My real name isn't Rip Hunter. As a time traveler, I can't let anyone know what my own past is. What's to stop my enemies from suffocating me in my crib? Or doing the same to my father? 
- — Rip Hunter src
Rip Hunter is a time traveler. He is the guardian of the Timestream and leader of the Time Masters.
History
Early life
Rip Hunter spent his entire adult life preparing for enemies a time traveler would face. Fearing that someone might try to travel back in time and kill him as a child, he hid his true name, birthplace, and other details from the public. "Rip Hunter" is, in fact, an alias, and his real father is the time-traveler Booster Gold, a fact that not even Booster knows.
As the inventor of time travel technology,[1] Hunter aided heroes Booster Gold and Animal Man in their own time-traveling adventures before taking on the vast Illuminati conspiracy. Hunter was eventually stranded in the prehistoric past,[2] but returned to his own era with help from the time traveler Chronos.[3] He continued his research on time, and served as a mentor to a young Matt Ryder.[4]
The Linear Men
Hunter (right) and the Linear Men
In his Time Sphere, Rip Hunter ran roughshod through history, and was repeatedly saved from death—and from radically changing the course of events—by the intervention of the Linear Men, fellow time travelers dedicated to clandestinely preserving the timestream. When his exploration of the End of Time risked the destruction of all history, they elected to rescue and recruit him to keep him out of trouble. At the Linear Men's headquarters outside of time, Vanishing Point, Hunter was implanted with extensive cybernetics to allow him to safely travel through the time stream, turning his hair white in the process.[5]
Hunter became among the strictest and most conservative of the Linear Men, and the group's acceptance of Waverider, a remnant of an alternate future who had intervened in the past to prevent his reality from coming to pass,[6] created a wedge between them that would ultimately lead Hunter to turn on his teammates.[7] With the Linear Men, Hunter intervened in this lives of the heroes Superman[6] and Valor to prevent chronal catastrophes,[8] and despite his distrust, worked with Waverider to track down Monarch, a tyrant in his averted future. During their struggle, however, Monarch was transformed into the more powerful being Extant and stole one of the Linear Men's time-travelling armbands.[9] Extant used his newly-acquired power to open entropic rifts unraveling time in the far future and past, one of which consumed Hunter in the 58th Century, though not before he warned Waverider of the events' connection to the prior Crisis.[10]
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Eventually, Hunter's disagreement with the other Linear Men led him to imprison them at Vanishing Point.[7] Changing his appearance once more, Hunter began protecting earth's heroes from time-traveling villains. In one of his most notable adventures, he took members of the modern day Justice Society back in time to fight the villainous Per Degaton.[11]
52 and Booster Gold
Hunter was one of the witnesses to the birth of the new Multiverse and was instrumental in defeating Mr. Mind and his attempt to destroy the multiple Universes. Mr. Mind had evolved into a nigh-omnipotent hyperfly feeding on universes. Hunter then revealed to Booster Gold and Booster's ancestor Daniel Carter that the Multiverse was restored as 52 individual universes as a result of Alex Luthor's actions after he escaped his "heaven" dimension. Mr. Mind sought to eat them all.
Hunter combined Suspendium with Blue Beetle's scarab and Skeets' damaged, discarded shell into a trap to contain Mr. Mind's new form. Booster Gold and Supernova then hurled Skeets into the timestream, sealing the time-rift behind the little droid to trap the worm in a time-loop, saving the 52 universes.[12] Hunter warned the others to keep the Multiverse a secret for the time being as he eagerly prepared to explore it.
Two months later, Rip invades Daniel's home, scolding Booster for attempting to win public favor. He asks Booster to help him in repairing the damage done to the time stream by Mr. Mind and Superboy-Prime. Initially, Booster refuses, but eventually changes his mind, on the condition that Rip will help him break the rules of time travel and allow him to save the one person who always believed in him, his best friend, Ted Kord, The Blue Beetle. In their first mission, an unknown party was changing the circumstances of the origins of the members of the current Justice League lineup, starting with Green Lantern, then Superman and then The Flash along with Kid Flash. Rip and Booster successfully thwarted the first two plots and then it was revealed that the mystery foe was revealed to be Booster's father Jon Carter wearing Daniel's stolen Supernova suit and former Time Master trainee Rex Hunter. Their plan was to eliminate different superheroes and use their knowledge of the future, take the heroes' places and advert every crisis and disaster and become the greatest heroes the world will ever know. They seemed to wipe out Flash and Kid Flash by placing a lightning rod on top of Barry's lab but after a big fight, Booster pulled it down and the Flashes' timelines were restored. The ending result was that Rex was captured and Jon was hit by a bolt of lightning and his suit's chronal energy was damaged, stranding him in an unknown timeline.
Some time later, Rip Hunter and Booster Gold joined Superman and Green Lantern on a quest in time to find Batman, who was sent to the past by Darkseid's Omega Sanction. On this journey they travelled to the paleolithic era[13] and then to Vanishing Point,[14] where they witnessed the end of times before returning to the 21st century.[15]
Convergence
This section of the history takes place during Convergence, a massive crossover event revisiting characters from past eras and realities. The villains Brainiac and Telos plucked them from their own timeline and stored them together, causing them to cross over into each others' reality. Its precise chronological placement and canonicity may be unclear.
Rip encounters the Prime Earth Version of his father and teams up with him to save his dad and aunt from Deimos. While they succeed in saving them, New Earth Booster Gold's chronal sickness teleports them to Pre-Zero Hour 31st century Metropolis. New Earth Booster then disappears, while Rip, Michelle and Prime Earth Booster are confronted by the Pre-Zero Hour Legion of Superheroes.[16]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
- Temporal Mechanics: Rip Hunter is an expert in the field of temporal mechanics, quantum theory and the relationship between energy and matter as it pertains to Space/Time continuum.
- Expert Combatant: Although Rip prefers the solitude of a laboratory, he has also trained and mastered the martial arts and fighting techniques of societies and cultures from BC to the end of time. Rip demonstrated his ability to hold his own in a fight when he fought against renegade time traveler Rex Hunter.[17]
Paraphernalia
Equipment
Transportation
Weapons
- Laser Gun, Intellect in the fields of time-travel
Notes
- Rip Hunter first appeared in Earth-One continuity in Showcase #20 by Jack Miller and Ruben Moreira. He was reintroduced in Post-Crisis New Earth continuity in Booster Gold #13 by Dan Jurgens.
Trivia
- His favorite color is green.[18]
Related
- 116 Appearances of Rip Hunter (New Earth)
- 39 Images featuring Rip Hunter (New Earth)
- 10 Quotations by or about Rip Hunter (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Rip Hunter (New Earth)
Footnotes
- ↑ 52 #6
- ↑ Time Masters #1–8
- ↑ DCU Heroes Secret Files and Origins #1
- ↑ Who's Who in the DC Universe Update 1993 #2
- ↑ Legends of the DC Universe 80-Page Giant #1
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Superman (Volume 2) #73
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Time Masters: Vanishing Point #3
- ↑ Valor #21
- ↑ Showcase '94 #9
- ↑ Zero Hour: Crisis in Time #4
- ↑ JSA #68–72
- ↑ 52 #52
- ↑ Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1
- ↑ Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2
- ↑ Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6
- ↑ Convergence: Booster Gold #1
- ↑ Booster Gold (Volume 2) #4
- ↑ Booster Gold (Volume 2) #2
This character exists under the Vertigo Imprint which is intended for Mature Readers.Their continuity takes place within the context of Vertigo titles although they may cross over into regular DC continuity.
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