The archenemy of the Atom, Chronos started his career as petty thief David Clinton, who attributed his consistent incarceration to his lack of timing.

However he escaped from jail by adapting a guard's watch, making the ticks so loud they broke open his cell door.

Chronos is able to escape Wonder Woman, Batman and Green Lantern after stealing a million dollars from the Powers City Bank.

The JLA and JSA are captured again and magically placed in cages in space, but with the aid of the Green Lanterns escape and return to Earth.

The Atom had always thwarted Chronos, but he had decided to turn his back on humanity and had retreated to a peaceful seclusion with a group of six-inch tall aliens in the Amazonian jungle.

Clinton's niece Angie was Ted Kord's personal secretary, and Chronos used her apartment as a hideout against her wishes..[5] He also fought the Beetle during Darkseid's anti-hero riots.

During that struggle against the Beetle, Chronos was hurled 100 million years into the past where he encountered a time-lost Captain Atom.

Out of desperation and humiliation, Chronos took a drastic chance — he accepted an offer from the demon Neron and exchanged his soul for the metahuman ability to manipulate time.

Clinton's efforts to bypass this flaw - passing his artificial age onto youths with a special glove of his own creation and intercepting other time travelers in an attempt to acquire their technology - brought him briefly into conflict with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

[4] He's able to do so by joining forces with Lady Chronos, a new companion and lover who once was Jia, Ryan's love interest in their college years.

With some help from the real Ray Palmer, Ryan is eventually able to overcome the couple, and prevent David and Jia from messing again with Ivy Town.

He was tasked with finding Booster Gold;[8] however, he had apparently failed his mission and was captured by the Outsider of the newly formed Secret Society of Super Villains.

[9] Chronos travels to early-Happy Harbor and intercepts the God of Superheroes, Ahl as he descends to Earth from Final Heaven.

The series ran for 12 issues (including a DC One Million crossover numbered 1,000,000) between March 1998 and February 1999, and concluded with Gabriel wiping himself from history, to save his mother's life.

Still, due to an unclear series of events, it appeared in fact two Walker Gabriels existed: one outside of time, one within it, but only up to the point when he removed himself out of it.