Captain (comics)
| The Captain | |
|---|---|
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Nextwave #1 Jan 2006 |
| Created by | Warren Ellis Stuart Immonen |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Unknown |
| Team affiliations | Nextwave, H.A.T.E. |
| Notable aliases | Captain ☠☠☠☠ |
| Abilities | Superhuman strength and endurance, flight, enhanced sight |
The Captain (formerly Captain ☠☠☠☠, where ☠☠☠☠ is an unknown expletive) is a character in the Marvel comic book Nextwave. He was created by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen.
Little is known about The Captain's past before he joined H.A.T.E. However, 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 bar of soap in his mouth.
As seen in Nextwave #4, The Captain gained his powers from "The Heartstar of the space between the galaxies," which was bestowed upon him by a pair of altruistic extraterrestrials 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 gold-bearing leprechauns.
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. Whether this memory loss is caused by his powers, a specific past event, or simply overindulgence of alcohol is not yet known. According to the Nextwave original pitch, the Captain's superhero career has seen him be 'basically every crap Marvel character called Captain something'.
Similar to the rest of Nextwave, The Captain dresses in civilian clothes - specifically sneakers, camofluage 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 one.
The Captain is extremely cynical, foul-mouthed, and hard-drinking. His age is as yet undetermined, but he was drunkenly singing a Sex Pistols song when the two extraterrestrials approached him, indicating that the earliest his origin could have occurred is in the 1970s.
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 rip off one of the digits of the creature Fin Fang Foom, and has survived being at the epicenter of an explosion that did considerable damage to an entire city block. The Captain's powers are not hindered by alcohol, as he once accidentally drove a man's lungs through his chest merely by patting him on the back.
According to dialogue by the aliens, his powers are magical in origin.
He has refered to his powers as "My generic set of super hero abilities"