Chases through Time

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Comic Book

Journey into Mystery #18

The Man Who Went Back!

When Jeff Martin floats downstream, he literally floats back in time. Now, if only those two pesky men would quit following him, —Michael Main
It looks like there was something about that swim in the river that threw me back ten years!
No image currently available.
  • Weird Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Return of the Moon Man

During a surprise trip to the moon by Grandpa, Grandma is mad about being left behind and leaves town with another man with a time machine. Grandpa returns, finds another time machine, and strands Grandma in time and space. —Dave Hook
We got the meal ready, and then someone said, “Where is Grandfather?”
A low-resolution newspaper scan with a headline The Return of the Moon Man.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Strange Tales #111

Face-to-Face with the Magic of Baron Mordo!

Steve Ditko’s second-ever story of the master of the mystic arts includes one panel that, based on Stan Lee’s caption, involves time travel. Even though it was just one panel, it got me wondering whether the phrase race through time could possibly have a meaning. What would it mean for one time traveler to arrive at the final destination before another? Isn't the whole set up kind of like Doc Strange saying to Baron Mordo, “I’ll bet I can think of a number bigger than you can.” —Michael Main
Unseen by human eyes, the two mighty spirit images race thru time and space . . .
Doctor Strange and Baron Mordo sit entranced beside the Ancient One, while above them, their spirit images battle.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Fantasy
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Cameo Time Travel
Feature Film

Time after Time

  • written and directed by Nicholas Meyer
  • (Toronto International Film Festival, 7 September 1979)
Apart from the hero in The Time Machine movie (1960), this is the earliest that I’ve seen of the H.G.‑Wells-as-time-traveler subgenre. Our hero chases Jack the Ripper into the 20th century. —Michael Main
Ninety years ago I was a freak; today I am an amateur.
Strobe images of a man in front of a giant stopwatch.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Trancers I

Trancers

In the first of six (really!) Trancer movies (plus a “lost” short), heroic trancer-hunter (and newly anointed time cop) Jack Deth follows evil trancer-maker Martin Whistler from 2247 to 1985 via drug-induced time-travel that can take you back only to the body of an ancestor. —Michael Main
Greetings to the council. As you may have gathered, I have survived the pathetic trap set by Trooper Deth on Mecon 7. For twelve long years, you have hunted my disciples like dogs. Now, my day of vengeance is at hand. I’ve synthesized a time drug, and in a moment shall retreat down the dark corridors of history. Know that it is I who is solely responsible for your demise. One by one, your ancestors shall be murdered, and you, their progeny, shall cease to exist. Then shall I return, join my legion, and claim the seat of power for my own. Adieu . . . adieu . . . 
Gun-toting Tim Tomerson (as Jack Deth) emerges from a door into a foggy night sky littered with parking lot posts.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Timestalkers

After the death of his wife and child, Dr. Scott McKenzie stumbles upon a tintype photograph from the Old West showing three corpses, a shooter, and a modern Magnum 357, leading him to develop a theory of time travel that is confirmed when a beautiful woman from the future appears and takes him back to the Old West to chase the shooter, save President Cleveland, and pursue other obvious plot developments.

Spoiler: At the end, I believe that Georgia uses her time crystal to send Scott back for a do-over on the day of his family’s death. This is disappointing since up until that point, the film has set up a perfect example of a single, nonbranching timeline. —Michael Main
What if Cole came back to set off a chain of events that would eventually destroy the one man who stood in his way?
Gun-toting Lauren Hutton (as Georgia Crawford) and William Devane (as Scott McKenzie) look on as lightning comes out of Klaus Kinski (as Dr. Joseph Cole).
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Time Barbarians

In an ancient world of swords, sorcery, loin cloths, and bejeweled bikinis, an evil thief kills King Deran’s queen before escaping to modern-day Los Angeles. Since the thief also took a magic amulet with him, a loinclothless wizardess sends Deran after him to retrieve the amulet and avenge the queen’s brutal death. —Michael Main
The man you seek is in this world no longer. You must travel to another time to find him.
Scantily dressed barbarians Deron McBee (as Doran) and Jonne Ayers (as Lystra) stand in front of a forest with a modern city showing in the background.
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

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The Reluctant Assassin

When fourteen-year-old Victorian waif Riley shows up in the 21st century on seventeen-year-old FBI Agent Chevie Savano’s watch, the two of them pair up and head back to the late 19th century to escape Riley’s evil pursuer.

Although the book involves wormholes and scientists, it’s really a quantum fantasy, wherein an ordinary fantasy has the word “quantum” scattered throughout in key places, typically before the word magic, magician, or wormhole. Nevertheless, we’ve listed it as science fiction to match its publicity material. —Michael Main
He discovered that Einstein’s quantum theory was essentially correct and that he could stabilize a traversable wormhole through space-time using exotic matter with negative energy density.
A young teen boy wearing a green jacket and a red pendant flies straight at us in a retro time machine.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

Invictus

After Farway Gaius McCarthy fails his final examination at the Central Time Travelers Academy, he puts together a rogue time travel crew to swipe valuable artifacts from the past at moments when they won’t be missed. And it’s all roses until a mysterious girl sidetracks them on the Titanic and steers them into a multiverse of fading timelines.

As you might guess, we enjoyed Far and his friends, but the thing that sealed an Eloi Bronze Medal was the fact that when a particular timeline actually managed to branch (not an easy feat) and the traveler then jumped to the future, she found her another self—the her that was born on that timeline—waiting for her. Most branching timeline stories ignore this issue entirely. —Michael Main
“There’s nothing to return to.” Eliot’s knuckles bulged at the seams, but she didn’t yell. “When the Fade destroys a moment, it’s lost. Forever.”
An abstract design of thin purple lines and dots over out-of-focus grey objects.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: Young Adults
  • Definite Time Travel
Novel

The Ottoman Secret

Secret police agent Kamal teams with his sister-in-law Nisreen, fleeing through time from pursuing gunmen who killed Nisreen’s family because toprotect the secret that their world was created by a violent temporal disruptor who altered history in favor of an autocratic Islam theocracy. —Michael Main
Nisreen: I want to know how it is different and why he wanted to change it. Don’t you see? That’s how the world was supposed to be.

Ramazan: Assuming no one else had gone back and changed things before he did.
A man and a woman flee under a red Turkish flag that hangs from the Eiffel tower.
  • Science Fiction
  • Fantasy
  • War
  • Definite Time Travel
Flash Fiction

Best. Scientist. EVER.

You head out on a quick, rollicking ride back through time, with an unknown pursuer and an ambiguous conclusion. —Tandy Ringoringo
You come to the conclusion that you can correct everything if you stop yourself before you steal the time machine.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for Daily Science Fiction.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Lost between the Plates

A woman seems to be chasing someone via random jumps through time. —Michael Main
I’ve been chasing him for years and forever. Spinning through time and space without a sail.
Stylized outline of a rocket launching in a green circular seal for Daily Science Fiction.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Loki, Season 1

Hang on to your Tesseracts! Apparently, in Endgame, when the Avengers traveled back in time to swipe various things from the 2012 Avengers, they inadvertantly started a branch in time where Loki ended up with the Tesseract. Of course, once that occurred, the Time Variance Authority spotted him as a Variant and quickly recruited him to help in their fight against even more variant Variants. —Michael Main
Appears to be a standard sequence violation. Branches growing at a stable rate and slope. Variant identified.
Tom Hiddleston (as Loki) stands with his arms crossed and an annoyed look on his face, in front of a large analog clock with multiple hands.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Superhero
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

The Adam Project

In 2050, time jet pilot Adam Reed steals a jet and heads back to 2018 to save his stranded wife, but he gets waylaid in 2022 where his 12-year-old self is the only hope to save the mission. —Michael Main
Young Adam: I mean if this is happening to me, that means that it already happened to you—right?—unless it works more like a multiverse where each ripple creates an alternate timeline—
Middle-Age Adam: It isn’t a multiverse! My god, we watch too many movies.
Ryan Reynolds and Walker Scobell (as the two Adams) pose in superimposed pictures along with three other cast members of The Adam Project and a timejet.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel