TIME MASTER

Real Name: Professor Elias Weems

Identity/Class: Human, technology user

Occupation: Laboratory Scientist

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Enemy of Ant-Man (Hank Pym)

Known Relatives: Tommy (grandson); unmentioned child

Aliases: Master of Time

Base of Operations: Manhattan, New York City

First Appearance: Tales to Astonish I#43 (May, 1963)

Powers: None. Weems' Time Ray could age any living thing, plant, animal, or human, to a geriatric state. He could control the rate and degree of aging. Presumably if he aged anything far enough, it could die of system failure. He could reverse the aging effects as well. It was said to work by creating electromagnetic energy to increase the motion of the body's atoms, quickening the atomic activity of all living tissues, causing them to age.

Weems is obviously a genius, but his specific field of expertise is unknown.

Height: 5' 8"
Weight: 157 lbs.
Eyes: Blue
Hair: White

History: (Tales to Astonish I#43) - Elias Weems worked as a laboratory scientist and was pretty happy with the world. However, his company had a mandatory retirement policy at 65 years, which got his dander up when he was forced to leave his job. Resenting being tossed aside due to age, he decided to punish society for its condemnation of the aged. He worked day and night, and succeeded in constructing a machine capable of projecting a ray able to age anything it contacted.

After testing his ray on a tree and an elephant, Weems tried it out on a woman. Ant-Man investigated these publicly seen agings, and tracked down Weems to his house. Weems used the Time Ray on Ant-Man, and then while he was weakened and off guard, he removed his helmet and trapped him in a flower pot. Ant-Man escaped by returning to normal size and retook his helmet Meanwhile, convinced of his ray's success, Weems traveled to the top of a tall building and trained it on a crowd on the streets of New York. However, he inadvertently aged his beloved grandson, Tommy, who walked out of a subway station into the path of the ray. Distraught, Weems dropped the ray, but Ant-Man used his ants to cushion the fall and prevent the machine from breaking.

Ant-Man had the people in the crowd train the ray, in reverse, on himself and the other victims, returning them all to normal. Weems came to his senses and surrendered to the police, but due to testimony from Ant-Man, he was released on his own recognizance. His old boss, realizing his genius, even agreed to take him back. And everyone learned a valuable lesson, or two (It could have been an episode of Fat Albert).

Comments: Created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Don Heck.

How can Tommy have never gotten into his grand-dad's Time Ray? By now he could be in high school, college, or working. Surely something's happened to make him want to take revenge on the world! Maybe he showed or bragged about the machine to his friends? Or maybe Elias is going senile and is angry at the world again...Come on!

I wonder if Elias's son (and Tommy's father) could be Dr. Stephen Weems aka The Modular Man.
--John Kaminski

Time Master has an entry in Marvel Legacy: The 1960s Handbook.

 

 

Clarifications: Time Master should not be confused with:

images:

Last updated: 05/01/05

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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