Captain Gravity!

The first Captain Gravity story is not as good as its sequel. (More on that in a moment.) The artwork by Keith Martin and Robert Quijano is quaint and evokes a bit of the Golden Age feel, but frankly it seems merely adequate. The faces are difficult to read and tell apart. The figures are clumsy in places. I want to be kind, but it has a bit of an amateur feel to it frankly. 

The story by Stephen Vrattos is structured in an interesting way, beginning in the middle of the action and using flashbacks for exposition. The transitions don't always work but I never got lost for long. The characterization isn't as rich as the sequel and there's little real feel for the presentation of racisim in this one. I get that our hero as a black man is supposed to feel diminished and marginalized in the culture and he rises beyond those demeaning limits; I get all that, but I rarely feel it. The damsel in distress doesn't have enough to do in this one and doesn't really get to show what she's made of. The Nazis in this one are cliches and don't elevate beyond that.

The biggest flaw is that despite the use of a flashback structure we don't get any actual Captain Gravity action until the fourth and final issue. That's too late to wait for the hero to take the field. I can't imagine how frustrating this was to read it in the original mini-series. I did like the notion that sitting in a movie theatre makes distinctions of race invisible and bonds the audience in a pure shared experience. That notion works.

The one-shot comic is a little incoherent. I guess the Nazis from the first story line survived and they arranged to have a shape-shifting superhero challenge Captain Gravity but it's all very unclear. I'll need to check it out again as I feel I missed something. The artwork is the same, with all the same weaknesses and rare strengths. At least in this one we get more Captain Gravity action. There's a back-up story with Captain Gravity teaming with a hero named Force by Jim Owens and artist Courtney Huddleston. This one is not at all like the other stuff in the book and feels out of place. This is merely an adequate package. Interesting, curious and worthwhile if only to see the origins of the hero who moves through the superior sequel. 

The Mark Schultz cover for the trade is outstanding! (See above and the top of this post.) Here are the covers for the original run. 

If that were all that was in the Captain Gravity universe, then I'd regard it as a curiosity only. But happily there is a splendid second volume. 

Captain Gravity and the Power Of The Vril from Penny-Farthing Press is a handsome trade volume. It has flap covers and exceedingly high production values seep through it. One close glimpse showed me that Sal Velluto was the artist and I always stop to check his stuff out more closely. This was the perfect marriage of talent and topic as they had Sal drawing vintage pre-WWII settings and characters.

I left this one on the stands a long time before I finally picked it up. It seemed (and it is) a very close spin on The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens, but there's more going on here still. Actually, anyone who likes Rocketeer will in all probability like this. I'd call the story by Jason Dysart, Rocketeer meets Indiana Jones meets Hellboy but with more emotion. It's not a rip-off in any way, but all of these properties deal with the Nazis and often with the occult aspects of the Third Reich. This story does a great job with these themes as well as dealing a bit with good old fashioned American racism since our hero is black, a fact he keeps well hidden from his own government for obvious reasons. There's romance and high adventure and secrets within secrets within secrets. There's a depth to the story missing from much material of this kind and the last page is simply awesome. Oh, and it has cameos by Willie Ley and Ian Fleming.

Here are the covers for the original run. 

Captain Gravity and the Power of the Vril is one of the best comic book stories I've ever read. I heartily recommend the second Captain Gravity volume to one and all. The debut is for pulp enthusiasts mostly. Both are entertaining.

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