Friday, November 20, 2009

Chronos 2: Walker Gabriel

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The Second Chronos, Walker Gabriel has a history that's a little hard to explain even without my usual "don't spoiler too much" stance. His story involves his 30 year old future self and his rookie 23 self, alternate timelines and his own status as an abnormal life form in the time stream. Walker was adopted not knowing anything about his real parents until sometime after he created his own displacement suit. We never learn why he was kicked out of college (according to Jean Loring) but he creates a costume of his own design to help him steal the money he needs to fund his research. A contact of his that helped him improve his prototype suit was David Clinton. As Clinton was at that point rapidly aging and slowly fading away he was only to eager to help, so long as he got his cut from Walkers' thefts.

Once Clinton was legally declared dead he left Walker in his will though the two were only associates. Many started to dub him the new Chronos, the apparent heir of the title. After an earlier theft gone horribly wrong many time travelers soon became interested in Walker. Wondering why his mere presence registered as a temporal anomaly. Through a series of events he became more and more involved in events he'd rather stay out of. The whole hero vs. villain scene didn't interest him in the slightest yet he kept getting pulled into the kind of conflicts where he had to choose a side. 

Through his self interest Walker did come quite close to becoming the bad guy. Making one horrible mistake that he alone had to set it right. He kept people guessing of where he stood usually doing things for the right reason but also having his own self interest tied in. The comic was about Walkers' journey of discovery of who he was and what he was willing to sacrifice. His series didn't last long due to low sales, the demand to tie the character to different DC events and the death of Archie Goodwin, a driving force to the book.

What can he do?: Not much of a fighter Walker can freeze and/or slow down the time around him. John Fox, a future Flash, was in fact affected by this enough to not be able to move. Walker is Time Sensitive. He can touch items to be transported back in time to different points in it's existence. Once the capabilities of the suit have been improved upon he can time travel at will. At this stage the early post-crisis means of time traveling by the 2 way method seems to be void. 

Where is he now?: Walker hasn't made too many appearances since. The biggest ones have been his odd death in JSA (it's odd if you read his series, trust me) which is later erased when the timeline is restored. He was in Superman 3D in Limbo and his costume was seen in a possible future where Lady Chronos rules next to David Clintons' living statue.

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First Appearance: Chronos #1 

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