Rip Hunter is one of DC’s oldest characters and because he’s a time traveler, he’s
gone through A LOT of changes and retcons.
Originally, Rip was just a guy with a time machine and a rag tag team going on misadventures
throughout time, but he later became a cyborg time cop.
Then a new version of him popped up where he was the inventor OF time travel before
getting retconned again into his current incarnation.
So to avoid confusion, here’s Rip’s most recent history.
Rip Hunter is a time master which means that it’s his job to protect the timestream from
those who wish to harm or change it.
Due to this, he has a fair chunk of enemies that would stop at nothing to go back in time
and kill him as a child.
In fact, Rip Hunter isn’t even his real name and is instead an alias that he uses
to protect himself from such threats.
Okay, that’s great and all, but who is he REALLY?!
Well ladies and gentlemen, Rip Hunter is the son of my favorite superhero of all time,
the glory minded showboat Michael Jon Carter A.K.A.
Booster Gold.
This means that we know at least Rip’s last name.
It’s Carter.
From birth, Rip was trained by his father to take over the family business, guarding
the time stream.
Rip and his family didn’t really have a “home” per se, instead opting to constantly
bounce from time period to time period in order to avoid being tracked by various enemies.
The closest thing Rip had to a home was their central base of operations, the Vanishing
Point.
Essentially, it’s a fortress created by Booster Gold that exists at the VERY end of
time.
From there, the family could monitor all of history.
Rip’s childhood was nothing short of amazing.
He got to see the dinosaurs, witness Superman’s ship crash landing on Earth, and even hang
out with the Legion of Superheros.
However, it wasn’t all fun and games.
While Booster Gold was a great father, he trained Rip in many forms of combat from the
B.C. era to even the end of time and taught him the importance of preserving the timeline
while making as few changes as possible.
Booster even taught Rip how to be a mentor because one day, he would take up an apprentice
of his own.
Believe it or not, Rip’s protegee… was his own father.
Because time travel.
Alright, to make an awesome, yet complicated story easy to understand, here’s what happened.
After the DC multiverse was reborn following the events of Infinite Crisis, a giant moth
creature tried to eat it.
Yes.
It literally tried to devour the entire freaking multiverse.
To prevent this, Rip went back in time to recruit Booster Gold, who at the time was
a major egotistical scumbag.
This ends up working to his advantage, because since everybody assumed that Booster was still
a self centered idiot, nobody would suspect that he was actually saving the multiverse
behind the scenes.
They end up literally saving everything and the newly humbled Booster Gold is recruited
by Rip as a time master where he would help save the multiverse time and time again as
the greatest superhero that nobody will ever know of.
Generally, Rip acts as Booster’s boss since he’s the one that discovers time anomalies
and sends him on missions, but from time time, Rip will also recruit other heroes.
You know, like the time that he made Hal Jordan and Superman help him chase Batman when he
was lost in time.
Yeah, that’s the story where Bruce was a caveman, a pirate, a witch hunter, etc.
So when you almost exclusively hang out at the Vanishing Point which is the very end
of time, and something like Flashpoint happens, what happens to you?
Well, nothing…
apparently.
Rip, Booster, and his aunt Goldstar continue to exist after this multiverse-shattering
event.
Yeah, there’s a new Booster Gold in the New 52, but because comics, these Pre-Flashpoint
time masters all continue to police the timestream Post-Flashpoint.
That is until Rip and the gang are dragged into the crossover event, Convergence.
On a world where time and space don’t seem to mean much, Rip helps turns the dying Pre-Flashpoint
Booster Gold into the brand new Waverider aaaaaaand that’s it.
Most likely, we’ll see Rip’s return to comics if he ends up getting popular through
Legends of Tomorrow, but as of this recording, that’s everything.
So yeah, if you want to read more about this Rip Hunter for yourself, I’d recommend checking
out 52, Booster Gold, and Time Masters: Vanishing Point
But hey, let me know if you’d like me to do a video on EVERY single Rip Hunter incarnation.
For yes, click on old school Rip, but for no, click on modern Rip.
Or you can just tweet me your answer @TrailerDrake
But hey, if you want to know about Rip Hunter’s dad and MY FAVORITE superhero, just click
that annotation right there for my video on the history of Booster Gold.