Father Time (DC Comics)

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Father Time is a fictional supervillain published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Seven Soldiers: Frankenstein #3 (April 2006), and was created by Grant Morrison and Doug Mahnke .

[edit] Fictional character biography

Father Time is the commander of the Super Human Advanced Defense Executive (S.H.A.D.E.), a Patriot Act funded covert operations group employing metahumans to fight terrorism. He might be seen as an analogue to the Ultimate Marvel version of Nick Fury. His own concerns appear to have at least as much to do with consolidating power as with national security. In Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #1, he assassinates a presidential candidate applying too much scrutiny on S.H.A.D.E., and replaces him with a double, Gonzo the Mechanical Bastard.

Father Time first appeared in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory: Frankenstein #3, temporarily pressing the undead assassin into S.H.A.D.E. service. He next appeared in the Infinite Crisis tie-in The Battle for Bludhaven, and appears to be a major player in the new Freedom Fighters miniseries. Curiously, the character in Frankenstein appeared as a youngish black man costumed something like Will Eisner's The Spirit, but wearing a bowler hat. The Father Time shown in Freedom Fighters, on the other hand, is a much older white man with long hair and a Buffalo Bill beard. Except for issue # 8, that is; there, he resembles an African-American Dr. Occult! Time is reborn in a new body on New Year's to accompany the new year.

For most of the new Uncle Sam and The Freedom Fighters series, Father Time was depicted a villain, but in issue eight he revealed he knew the danger Gonzo posed all along, and created the new versions of Doll Man, Phantom Lady, etc, to bring Uncle Sam forth, make his new team heroes in the public eye, and defeat Gonzo's plans.