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| As a result of the New 52 in 2011, the entire line of DC characters was relaunched, incorporating properties belonging to the company's imprints: Wildstorm, Milestone, and Vertigo. As such, elements of this character's history have been altered in some way from the previous incarnation. For a complete list of all versions of this character, see our disambiguation page. |
Corky Baxter is a junior member of the Time Masters.
History
Corky seldom interacted with anyone outside the three adult Time Masters and has no friends, as Rip Hunter believes that Time Masters have no friends or family, only the enemies they made by making the hard choices. Corky was lonely and often acted out, for example by telling a young John Wilkes Booth that he would achieve his dream of fame by assassinating the President.
The Time Masters became aware that a time scavenger known as the Childminder had pulled a number of Golden Age sidekicks from the timeline and imprisoned them on Orphan Island, an island of Miraclo in the Pacific Ocean outside the normal flow of time. This included several members of the Thirteen, who had been erased from history by the Flashpoint and Doctor Manhattan's meddling in the timestream, and stored by the Time Masters in the Time Lab. Corky volunteered to stop her and Hunter agreed, but only because one of the sidekicks was Wing, who had been pulled from the timeline moments before he had sacrificed himself to destroy Nebula Man and needed to be returned to his proper place in history to die, otherwise Nebula Man would have destroyed the world. Corky planned to send Wing to his death but also find a way to rescue the others, return them to their home era and befriend them.
Who do you want to be when you grow up?
Unbeknownst to the Time Masters however, the mastermind behind the Childminder was in fact a potential adult version of Corky who had internalised Rip's teachings and believed that the risk the sidekicks posed to the timeline was too great. This potential future Corky kidnapped and reprogrammed Hourman to be his slave, and sent him to secure the children in exchange for restoring the Childminder's youth. Rather than send them home, the older Corky planned to let the others die in a time storm to remove them completely.
The sidekicks, led by Corky and two heroes from the present: Stargirl and Red Arrow, fought off Hourman and the Childminder. Corky tried to shut down the time portal Hourman had used to reach the island before it destabilised and created a time storm but his adult self came through to stop him, much to his shock, and revealed his plans to destroy the children rather than risk the timeline. The kids removed his control over Hourman and Hourman blasted the adult Corky back through the portal. In the chaos, Corky grabbed Wing and tried to throw him through the portal. The others caught him but Wing chose to sacrifice himself and returned to the point of his death. The time storm spread out from the portal and began to consume the island. Hunter pulled Corky out before it was destroyed, while Hourman took the others to the present.
Back at the Time Lab, Hunter congratulated Corky on a job well done and told him that he had erased the timeline that produced the evil adult version of him. Rip told Corky he was shaping up to be a great Time Master, oblivious to the boy's sorrow that the former sidekicks now all hated him for what he had done to Wing, and his horror at what he might one day become if he stayed on his current path.
Notes
- Corky Baxter was created by Jack Miller and Ruben Moreira, first appearing in Showcase #20. However, in the Prime Earth continuity, Corky Baxter first appeared as part of the New 52 DC Universe in Flashpoint Beyond #0 by Geoff Johns and Eduardo Risso.
Related
- 13 Appearances of Corky Baxter (Prime Earth)
- 8 Images featuring Corky Baxter (Prime Earth)
- 4 Quotations by or about Corky Baxter (Prime Earth)
- Character Gallery: Corky Baxter (Prime Earth)
Footnotes