Captain (comics)
| Captain | |
|---|---|
 Art by Stuart Immonen |
|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Nextwave #1 January 2006 |
| Created by | Warren Ellis Stuart Immonen |
| In-story information | |
| Team affiliations | Nextwave H.A.T.E. |
| Notable aliases | Captain ☠☠☠☠, Captain Power, Captain Ron, Captain L. Ron, Captain Universe, Captain Ultra, Captain Avenger, Captain Avalon, Captain Marvel, Captain Kerosene |
| Abilities | The generic powers of Superhuman strength, endurance, flight & enhanced sight, "kind of sucking" |
The Captain (formerly Captain ☠☠☠☠, with the crosses denoting censorship of an expletive) is a fictional character, a satiric Marvel Comics superhero appearing in the book Nextwave. He was created by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen and first appeared in Nextwave #1 (January 2006).
In 2006 Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada stated that Nextwave's setting was in a universe separate from the main Marvel continuity.[1] However, recent issues of Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, as well as Civil War: Battle Damage Report,[2] consistently place Nextwave's activities in mainstream continuity.
According to Warren Ellis' series proposal (within Volume 1's collection of stories), he stated that the Captain was pretty much every pointless character who utilized "Captain" in his codename.
Contents |
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Nextwave
Little is known about the Captain's past before he joined H.A.T.E., the organization which assembled Nextwave. One flashback shows that when he was a child, his mother hanged his favorite teddy bear, Special Bear; due to this, he dislikes teddy bears even in adulthood. (As with all of the flashbacks shown in the series, the accuracy of this memory is suspect, as Civil War: Battle Damage Report states that members of Nextwave may have had memories altered by the Beyond Corporation©) He claims to be "from ☠☠☠☠ Brooklyn".
The Captain gained his powers from "the Heartstar of the space between the galaxies",[3] also referred to as the "Messianic Siddhe-complex," which was bestowed upon him by a pair of small, green, altruistic extraterrestrials named Spa-Fon and Squa-Tront (both named from interjections frequently uttered by BEMs in EC sci-fi comics[citation needed]) in order to make Brooklyn a better place. As the Captain was incredibly drunk at the time, it is unknown if he remembers this event exactly, as he immediately attacked both aliens, believing them to be gold-bearing leprechauns.
By his own admission, he used to go by Captain ☠☠☠☠, a moniker so offensive that when he met Captain America, the Avenger beat him severely and left him in a dumpster with a bar of soap in his mouth. The Captain used a lot of codenames as well, all of them starting with 'Captain', and had to abandon them all because someone else was already using them. In Nextwave #7 he mentions that he had to pay a "marine-looking melon farmer" to even use his current codename.
The Captain continues to use his codename in the Nextwave group while the other members have dropped them; according to Aaron Stack, this is due to an inability to remember his real name. According to the official theme song of the comic, in tone with the satirical quality of the stories, he doesn't have a name anymore at all, with "The Captain" serving both as a moniker, and as an impromptu first name.
Similar to the rest of Nextwave, the Captain dresses in civilian clothes — sneakers, camouflage pants, a trenchcoat, and a white T-shirt with a black star which resembles the Heartstar — despite becoming a superhero "for the mask," as he stated in issue #1.
The Captain is extremely cynical, foul-mouthed, and hard-drinking. His age is as yet undetermined, but he has said his mother conceived him while listening to Roxy Music's 1982 album Avalon which would make him at most 26 years old.
A text box in one issue states that despite his name, he is not actually the captain of anything.
[edit] Initiative
The Captain and other Nextwave members appear on the solicited cover to Avengers: The Initiative. [4]
[edit] Powers and abilities
The Captain has, as of issue five, displayed superhuman strength, durability, the ability to fly unaided, and enhanced vision. He is strong enough to break one of the digits of a clone of the giant dragon Fin Fang Foom,[volume & issue needed] and survived being at the epicenter of an explosion that did considerable damage to an entire city block.[volume & issue needed] However, during his quest for a superhero name, he mentions he had been beaten up or easily intimidated by a number of individuals.[volume & issue needed] The Captain's powers apparently are not hindered by alcohol, as he once drunkenly drove a man's spine through his chest merely by patting him on the back.[volume & issue needed]
According to dialogue by the aliens, his powers are magical in origin.[volume & issue needed]
He has referred to his powers as "My generic set of super-hero abilities",[volume & issue needed] alluding to both the satiric nature of his design and his own cynical personality.
[edit] Uni-Power?
In Nextwave #10, Forbush Man makes the entire team experience life through 'Forbush Vision', showing each team member's life as if they had had a depressing, mundane, or cliched existence. The Captain's personal nightmare turned out to be an existence in which he had accepted the burden of 'Captain Universe' and thereby ruined his life. The Captain is freed from his nightmare, and it is unrevealed whether it had any element of truth in it.[5]
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ Wade Gum (2006-07-01). "Heroes Con: Joe Quesada Panel", http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/000765389.cfm
- ^ Anthony Flamini & Ronald Byrd (w), Scott Kolins (p), Scott Kolins (i). Civil War: Battle Damage Report 1 (March 2007), Marvel Comics
- ^ Nextwave #4
- ^ Avengers: The Initiative #1 Character Map
- ^ Nextwave #10
