"The Hero Who Could Be You!" is the tagline used to describe Captain Universe. And that's a hero that sounds ideal for the art of Steve Ditko.
Captain Universe was created by Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden in the pages of The Micronauts, specifically issue number eight. In that issue an astronaut is overcome by a force which turns him into a distinctive looking superhero who can do just about anything.
Steve Ditko had played in the Micronauts universe, drawing the first King-Size Annual for the surprisingly successful series from Marvel. And so, when Marvel wanted to spin-off the character Captain Universe into a series, Ditko was an ideal choice.
Marvel had recently revived the series Marvel Spotlight, and it was an ideal place to try-out a set of stories as offbeat as those involving Captain Universe. The reason is that Captain Universe was not just one hero, but a succession of people given vast power to accomplish good in moments of dire need. In the first story in issue nine we meet the son of the astronaut who first got the power in the pages of Micronauts. When his father is stricken along with everyone else as the Cape Canaveral space center, it's up to young Ray Coffin to save everyone on the planet from the schemes of a Shadowy menace who overtakes people and turns them into zombies of a kind. When that creature threatens to darken the sun, it's a space race to save the day.
Things get somewhat less apocalyptic in the second story when two sisters become Captain Universe simultaneously. Clare is a detective who has testified against a deadly gangster and the other named Ann is her twin sister, who is married to the district attorney and the mother of two children. When the gangster and his cronies seek to intimidate them, they find the two women more than able to defend themselves and seek ultimate justice.
The third story in the trio from Marvel Spotlight takes a different turn and a burglar named Monte Walsh is given the Captain Universe power when he's discovered pilfering the digs of a deadly gambling boss and shot. The power allows him to save himself and seek some measure of justice against his attempted killers. But the power becomes less reliable when the burglar seeks to use it for his own criminal ends. This story has several allusions to an earlier Spidey story fashioned during Ditko's heyday.
Other artists take the reins of Captain Universe stories for a time, but Ditko returns to the character in the back pages of Web of Spider-Man Annual. The first appeared in the fifth annual and tells of the time a professor named Evan Swan is given the power to confront the weird menace of the Quantum Mechanic who seeks to do nothing than eliminate the reality in which the Marvel Universe exists. He succeeds thankfully.
Konga and Gorgo make a cameo of sorts in 1990 in Marvel's Web of Spider-Man Annual #6. That appearance is Steve Ditko's final take on these two monsters in a story by fan of those 60's comics Tony Isabella. Renaming the two monsters "Kongo" and "Gorga", Isabella has the two Charlton giants appear as a product of the nigh unlimited power of Captain Universe.
There are many more stories other than those done by Ditko featuring the character. The most elaborate is by Bill Mantlo and Rick Leonardi starring the Hulk and brings the world to the brink of nuclear devastation. In the pages of Marvel Fanfare, a young boy gets the power to protect himself and others from bullies at school. In later stories an old man in the ghetto gets the power and later still a schizophrenic on the edge of suicide finds himself empowered. These are fascinating spins on a concept which is open to wide interpretation. But to my mind no one did this kind of story better than Ditko.
All these stories are found in Captain Universe - Power Unimaginable, a slim collection but a solid one.
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