This mini-series was a post-Crisis on Infinite Earths updating of the Silver Age comic Rip Hunter…Time Master. Co-written by science-fiction novelist Lewis Shiner, it features Rip and his team battling the Illuminati, a centuries-old, ultimate secret society behind any number of conspiracy theories, to prevent an upcoming nuclear war. It includes cameos by other DC universe heroes, including Superman, and the leader of the Illuminati is a long-time DC villain.
While intended to define time travel and its limitations in the post-Crisis universe, many of those aspects were quickly ignored, such as the one-time-trip method of time travel per person. The post-Crisis Rip Hunter had previously appeared in Booster Gold, and there was suspicion that the Linear Man (from Superman and Zero Hour) named Hunter was in fact an older Rip Hunter.
