scarred Snapper, and how little it bothered the rest of the League.

There are some other fun guest artists in these issues, but my personal favorite was Tony Harris showing up for issue #22. My “Starman” obsession is well known at this point, so seeing Harris show up was a joy, especially as he was able to work with pretty much the entire main cast. Issue #21 features a flashback sequence during Snapper’s time with the Blasters, which was co-written by Christopher Priest and illustrated by Howard Porter. The sequence’s tone was sharply different from the rest of the book, purposefully, and worked quite well.

The big arc at the center of these issues is one where Amazo is posing as a future version of Hourman. This is a simple enough story, until Tom Peyer adds in a fascinating wrinkle: despite stealing his identity, he is doing good as Hourman. Specifically, he cures Rick Tyler’s illness and saves him from the Timepoint. This leads Hourman to attempt to reform Amazo, which is a brilliant pairing of his humanity and his android nature.

The final arc is one where Hourman takes most of the supporting cast on a journey through time on his Timeship. This arc sees one really important moment, where Rex Tyler is saved from having to travel to the future and work for his company, 8000 years later. It is unclear if this will make Rex a better husband/father in ‘our’ timeline, but that implication is given.

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The one critical thing I can say about these issues is that the ending felt incredibly rushed. The arc sets up Hourman’s departure nicely, but the final issue spends most of its time setting up a big conclusion, and then we don’t get one at all. We also don’t get the bequeathing of the Hourman name and new gauntlets to Rick, which we see he has in “JSA.” It feels like, perhaps, the series was meant to go for 2-3 more issues, but got cancelled mid-stream.

The good news of this is that I will be chatting with Tom Peyer next week about the book, so this question, hopefully, will be answered!

But next time in the Society Pages: “Hawkman!”