Captain Comment

DC’s tendency to work children’s preoccupations into its stories is on display again in The Grab-Bag Planet ( Strange Adventures 36, Sept. 1953), when giant mechanical claws start grabbing up goodies on Earth as part of a treasure hunt played by bored, amoral aliens from the planet Cnossur. The reference is obviously to those glass-fronted arcade claw machines that offer tempting gimcrack prizes. They became popular in the early 20 th century, inspired by the public’s fascination with the steam shovels that excavated the Panama and Erie canals. “A hand crank on the front allowed them to make a descent into a pile of hard candy to grab a small prize,” noted Jake Rossen. “The wheel was sensitive: A wild spin could get the crane moving, while a light, radio-dial touch could zero in on a target.” “When the Great Depression hit, they became a cheap way to risk what little money people had for the chance at a child’s trinket — maybe even a dollar wrapped around a pocket knife… By t...

Captain Comet again prefigures Magnus, Robot Fighter in The Time Capsule from 1,000,000 B.C. ( Strange Adventures 29, Feb. 1953). An archeological dig in the American West has the seemingly rare good fortune of having an artifact come right to it when a stone-age time capsule drills its way to the surface. “I am Camron, chief scientist of this land one million years ago!” says a filmed warning included in the capsule. “By a telepathic radar device, my language is being translated into your own even as I speak!” The world learns that an ancient civilization was wiped out by a radioactive cloud due to return a million years later, i.e. in 1953. Newspapers carry the story of the threat to humanity with the hope that Captain Comet can stop it. “Zackro, this super-sensitive radiation counter I put together indicates a giant radioactive cloud approaching the solar system right now!” the superhero tells his friend. “I’ve got to stop that deadly cloud — somehow!” Flying into s...

When rudely rebuffed by a library patron who is leafing through books, Adam Blake thinks, “I don’t ordinarily do this, but I’m going to use my telepathic powers to read his mind.” Blake discovers that the man is instantly memorizing every page he sees. So begins The Brain-Pirates of Planet X in Strange Adventures 23 (Aug. 1952). Tracing this mental marvel to a lonely spot in Midwest National Park, Captain Comet and Prof. Zackro find the man gathering with dozens of duplicates at a spacecraft. Secretly disabling the ship with telekinesis, Comet buys enough time to discover that, between them, these identical men have memorized all the knowledge on Earth. While the Man of Destiny tracks down the doppelgängers’ base in space, Zackro phones the Pentagon, saying, “Captain Comet wants those men held here, General — by armed force if necessary!” “If Captain Comet wants it, that’s enough for us, Professor!” the general replies. Must be nice to be Captain Co...