While the series was called Mark Swift and the Time Retarder it was really a team effort and Mark was more in the position of side-kick than hero.
An orphan, Mark lived in Greenville with grade school teacher Rooney Kent, however Kent was no ordinary teacher, an inventive fellow he had, with the help and inspiration of young Mr. Swift, built a “time retarder,” a vehicle that looked like a submarine, but instead of traveling though water it traveled though time and space.
Christening the ship the History Express Rooney Kent pronounced “with this time-retarder I won’t just teach history, I’ll show it to you.”
Which is just what he did, each story involved the pair taking a look at what Mark Swift happened to be studying.
If this invariably mean they had a run in into Blackbeard the pirate, Napoleon Bonaparte, or Billy the Kid, and getting a closer more dangerous look at history than they had at first bargained for.
Created by Otto Binder, noted comic book and science fiction author, and his brother Jack Binder who did the art, these were the first comic book characters whose gimmick was time travel, they however would only make it though a hand full of stories before disappearing, and while time travel would remain a staple of the comics, there would not be a time traveling hero in the comics until Rip Hunter: Time Master almost 20 years later.
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