Expert: Chris Brown - 6/23/2008

Question
1) Was Fawcett's Captain Marvel the first "Captain" character?  If not, who was?

2) Why was "captain" so popular to use as a character's title rather than some other rank?  Marvel, America, Action, etc.

Answer
Hi Dan

It depends on what you mean by "'Captain' character."  Are you limiting yourself to comic books?  Obviously there were any number of captains in literature, but there were also predecessors in the comic strips.  If including comic strips, you could go back to the Katzenjammer Kids, which started in 1897.  KK introduced the character "The Captain" in 1902, who was a pseudo-father figure and foil for the antics of the Kids.  This strip was featured in several collection books (listed in the Platinum section of Overstreet) in the 1900-1920 period.

In a strange turn of events, the original artist of the strip, Rudolph Dirks, left the strip but created a nearly identical strip for a rival newspaper in 1914--which was called The Captain and the Kids.  This strip first appeared in a traditional newsprint comic book format in 1938.

However, another comic strip reprint first appeared in a traditional newssprint comic book format a couple years earlier in 1936, giving it a good case for being the first Captain in a traditional newsprint comic book.  That would be Captain Easy, which first showed up in The Funnies in October of 1936.

For the first comic character created specifically for comic books, I believe that you are right that Captain Marvel was the first.

As to why Captain is so popular as compared to other ranks, I don't think I have enough knowledge of military ranks to give a definitive answer.  Many of the creators of the 40s and 50s served in the military, so they probably chose the name based on their knowledge.  I would surmise you would want to pick a rank that is a leader, but not of too large of a group.  That would make sense with Captain and with what seems to be a distant second most popular in comic characters, Sergeant.  Beyond that, I imagine they just went with what sounded good.  Captain America sounds better I think then Lieut. America, Sgt. America, Private America, Cpl. America, etc.  You could hardly tell Steve Rogers was a captain in his early adventures--he always seemed to be getting kitchen duty peeling spuds because he wasn't where he was supposed to be when Cap was off saving the world.  Likewise, the Captain seems pretty meaningless with Captain Marvel or Captain Midnight, much less Captain Marvel Jr.  The "Sergeant" comics in later years were much more likely to show their character in an actual war setting.

An interesting question.  Thanks for asking!