Captain Future

Captain Future
Publisher	Thrilling Publications
First appearance	Captain Future (Winter 1940)
Created by	Mort Weisinger
In story information
Real name	Curtis Newton
Supporting characters	Simon Wright Grag Otho
Captain Future
Publisher	Thrilling Publications
Schedule	Quarterly
Genre	Science fiction
Publication date	Winter 1940 – Spring 1944
Number of issues	17
Creative team
Writer(s)	Edmond Hamilton, Joseph Samachson, Manly Wade Wellman
Editor(s)	Mort Weisinger (1940-1941) Oscar J. Friend (1941-1944)
Television
Captain Future (キャプテン・フューチャー, Kyaputen Fyūchā)	Toei Animation 1978 Portrayed by: Taichirou Hirokawa

Captain Future is a science fictional hero pulp character originally published in self-titled American pulp magazines during the 1940s and early 50s.

Origins

Although sometimes mistakenly attributed to science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton, who indeed authored most of Captain Future stories, the character was created by Better Publications editor Mort Weisinger during the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention.

The original character was published by Ned Pines' Thrilling/Standard/Better publications company. A different Captain Future was published in Pine's Nedor Comics line.

Published stories

The stories were published in the pulp magazines from 1940 to 1951, featuring bright-colored cover illustrations by Earle K. Bergey and two other fellow pulp artists. The adventures mostly appeared in Captain Future's own magazine but later stories appeared in Startling Stories. Captain Future is Curtis Newton, a brilliant scientist and adventurer who roams the solar system solving problems, righting wrongs, and vanquishing futuristic supervillains.

The series contains a number of assumptions about the solar system which are naive by modern standards but which still seemed plausible, at least to the general public, in the time the stories were written. All of the planets of the solar system, and many of the moons and asteroids, are suitable for life, and most are already occupied by humanoid extraterrestrial races. The initial adventures take place in the planets of the solar system but later stories take the hero to other stars, other dimensions and even the distant past and future. For example, they visit the star Deneb, which is the origin of Earth humans, as well as many other humanoid races across the Solar System and beyond.

In the later stories Hamilton is able to inject some pathos into his characters. This may have been due to the influence of Hamilton's wife, Leigh Brackett.^{[citation needed]} Brackett was also a science fiction writer, and many critics credit her with improving the quality of Hamilton's writing after their marriage.^{[citation needed]}

Plot

The series was originally set in 1990; as the series progressed, Hamilton quickly stopped using exact dates (except as "in the past" as in the voyages of the astronauts who first landed on most of the other planets of the Solar System), sticking with a series continuity. In later stories, if the date was asked or revealed, it was done so discreetly. The 1990 date then becomes unused, there only in the first couple of stories.

The series begins when scientist Roger Newton, his wife Elaine, and his brilliant fellow scientist Simon Wright leave planet Earth to do research in an isolated laboratory on the moon. Simon's body is old and diseased and Roger enables him to continue doing research by transplanting his healthy brain into an artificial floating case. Working together, the two scientists manage to create an intelligent robot called Grag, and an android with shape-shifting abilities called Otho. Unfortunately, the criminal scientist Victor Kaslan arrives on the moon and murders the Newtons.

The deaths of the Newtons leave their son, Curtis, to be raised by the unlikely trio of Otho, Grag, and Simon Wright. Under their tutelage, Curtis grows up to be a brilliant scientist and as strong and fast as any champion athlete. He also grows up with a strong sense of responsibility and hopes to use his scientific skills to help people. In the first adventure, he offers his services to the President of the System. The publicity-shy Curtis suggests he work under the alias Captain Future. Simon, Otho and Grag are referred to as the Futuremen in subsequent stories.

Other recurring characters in the series are the old space marshall Ezra Gurney, the beautiful Planet Patrol agent Joan Randal (who provides a love-interest for Curtis) and James Carthew, President of the Solar System whose office is in New York City. A young boy called Ken Scott was exclusive to the anime.

Captain Future faces many enemies in his career but his archenemy is Ull Quorn, who is the only recurring villain in the series and appears in four different stories. He is part Martian - therefore called the Magician of Mars - but also the son of Victor Kaslan, who murdered the Newtons. Quorn is a scientist whose abilities rival those of Captain Future.

Captain Future has been compared to the earlier pulp hero Doc Savage. Like Doc, he is described as a physical and mental marvel. Captain Future's reliance on scientific gadgets is also similar to the Doc Savage stories, as are his adventurous companions. Grag and Otho have a quarrelsome relationship similar to that of the characters Monk and Ham in the Doc Savage stories. Like their counterparts, Grag and Otho each adopt a small pet. The pets are often brought along on adventures and provide some comic relief in the stories. Grag's pet is Eek, a moon-pup which eats metallic ores. Otho's pet is Ook, a shape-shifting meteor mimic.

Captain Future shares some features with the simultaneously launched Batman, such as both living in the shadow of the traumatic experience, early in life, of their parents being murdered. Also the means used by the President to call for Captain Future's help is similar to that used by Gotham City's police chief to call Batman.

Stories

Captain Future Magazine

• 01 Captain Future and the Space Emperor Edmond Hamilton (Winter/40) [reprinted with the same title]
• 02 Calling Captain Future Edmond Hamilton (Spring/40) [reprinted with the same title]
• 03 Captain Future's Challenge Edmond Hamilton (Summer/40) [reprinted with the same title]
• 04 The Triumph of Captain Future Edmond Hamilton (Fall/40) [reprinted as Galaxy Mission]
• 05 Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones Edmond Hamilton (Winter/41)
• 06 Star Trail to Glory Edmond Hamilton (Spring/41)
• 07 The Magician of Mars Edmond Hamilton (Summer/41) [reprinted with the same title]
• 08 The Lost World of Time Edmond Hamilton (Fall/41)
• 09 Quest Beyond the Stars Edmond Hamilton (Winter/42) [reprinted with the same title]
• 10 Outlaws of the Moon Edmond Hamilton (Spring/42) [reprinted with the same title]
• 11 The Comet Kings Edmond Hamilton (Summer/42) [reprinted with the same title]
• 12 Planets in Peril Edmond Hamilton (Fall/42) [reprinted with the same title]
• 13 The Face of the Deep Edmond Hamilton (Winter/43)
• 14 Worlds to Come Joseph Samachson as William Morrison (Spring/43)
• 15 Star of Dread Edmond Hamilton (Summer/43)
• 16 Magic Moon Edmond Hamilton (Winter/44)
• 17 Days of Creation Joseph Samachson as William Morrison (Spring/44) [reprinted as The Tenth Planet]

Startling Stories

• 18 Red Sun of Danger Edmond Hamilton (Spring/45) [reprinted as Danger Planet]
• 19 Outlaw World Edmond Hamilton (Winter/46) [reprinted with the same title]
• 20 The Solar Invasion Manly Wade Wellman (Fall/46) [reprinted with the same title]
• SS01 The Return of Captain Future Edmond Hamilton (January/50)
• SS02 Children of the Sun Edmond Hamilton (May/50)
• SS03 The Harpers of Titan Edmond Hamilton (September/50) [reprinted as part of Doctor Cyclops]
• SS04 Pardon My Iron Nerves Edmond Hamilton (November/50)
• SS05 Moon of the Unforgotten Edmond Hamilton (January/51)
• SS06 Earthmen No More Edmond Hamilton (March/51)
• SS07 Birthplace of Creation Edmond Hamilton (May/51)

Notes: Numbers #14-17 were credited to house name "Brett Sterling"; Numbers SS01-07 were short stories taking place a few years later in 'continuity'. Several issues were reprinted in paperback in the 60s, as noted above (one had a Frank Frazetta cover, several had Jeff Jones art, and several reprinted covers from the German SF series Perry Rhodan [including the Doctor Cyclops reprint book]). With pulps, Winter was the first season/quarter of the year (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall).

Adaptations and other derivative works

Anime

Captain Future
キャプテン・フューチャー (Kyaputen Fyūchā)
Genre	Adventure, science fiction
TV anime
Directed by	Tomoharu Katsumata
Written by	Masaki Tsuji, Takeo Kaneko, Fumio Kannami
Studio	Toei Animation
Licensed by	ZIV International Harmony Gold
Network	NHK
Original run	1978-11-07 – 1979-12-18
Episodes	53

In 1978, one year after Hamilton's death, Toei Animation of Japan produced a Captain Future (キャプテン・フューチャー, Kyaputen Fyūchā) TV anime series of 53 episodes, based on 13 original Hamilton stories. Despite the strong cultural differences and the large gap between a literary work and animation, the series was close to the original in many ways, from the didactic scientific explanations to the emphasis on the usefulness of brains as opposed to brawn.

The series was translated in several languages and distributed globally. The four episodes comprising the series' second story arc were dubbed into English and released on video by ZIV International in the early 1980s as The Adventures of Captain Future. In the late 80s, Harmony Gold dubbed the series' initial four-part story as an edited "TV movie" simply entitled Captain Future.

While only eight episodes in total were dubbed into English, the series met huge success particularly in France, where the title and lead character's name were changed to "Capitaine Flam", in Italy with the translated title of "Capitan Futuro", in Latin America and Spain with the title "Capitán Futuro". The success in France and Italy was especially due to anthemic theme tunes (in the dubbed language) which became popular hits in the late 1970s and early 1980s on the French and Italian charts. The Arabic language version has the title of ( فارس الفضاء Faris al-Fadha'a) ("The Knight of Space") and it is considered one of the most popular anime series after being broadcast many times during the 1980s.

The series was also broadcast in Germany, where it appeared under its original title. However, this version was cut by about a quarter of the original length, which mainly affected violent scenes or those considered 'expendable' for the storylines. The reason for this was the misconception in its time that any Japanese anime was automatically meant for children, not for an older audience; the synchronisation studios simply disregarded the fact that in Japan the series was broadcast in the evening hours, hardly a suitable time for children to watch television. Another well-known title released in Germany at about the same time, Heidi, Girl of the Alps, serves as one of many example cases for this misinterpretation.

The original incidental music was composed by Yuji Ohno, while the English-dubbed version had a new soundtrack composed by Mark Mercury. Mercury's work survived on the Latin American version, but a new opening was added for it, composed by Shuki Levy and sung by Chilean performer Juan Guillermo Aguirre (aka "Capitán Memo").

For the German version, a completely new soundtrack was created by German composer Christian Bruhn. To this day, the soundtrack is considered cult and not only the theme song is still used as background music in many magazines and other shows. A soundtrack CD was released in 1995, and a remix called "The Final" by Phil Fuldner entered the top ten of the German and Swiss single charts in 1998. The German publisher Bastei Verlag released a Captain Future comic series with original adventures.

"The Death of Captain Future"

Allen Steele's more psychologically and socially complex novella "The Death of Captain Future" won the 1996 Hugo Award for Best Novella. It takes place not in the original space opera setting of the series but in a more realistic setting in which the Captain (or a man calling himself that) stands out as an anachronism. To emphasize again: this is not an actual Captain Future story, but one that borrowed the name to accomplish its own ends.

Feature film

In March 2010 it was announced that German Director Christian Alvart (Pandorum, Case 39) secured the film rights for Captain Future and is working on a live-action Adaptation in 3D.

Other appearances

The Japanese TV series Captain Ultra, a placeholder series between two actual Ultraman series, was more or less a live-action adaptation of the Captain Future series (which has remained popular in Japan as well). The characters were all present, even if the names were changed. To date, Captain Ultra has not been dubbed into English or released in any English-speaking country.

In the TV seriesThe Big Bang Theory, a Captain Future magazine cover is featured as a wall poster beside the entrance door in Leonard's and Sheldon's apartment.

See also

• List of defunct American periodicals

References

Multiple references are made to the Captain future anime in the Asobi ni Iku yo! anime Episode 9

External links

• The Site of Captain Future
• Captain Future Fans Forum
• Haffner Press, publisher of The Collected Captain Future hardcover books
• Edmond Hamilton on Captain Future
• Robert Weinberg's Captain Future page
• Galactic Central Magazine Datafile for Captain Future
• Captain Future Home Page
• Captain Future (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia
• Official Website of the Japanese Captain Future animated series (Japanese)