Rip Hunter, Ass Master

DC Comics Presents, in addition to its main stories featuring Superman and an exciting guest star, periodically included a back-up feature entitled, "Whatever Happened to...?" This back-up story would be about some random obscure DC character who hadn't seen the light of day for a while. Rip Hunter, Time Master was a DC comics character created in 1959, who got his own series in the early sixties. He had invented a time machine with his best friend and college roommate, Jeff Smith, and the two of them experienced exciting time travelling adventures, accompanied by Rip's girlfriend, Bonnie Baxter, and Bonnie's little brother, Corky. (Yeah, Corky. It was the sixties.)

So while I was reading "Whatever Happened to Rip Hunter, Time Master?" just now, I came upon this panel.





Rip and the team have travelled back to their college days, pursuing a rival who wants to stop them from ever building their time machine in the first place. (A paradox, a paradox, a most ingenious paradox...) This is from DC Comics Presents issue 37, by the way, cover dated September, 1981. So...did a lot of college roommates share a bed in 1981? I mean, this isn't Abraham Lincoln time, this is post-Stonewall and everything. I shared a bed with one of my college roommates, sure. But we were having sex.

It's nice that Rip is so secure in his sexuality that he's comfortable pointing this out to his girlfriend. Well, not so much "nice" as "passive-aggressive".