Hard Time (comics)
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Hard Time is a comic book series written by Steve Gerber and Mary Skrenes and originally published by DC Focus, a short-lived imprint of DC Comics. The aim of the imprint was to feature super-powered characters who did not follow the traditional format of classic superhero adventures. Hard Time's first run was 12 issues long, published from April, 2004 to March, 2005.
The series returned from hiatus in December, 2005, titled Hard Time: Season Two. With the demise of DC Focus, this run was published under the unfocused DC bullet.
DC announced Hard Time's cancellation in March 2006. The comic ended at with issue #7 of Season Two.
Contents |
[edit] Storyline
[edit] Backstory
Hard Time focuses on 15-year-old Ethan Harrow (early publicity referred to him as "Ethan Chiles"), who was involved in a high-school shooting scare gone wrong which cost several students their lives. For two years Travis Danes and the high school football team bullied Ethan and his friend Brandon Snood, whose home life was fairly bad. After Travis and two of his friends tried to rape a girl named Inez Mellencamp. Brandon stopped it by setting off the fire alarm. Travis and his friends merely got suspended for a week. Later Ethan saw Brandon and plan a school shooting, but Ethan tells his lawyer, "it was supposed to be a joke. Brandon told me the guns were loaded with blanks".
After the shooting, Travis was paralyzed and Brandon and four others were dead. Although Ethan was not directly involved with the murders, he was tried as an adult and given fifty years to life in prison. He will be up for parole in the year 2053. Ethan maintains that the media convicted him before he ever got to trial.
Some details about the shooting were not revealed until the first issue of Season Two.
[edit] Season one
While in prison, Ethan manifests a superpower called the "KHE-CHARE" that appears while he sleeps. "Fruitcake" tells Ethan how the power came to be. Originally, Ethan was unaware of this alter ego, which acted on his suppressed emotions of anger and revenge. Ethan eventually learned how to control his powers, as he is a wake.
While in prison, Ethan encounters a number of people, including:
- Prison Staff
- Harvey Brickman, the warden
- Dr.Robert Dinkens , a psychiatrist
- Inmates
- Hubert "Curly" Wallace, Ethan's cellmate and grandfather to Norma "Red" Rothenberg.
- George W. Cole, who gives Ethan the nickname "Prodigy". Released in 2009 and dead in 2010 in attempting a robbery.
- Alonzo "Fruitcake" Mullins, who knows of Ethan's powers. Dead on December 16th, 2012, stroke in bed.
- Arturo Lopez, a Latino gang member whose girlfriend Mercedes is pregnant, later on in life (40 so years later) he is a "Don Arturo" and released.
- Edward "Cindy", a transgender. Released in 2011, got a sexual reassignment and live in.
- Swift, Cindy's lover and a member of the Aryan Brotherhood deceased
- Gantry the Preacher, an arsonist deceased
- Lewis Gatherwood, a rapist deceased
- Raeder, The Gang boss of the Aryan Brotherhood.
- Alcazar, The Gang boss of the Diablos, a Latino gang.
- Kilo, Samoan, Big man willing to throw his weight, for a candy bar or two.
- Everly, Craftsman makes things out of Glass, Plastic, Wood for Porn.
- Brazo, A one-armed artist always needs supplies.
- Saeed, Prison smuggler, like cigarettes, pruno.
- Duane Cutter, serial killer, who carved up his victims.
While Ethan is in prison, life goes on outside. Ethan's mother, Sheila Harrow is dating Jack Forbes, his lawyer. Norma "Red" Rothenberg, the granddaughter of Curly corresponds with Ethan. Also, a student named Alyssa Nichols who witnessed the shooting and currently resides at the Shady Grave mental institution, sends him letters thanking him for saving her life. She asked Ethan to write back, and the two share a dream-like friendship.
On Ethan Harrow's 16th birthday, Red, the granddaughter of one of Ethan's fellow inmates, takes his virginity in against the door of the visitor's restroom. Mercedes goes into labour as she and Arturo are being married. Ethan's lawyer asks his mother to marry him, but she said no.
[edit] Season two
The first issue of Season Two was released on December 7, 2005.
Ethan met with his lawyer, who is trying to get him a new trial, and Red's parents, Julius and Truth Rothenberg, representatives of "The Prisoners' Rights Foundation". Ethan told them the full story of the school shooting. Jack told Ethan that the judge was up for an election and couldn't look "soft" on high school shooters. Jack told Ethan to stay out of trouble until the new trial.
A new inmate named CUTTER arrives at the prison, who is a psycho. Cole starts schooling Ethan in "Prison Economics". Ethan's Khe-Chara starts having violent revulsion to CUTTER, so "Fruitcake" gives him a "Third Eye". The CUTTER befriends Hardin and Cindy into his "Sphere of Influence".
Hard Time Season Two #7 jumps ahead 49 years to the year 2053, to the end of Ethan's sentence. His mind is scanned, to determine whether he is genuinely repentant for his crime; in the process, the various fates of everyone he met while in prison are revealed, as are many details about how his superhuman power functioned (which allowed to send out his astral form to experience numerous activities outside the prison), and what happened to the people outside of prison. Eventually he is ruled to have truly atoned, and is released. He walks out the prison gate and sees a floating limousine is waiting for him; although the readers do not see who is inside the limousine, Ethan does, and gets in.
[edit] Bibliography
- HARD TIME (imprint DC Focus) #1 (April, 2004) -#12 (March, 2005)
- HARD TIME SEASON TWO #1 (December, 2005) -#7 (June, 2006)
