Captain (comics)

The Captain (formerly Captain ☠☠☠☠, with the crosses denoting censorship of an expletive) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a satiric 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.

Fictional character biography

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 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.

A text box in one issue states that despite his name, he is not actually the captain of anything.

Initiative

The Captain and other Nextwave members appear on the solicited cover to Avengers: The Initiative.^[4]

Civil War II

The Captain resurfaces in Civil War II, reduced to possible homelessness and whiling away his time in New York City's dive bars. He is spurred back into action when Nova's battle with the forces of Mole Monster causes his beer to spill, an innocuous occurrence that the Captain interprets as an epiphany-inducing "metaphor for something".^[5]

Footnotes

Related links

• List of obscure Marvel characters named 'Captain ____'