Stuart Taylor | |
---|---|
Real Name |
Stuart Taylor |
First Appearance |
Jumbo Comics #1 (September 1938) |
Original Publisher |
Fiction House |
Created by |
Jack Kirby (as Curt Davis) |
Origin[]
Stuart Taylor was a scientist, and the assistant of physicist and history enthusiast, Dr. Hayward of the Bonnel Institute. Hayward built a time machine, when his daughter, Laura, was threatened by the villain, Ali Ben Pasha. Pasha forced Hayward to test the machine on Stuart and it worked. Eventually, the group escaped from Pasha using time travel belts, and when Pasha found them, Stuart's experience fighting in ancient wars made him too tough for Pasha's henchmen to handle. Dr. Hayward built a larger time machine beneath his country home, near Central City, so that he, Stuart and Laura could continue exploring time. Laura eventually became Taylor's girlfriend, though in later stories, Taylor traveled through time alone, and returned with tales of adventures that involved other women, which made Laura angry.
Taylor and his friends traveled to the prehistoric past and to specific points in history, to witness great events such as the Battle of Waterloo, the fall of Troy, and the sinking of Atlantis. They also traveled to distant alternate futures, including one future in which they witnessed robot boxing, and another, in the year 9250, in which humanity was at war with huge intelligent insects. At one point, they visited the planet Mercury. Taylor and the Hawywards were mostly motivated by curiosity about the past and future. Sometimes, Dr. Hayward sent Taylor on missions to keep the timeline on its proper course, but there were also a few instances in which the company traveled into the past in search of treasure to finance their operation. There were a few instances of the group bringing people from the past or future to their own time.
Over the course of his adventures, Taylor encountered a significant number of famous figures from history, literature and mythology including Ali Baba, Beowulf & Grendel, Bluebeard, Captain Morgan, Catherine the Great, Christopher Columbus, Cleopatra & Marc Anthony, Confucious, Croesus, Cyrano de Bergerac, Daniel Boone, Don Quixote, Eric the Red & Lief Erickson, Genghis Khan, Goliath, Hannibal, Hercules, Ichabod Crane & the Headless Horseman, King Henry VIII, King Richard, The Lionheart, Kublain Khan, Leonardo da Vinci, Magellan, Marco Polo, Mark Twain, Medusa, Napoleon Bonaparte, Nero, Odysseus, Ramses, Rasputin, Romeo & Juliet, Sam Houston, Sampson (of the Old Testament), Simon Bolivar, Sinbad, Thor, William Shakespeare, William Tell, and many others. Their enemies also included The Great Khan (a Mongolian from several centuries in the past, but not Genghis), and Rogro, a man who stole their time machine and was stranded in the year 4000 AD.
Powers and Abilities[]
Taylor was an extremely confident and happy man, with a sarcastic sense of humor and a deep admiration for beautiful women. He was apparently an extraordinary fighter, as he insisted on battling hordes of armed opponents, the Kings of Darkness, the devil known as Mephisto and the gods Hermes and Mars (the God of War) with his bare fists (Mephisto being the only one that he did not beat). However, Taylor was also good with a sword, and could out-duel almost anyone. Taylor and Dr. Hayward did carry powerful ray guns from the future on their trips through time, but Taylor was unlikely to use the weapon unless he faced some kind of large monster. The time machine could send Taylor to any time and any location. It was extremely precise and completely reliable. Taylor and his companions often wore "space suits" which offered some degree of protection and life support, though in later adventures, Taylor insisted on wearing well creased 20th century suits.
Public Domain Appearances[]
- Jumbo Comics #1, 3-7, 9-78, 84-140