Captain Comment

A classic science fiction story, The Day of the Triffids , gets a wink in Strange Adventures 38 (Nov. 1953). In John Wyndham’s 1951 novel, a freak meteor shower blinds most people on Earth, unleashing a plant menace and leading to the enslavement of the few remaining sighted people. DC’s science fiction stories often had a vibe similar to the “cozy catastrophe” novels for which Wyndham became famous. Whether the author was John Wyndham or John Broome, inexplicable and weird events would suddenly intrude on everyday reality, presaging some literally earthshaking menaces that would finally be resolved by cool-headed, rational professionals. For example, when everyone in a sleepy English village literally falls asleep, all the women become pregnant with super-powered alien babies in Wyndham’s 1957 novel The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed twice as Village of the Damned ). And fireballs falling from space into the worlds’ oceans herald the arrival of unseen undersea alien invaders in Wynd...

The shape-shifting aliens Obla-Gan and Ik-Kandor figure that if you can’t defeat a superhero by direct confrontation, maybe you can turn him against himself. Menace from the World of Make-Believe ( Strange Adventures 30, March 1953) begins with Captain Comet in his humdrum secret identity of librarian Adam Blake, when a boy asks to be read a fairy tale about giants. Blake’s occupation as a library information clerk reflected the reverence for knowledge that would be seen throughout DC’s Julius Schwartz-edited titles, with their scientist-heroes and Space Museums. Schwartz’s Silver Age super-heroes would include a police scientist, an archeologist, a test pilot, a physics professor and a museum director — all knowledge-based professionals. Ironically, whether they realized it or not, fans were seeing the future of super-hero comics here. Captain Comet was a protagonist poised precisely between the Golden and Silver Ages, but always looking ahead. The increasingly el...

Captain Comet battles global climate change in Doomsday on Earth ( Strange Adventures 24, Sept. 1952). With the planet shaking itself apart, as volcanoes erupt in Manhattan and whirlpools swallow boats in Lake Erie, accumulated knowledge once again proves to be the key to humanity’s salvation. In the science fiction and superhero comics edited by Julius Schwartz, knowledge-based professionals invariably save the day, whether they be physicists, archeologists, pilots, forensic scientists, museum directors, lawyers, writers or — like Captain Comet — librarians. Their breadth of learning and cool level-headedness enable them to sort things out even in the face of worldwide catastrophe. Here, Adam Blake’s perfect mutant memory recalls that these events were predicted in a book in his public library. Tracing the vanished author deep into the Earth, Captain Comet tangles with a griffin, a mythological creature that has the body, tail and legs of a lion and the head, wing...

In Strange Adventures 13 (Oct. 1951), Adam Blake spends his library lunch hour rocketing off to investigate stone creatures that have mysteriously appeared in Geyser Park, Wyoming (presumably Yellowstone). Titles edited by Julius Schwartz would often spotlight natural wonders like geysers, waterspouts and the aurora borealis in their stories, providing the opportunity for readers to acquire some painless scientific knowledge through footnotes. In the course of the adventure When the Earth Was Kidnapped, our planet is dragged toward the blue sun of Alpha Centauri. Gravity goes awry, causing Midwest City citizens to float into the air. Justice League of America 5 (1961) It’s the same weird phenomenon the Justice League would encounter in the Gardner Fox story When Gravity Went Wild ( Justice League of America 5, June-July 1961). Stone giants, Earth being dragged through space, gravity upended, a city beneath the Earth, alien beings rocketed back to Alpha Centauri — DC kne...