[5] After his release, Degaton roams the streets as a derelict until his old ally Brain Wave finds him homeless and in poor health.

Under cover of a series of natural disasters that he causes, Brain Wave uses a machine to sap the Justice Society's willpower and divert it to power Degaton's new body.

After being defeated by the JSA,[8] Degaton returns to prison (back in his original body), but is paroled ten years later due to advanced age, thanks to the intervention of Bruce Wayne.

[9] Taking advantage of the revelation of "Batman's Diary", a document that supposedly convicts the Justice Society of treason, Degaton uses his remaining influence to attempt to indict the group.

Mekanique suggests that the two of them simply wait four decades for the machine to reappear, but this idea drives Degaton into a lunatic rage.

[11] Now equipped with a time disc, Degaton has the ability to live "between seconds", apparently ageless in an intangible state, which he can only be removed from with the concentrated tachyons found in the hourglass of Hourman.

He makes arrangements to ensure that the JSA's temporary 1950s dissolution would become permanent before setting up an attack on the White House that would culminate in the Atom 'self-destructing', reasoning that the death of President Truman due to a costumed hero would disgrace all masked crime-fighters and leave them branded as traitors, thus erasing from history all subsequent superheroes.

[12] Following his release from prison, Degaton reconstructs Mekanique, and the pair battle Infinity, Inc., at the site where Zee's time machine is to arrive.

[13] Degaton returns briefly in Justice League of America and then in Booster Gold as part of a team with the Ultra-Humanite, Despero, Supernova, and Black Beetle, who have formed "The Time Stealers", a supervillain group that appears to be manipulating the timestream to their advantage.

When the Justice Society make Monument Point their new base, he appears with greater power over time and battles them, warning Jesse Quick about the fallen god D'arken.