Warning: Spoilers ahead for tonight’s series premiere of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
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On tonight’s series premiere of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The CW introduced Chronos.
In the case of Legends, Chronos is a bounty hunter working for the Time Masters, who has been sent to stop Rip Hunter and the Legends of Tomorrow from fulfilling their mission of stopping Vandal Savage’s rise to power.
In the comics, of course, Chronos has a significantly more complex backstory — one that’s put him at odds with the Time Masters, Rip Hunter, and The Atom.
In the comics, Chronos started as David Clinton, a villain created exclusively for the Ray Palmer version of The Atom. He was essentially very much like Clock King has been on Arrow — he planned his crimes to the second to avoid capture and complications.
The big difference between Clock King and Chronos, though, is that Chronos incorporated time-related gadgetry into his schtick, giving him the illusion of powers by way of advanced technology that allowed him to manipulate time.
After the disappearance of Ray Palmer, this version of Chronos went on to be a villain to Ryan Choi, Palmer’s successor as The Atom, as well as Rip Hunter and Booster Gold (in a story that was tied to his Choi/Atom adventures, and never fully resolved as it was left on a cliffhanger).
In the post-Flashpoint timeline, David Clinton was an A.R.G.U.S. agent assigned to investigate the origins of the time-traveling hero Booster Gold. He had time-bending abilities there, too, although it’s not clear whether they were real powers or technology. He has, at this point, largely been a benign force; he was a government agent captured by villains and saved by heroes.
There is, however, another Chronos who’s worth mentioning here.
Walker Gabriel was a corporate thief with a special set of skills that made him an ally to Clinton. The Gabriel version fo Chronos had a chronal suit that allowed him mastery of time that the Clinton Chronos could hardly dream of. He was kind of an antihero for a while in the ’90s, even having his own title, until Per Degaton sent a team back in time to ensure Gabriel was killed in a car accident as a child, erasing his career as Chronos from existence.
