Captain Comment

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...

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...

This month’s adventure reaches back to “long, long ago,” when Zus, Merkry, Hurkles, and other Olympian rulers left Earth in a “sky vessel,” traveling in suspended animation and awakening one at a time, at half-century intervals, to search for true immortality. “Someday ... somewhere in the universe, the secret of immortality will be discovered!,” says Zus. By extending their lives indefinitely through hibernation, these proto-gods intend to acquire it. Encountering their ship in Strange Adventures 19 (April 1952), Captain Comet finds Merkry, in his winged helmet, testing an alien scientist’s claim of immortality by killing him with a “letho-ray.” Oh well. Back to the drawing board, as they say. In a space chase, Comet radios to demand that the murderous would-be deities surrender to face justice, but they only laugh at him. “He wants to put Zus on trial!,” the leader says. “Stand aside — while I destroy that young meddler with my own special brand of death.” Dodging Zus’...