Time Police / Comic Books

Time Police in Comic Books.

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• 2000 AD:
  • This short comic, written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons (before they collaborated on you know what).
  • Judge Dredd: In the stories "Dead Zone" and "Breaking Bud", time travellers from the 28th century are revealed to visit 22nd century Mega City One. The time agents get involved when one of their futuristic wristband devices goes missing and turns up again in the hands of a fugitive from the Cursed Earth.
• The short-lived Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book featured Time Thumb and the Chronological Order, who played this role against the titular heroes.
• The DCU:
  • The 'verse has several protectors of the timestream, most of them experienced time-traveling adventurers themselves: Rip "Time Master" Hunter, Waverider, the Linear Men, the second Chronos (the first and third were villains), the android Hourman, Booster Gold...
  • Hunter and Waverider were both members of the Linear Men at one, er, time. It's possible one of the many history-changing events they failed to do anything about has undone this.
  • The Time Masters are the new Time Police after the Linear Men were locked away (by Rip Hunter, after he got fed up of their approach). The Post-Crisis version of Rip Hunter founded and leads the group. Unlike the Linear Men, the Time Masters are more concerned with protecting the timeline from malicious time travellers.
• Disney Mouse and Duck Comics have their own Time Police, though most time-travel stories don't even mention them.
  • A pair of stories mess with this trope in an amusing way:
    • When Scrooge got a time-machine he got fined by two Time Agents-who turn out to be nothing more than a duo of imaginative crooks. Except this only sets up for Scrooge to then ignore the warnings of the real Time Police people when they show up.
    • In another incident, Scrooge meets a stranded time traveler and decides to help him try and build a time machine back home in exchange for Artificial Gravity technology, only for Rockerduck's men to feign being Guardians of Time and confiscate the plans, leading to Rockerduck to introduce artificial gravity decades early... And the real Guardians of Time to take notice and track down the time traveler to the Money Bin, at which point Scrooge gleefully tells them what they need to know to confiscate the plans from a baffled Rockerduck.
    "Who'd have expected that? My idea was so good it turned out being true."
  • In the more "serious" sci-fi sort-of-alternate-continuity of the Paperinik New Adventures title, the Time Police (using the trope name) are greatly expanded upon. There, it is revealed that they get around the many possible time-travel loopholes by building their HQ outside time itself: whoever is in the HQ isn't affected by any changes to the timeline, and can thus work to restore it. The series also shows the darker aspect of this trope: the issue "The Day of the Cold Sun" has our hero forced to ally with the time pirate the Raider to prevent the destruction of Duckburg due an experiment on cold fusion going horribly wrong and nuking the city. And when the explosion doesn't happen at the allotted time the Time Police agents show up to cause it themselves!. At least, until their fight with Paperinik and the Raider's plan backfiring on him cause so much trouble that making the experiment fail in a non-explosive way is the better option.
    • The story "Timewreck" is a Whole-Plot Reference to the story of the Guardians of Time, with the main difference being that the Time Police's ability to track down stranded time traveler is much less accurate... Because of Paperinik changing the timeline in "The Day of the Cold Sun" and the changes interfere with their sensors for the time period, otherwise it would be even better.
  • In the "Time Machine" series Mickey and Goofy have met agents from the Time Police, though ones coming from the late 21st century as opposed to the 23rd century of the ones in PKNA. This is rare, however, as the time machine's inventor, professor Spike Marlin, and the Archaeological Museum director Zachary Zapotek have given them strict rules on how to not interfere with whatever historical event they are sent to witness.
    • One of the stories reveals the Time Police would be established by an aged professor Marlin, giving another explanation on why their encounters with the Time Police are so rare by showing they already know when they'd be needed and making Mickey and Goofy the Time Police' predecessors.
• Femforce: Stormy Tempest is an Interplanetary Police Officer sent from the 26th century to the present to prevent a corrupt system from taking over planets.
• The Time Police in Jughead's Time Police. They were equipped with cool future technology.
• Marvel Universe:
  • The Time Variance Authority, which ties up all the loose ends inherent in every single instance of time travel, and prosecutes the guilty parties.
  • Immortus, Lord of Limbo, considers himself a one-man time police force in Avengers Forever — his objective is controlling the Avengers in every possible timeline to prevent the human race from destruction by the Time Keepers. This extends as far as using the Forever Crystal to erase timelines which he feels are a lost cause.
  • Interestingly, the TVA hates the Avengers, as they're the single biggest perpetrators of time travel paradoxes. Seriously, a team with two Hank Pyms from different eras?
• One issue of Spirou & Fantasio ends up with the main characters being rescued by Time Police after they end up helping the first time traveler and become stuck in the past when his prototype breaks down. The Time Police state that he would need to be returned to his own time to continue his research, and imply that rescuing him is them performing their duty in a Stable Time Loop.
• The Temps Aeternalis in The Umbrella Academy. It seems like their main function is to carry out assassinations, or as they call them, "corrections". Their purpose is to maintain the status quo.
• Valérian is about the adventures across time and space of a member of the Time Police.

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