Little is known about the criminal known as the Clock prior to his first encounter with Doctor Fate in 1942.  He is known to have been engaged in criminal activities for years prior to this running a kidnapping scheme in which he maintained a prison under an unassuming clockshop.

This scheme came to the attention of Dr. Fate in 1942 when a radio program on lost heirs spotlighted Stanley Kovacs, an aspiring musician who had disappeared two years prior and was heir to a large fortune.  When Kovacs contacted the station, they interviewed him and began to arrange to help him collection his inheritance.   Kent Nelson is in the audience and afterwards tells the estate manager that Kovacs is an imposter as he lacks the hands of someone who has played a musical instrument for hours. 

Changing to Doctor Fate, he pays a call on Kovacs apartment and confronts him.  Quickly dropping the pretense, "Kovacs" pulls a gun and begins an altercation with Fate.  The Clock, however, has been watching remotely and dispatches additional thugs through a secret tunnel into the apartment to subdue the hero.  The combined efforts of the henchmen are not match for Fate and all but one are defeated.  The last one flees back through the tunnel with Fate in his pursuit.  As the hero arrives and confronts the Clock, the criminal opens a trap door, dropping Dr. Fate into a deep well.

Realizing he needed more cover, he kidnaps Borne, the estate manager and Inza Nelson, who has been waiting with him for Fate to return.  There a Hollywood make-up artists in the Clock's employ transforms a henchmen into a ringer for Borne, intending to have his two imposters transfer the estate to the Clock.  As the criminal scheme, Fate has found a way to flood the well and rides the rising column of water to the top and freedom.  Quickly bursting in on the criminals before they start their scheme, Dr. Fate captures the Clock and releases the remaining prisoners.  The Clock is then carted off to jail (More Fun Comics #82).

Dr. Fate had not heard the last of the Clock however.  On a summer evening in 1943, Dr. Fate comes across an open door at a museum.  Suspecting a robbery, he intercepts criminals stealing a mummy and is shocked that, while he battling the crooks, the mummy also attacks him.  In the ensuing confusion, the criminal escape.