Originally a thirties radio serial, Captain Midnight entered the world of comic books in nineteen forty-one. An inventor and genius, Captain Midnight’s alter ego, Jim Albright, was forbidden to join World War II. Not willing to sit idly by, Albright created Captain Midnight, an aviator, and hero, who would appear just in the nick of time to stop the Nazis. Dark Horse Comics is reintroducing the character to the modern world, with a sci-fi twist.
Captain Midnight’s sci-fi element comes with a time portal. Apparently, in 1944, Midnight vanished without a trace. Jump to the modern day, where Midnight rockets out of a time portal piloting a WWII Bomber plane. Arrested and detained by the US Government, Captain Midnight properly escapes. This all happens before Captain Midnight #1, but I wanted to catch everybody up.
[Editor’s note: it happened in Captain Midnight #0, to be exact.]
Opening in 1944, Captain Midnight #1 introduces us to some of the players. Outside of Midnight, there’s Herr Shark, a Nazi psychopath who may have made his daughter, Fury Shark, immortal. Fighting alongside Captain Midnight is Joyce, a fellow patriot and spy. After Herr Shark falls, the story jumps to the modern era, right after Captain Midnight’s mysterious reappearance. The Government wants Midnight back in custody but Joyce, now an older woman, wants to help him. She enlists the aid of her granddaughter Charlotte, in tracking down Midnight. Charlotte manages to climb to the abandon Secret Squadron headquarters, the one place Captain Midnight would remember in the modern world.
Her ex-husband and a team of black ops soldiers who are also looking for Midnight are waiting for Charlotte at the hideout. Meanwhile, Fury Shark is immortal, and currently the head of the largest weapons company in the world. Her plan? Total domination by sneaking into lucrative Government contracts. As Fury plots her sinister plan, things go horribly wrong at the Secret Squadron hangout. Apparently, the entire black ops team are really in league with Fury Shark. All seems lost for Charlotte, her husband and their commander, until the triumphant Captain Midnight returns to save the day, just in the nick of time.
Writer Joshua Williamson wastes little time with the nostalgic part of this series. He’s not looking to create a comic book that echoes the Golden Age. This series is violent, bloody, and written with a modern flair. Even Midnight’s dialogue isn’t pigeonholed into a golden era vibe. Overall, the story here is interesting, but Williamson could have made it more exciting. This is an inaugural issue of an unfamiliar character, throwing large amounts of exposition seems counterproductive to me. Hopefully, the action and intrigue ramp up as the series continues.
Fernando Dagnino’s art is really bland. Panel after Panel, he fails to really bring the action to life. This isn’t bad art, it just fails to tap into the noir aspect of Captain Midnight. Dagnino should be using more shading and darker tones to get across the spy nature of the series. Instead, he just pencils the story, content in just representing the written word in his art. A story like this needs either highly stylized art a la John Romita Jr., or it need a darker world a la Butch Guice. Standard, run-of-the-mill pencils don’t cut it, especially in a first issue.
Captain Midnight #1 isn’t bad, but the creative team needs to step it up and give the veteran hero the respect he deserves.
(2.5 Story, 2.5 Art)
