I am currently working my way through Aztec Ace (1984) for the first time thanks to the recent collected edition. I am enjoying it a great deal, but it's proving to take longer than I had anticipated to finish. I am already looking forward to other, similarly-themed series I may have missed or may want to revisit. I'm not necessarily looking for time-travel stories within a series (such as Avengers or Fantastic Four), but feel free to mention them if they are particularly mind-blowing. Also I'm eliminating tie-ins to other media such as Doctor Who or Time Tunnel. To give you an idea of what I'm looking for, here's what I have so far...
SERIES:
Aztec Ace
G.I.L.T.
Rip Hunter
The Rook
Tempus Fugitive
Timespirits
STORIES:
Atom
Avengers
Batman
Excaliber - "Cross-Time Caper" (#12-24)
Fantastic Four
Flash
Legion of Super-Heroes
Supreme
West Coast Avengers - "Lost in Space-Time" (#17-23)
Luke Blanchard said:
-The first time travel feature in American comic books might be Sheldon Mayer's "The Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed" in New Comics #1-#4, The Comics Magazine #1. This was a comic feature. The instalments are short so there's only ten pages. In the first instalment the title character and two others travel back a hundred years in a mostly spherical time machine.
-Slam Bradley and Shorty travelled to the year Two Billion in Detective Comics #23-#24.
-In Leading Comics #4 the Seven Soldiers of Victory fought a villain called Dr. Doome who has a time machine. The GCD doesn't have a guess as to who wrote the issue. #4 is attributed to Bill Finger.
-The Flash had a multi-part travel adventure in All-Flash #4. There's an appearance by Cleopatra.
-Green Lantern had a multi-part adventure in Green Lantern #7 involving an antagonist from the future who reminds me Zarrko the Tomorrow Man. (This guy is bald because everyone in the future is.) GL and Doiby travel to the future in the final part. This was the last issue of Green Lantern with Finger's byline.
-Wonder Woman had multi-part adventures involving time travel in Woman Woman #9 and #17. I've only read part of the second.
-Per Degaton used a time machine to take over the world in All-Star Comics #35. The JSA travels to the past at the climax. Roy Thomas homaged the story in Avengers and did sequels at DC in the 1980s.
-In "It Happened in Rome" from Batman #24 Batman and Robin visited ancient Rome via hypnosis. This was the first of a series of time travel adventures which appeared irregularly into the Silver Age.
-The Challengers had a book-length time travel adventure during their Kirby era in Challengers of the Unknown #4. In this one the time machine is a cube, so it resembles Zarrko's rectangular prism one in Journey into Mystery #101.
-A feature called "Time Travelers" appeared in American Comics Group's Operation: Peril #1-#12. The couple of instalments I've read left me unmotivated to read more.
-Another called "Time Skipper" appeared in Charlton's Space Adventures #1, #3. There's an element of parody of the genre in the second instalment. Cleo appears in that one too.
-Iron Man met Cleo in "The Mad Pharaoh" in Tales of Suspense #44. As others have noted, this was likely intended as a cash-in on the publicity for the movie with Elizabeth Taylor, released (Wikipedia says) about a month later. Don Heck even drew Cleo like Taylor.
-The FF's Egypt adventure in Fantastic Four #19 went on sale about a month after the release of the movie. Dr Strange had an adventure involving ancient Egypt the next year in Strange Tales #124.
-Another comics response was the Asterix story Asterix and Cleopatra. The net tells me this was serialised in 1963. The original version of cover of the book collection had text parodying the film's publicity.
Replies
I'm assuming you've already read all the Rip Hunter stories?
G.I.L.T. is a new time travel series from AHOY, by Alisa Kwitney and Mauricet. It's a lot of fun!
I can't believe I forgot Rip Hunter! (I have the "Showcase" edition but I haven't read it yet.)
I can't believe I forgot G.I.L.T.! I've been singing its praises for five months over on "What Comics Have You Read Today?"
You have to include Adventure Comics/Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes. Superboy time traveled in nearly every issue of those books to get to the Legion's time or to get back home (or both.)
Supreme, as a rip off tribute to Superman had his Staircase of Infinity and used it often enough, I think, that it counts as a time travel device.
The Golden Age Fash time traveled a few times. Enough to add to the list? Maybe. Come to think of it, so did Barry Allen.
Professor Nichols used his hypnosis-as-time-travel several times in Batman, and a couple times in World's Finest, and even in SuperFriends once.
I'll add to this if I think of any.
I remain,
Sincerely,
Eric L. Sofer
The Silver Age Fogey
x<]:o){
Hmm... What I'm looking for are stories or series in which time travel is the raison d'etre, not simply a means to an end. I should probably start a separate list just for stories (anything with Kang in it, for example). To that end, I have added your suggestions and also included two of my own: "The Cross-Time Caper" and "Lost in Space-Time." I will add issue numbers above as they occur to me or as they are provided.
The Rook?
Probably. I'm largely unfamiliar with The Rook, but I did buy some Dark Horse Presents in the 2K-teens but ultimately dropped it when it became clear that all of the series I was buying it for were being collected in single volume editions.
Atom (Ray Palmer) occasionally travelled in time by using Prof. Alpheus Hyatt's Time Pool.
-The first time travel feature in American comic books might be Sheldon Mayer's "The Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed" in New Comics #1-#4, The Comics Magazine #1. This was a comic feature. The instalments are short so there's only ten pages. In the first instalment the title character and two others travel back a hundred years in a mostly spherical time machine.
-Slam Bradley and Shorty travelled to the year Two Billion in Detective Comics #23-#24.
-In Leading Comics #4 the Seven Soldiers of Victory fought a villain called Dr. Doome who has a time machine. The GCD doesn't have a guess as to who wrote the issue. #4 is attributed to Bill Finger.
-The Flash had a multi-part travel adventure in All-Flash #4. There's an appearance by Cleopatra.
-Green Lantern had a multi-part adventure in Green Lantern #7 involving an antagonist from the future who reminds me Zarrko the Tomorrow Man. (This guy is bald because everyone in the future is.) GL and Doiby travel to the future in the final part. This was the last issue of Green Lantern with Finger's byline.
-Wonder Woman had multi-part adventures involving time travel in Woman Woman #9 and #17. I've only read part of the second.
-Per Degaton used a time machine to take over the world in All-Star Comics #35. The JSA travels to the past at the climax. Roy Thomas homaged the story in Avengers and did sequels at DC in the 1980s.
-In "It Happened in Rome" from Batman #24 Batman and Robin visited ancient Rome via hypnosis. This was the first of a series of time travel adventures which appeared irregularly into the Silver Age.
-The Challengers had a book-length time travel adventure during their Kirby era in Challengers of the Unknown #4. In this one the time machine is a cube, so it resembles Zarrko's rectangular prism one in Journey into Mystery #101.
-A feature called "Time Travelers" appeared in American Comics Group's Operation: Peril #1-#12. The couple of instalments I've read left me unmotivated to read more.
-Another called "Time Skipper" appeared in Charlton's Space Adventures #1, #3. There's an element of parody of the genre in the second instalment. Cleo appears in that one too.
-Iron Man met Cleo in "The Mad Pharaoh" in Tales of Suspense #44. As others have noted, this was likely intended as a cash-in on the publicity for the movie with Elizabeth Taylor, released (Wikipedia says) about a month later. Don Heck even drew Cleo like Taylor.
-The FF's Egypt adventure in Fantastic Four #19 went on sale about a month after the release of the movie. Dr Strange had an adventure involving ancient Egypt the next year in Strange Tales #124.
-Another comics response was the Asterix story Asterix and Cleopatra. The net tells me this was serialised in 1963. The original version of cover of the book collection had text parodying the film's publicity.
The time travel theme overlaps with the reincarnation theme. In Wonder Woman #17 the characters are swept back into their past lives by the winds of time. In the two issues of Avon's Slave Girl Comics the protagonists relive their lives in a past era through the power of an ancient signet ring. In Jimmy Olsen#157, #159 and #163 Jimmy lived in the past as Marco Polo and Spartacus under the influence of a gem called the Star of Cathay.
Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper carried a fantastic adventure strip called Garth from 1943-1997. He relived past lives under the influence of a ray in a long sequence -really a series of stories - called "The Seven Ages of Garth" in 1944-46. Subsequent stories took him to the past and future. Beginning, I think, with "The Rohan Legend" in 1969 stories in which he lived lives in other ages became a regular part of the strip. In the 1970s these often came to effective tragic climaxes. My favourite is "Ship of Secrets", about the Mary Celeste.
Stripper's Guide has a post here about an American newspaper strip of the 1920s called Cuddles. In the strips shown the title character, a flapper, finds herself back in the age of King Arthur, but there's an implication it's all a dream. An example of a comic book story using this device is the Boy Commandos story "Brooklyn and Columbus Discover America!" from World's Finest Comics #21.
Beginning in the 1930s Brick Bradford travelled through time in a time machine called The Time Top. Mandrake the Magician also had time-spanning adventures during the long run of his strip, but I don't know when he first did so.
Classics Illustrated did an adaptation of The Time Machine with art by Lou Cameron in #133. Pendulum Press published an adaptation by Otto Binder and Alex Niño in the early 70s which was reprinted by Marvel in Marvel Classics Comics #2. Alex Toth drew Dell's adaptation of the George Pal version (Four Color #1085).
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