July 1941: Fliers and Funnies

In the 1990s Britcom Keeping Up Appearances, Hyacinth Bucket’s dotty old dad sometimes dashes about performing imaginary feats of derring-do as “Captain Midnight.”

Even then, that was a name probably only vaguely familiar to many in the audience. But the character — an aviator cum superhero created for radio — was famous in the 1940s.

“By the end of the 1930s there were radios in 28,700,000 homes offering a daily smorgasbord of news, information and entertainment,” observed Kurt F. Mitchell in the American Comic Book Chronicles. “Like film, radio was a national medium. The Lone Ranger, Amos 'n' Andy, The Green Hornet, Baby Snooks, Fibber Magee and Molly, Ma Perkins, Captain Midnight, Henry Aldrich and other characters born on radio became cultural touchstones, their catchphrases and theme music recognized from coast to coast.”

On radio from 1938 to 1949, Captain Midnight branched out into a movie serial, a newspaper strip, a TV show, Big Little Books and more than one comic book series.

Dell’s Funnies featured the ace aviator in issues 57-64, 1941-1942.

“The comic book series, drawn primarily by Dan Gormley, followed the program's continuity faithfully: World War I flying ace Jim Albright was chosen to head the Secret Squadron, a paramilitary air force answerable only to a high-ranking government official code-named ‘Mr. Jones,’” Mitchell noted. “Alongside his teenage ward Chuck Ramsey, Midnight and the Squadron opposed the machinations of criminal mastermind Ivan Shark and his beautiful but wicked daughter Fury.”

Fawcett Comics gave the good captain a more superheroic vibe, starring him in a title that ran for 67 issues, 1942-48. There, the intrepid inventor-aviator fought crime with the aid of a gliderchute that allowed him to sail through the air, blackout bombs, a doom-beam torch and a belt transmitter that linked him to his Secret Squadron.

Then, in 2013, Dark Horse used a freak storm to propel Captain Midnight into the 21st century for the space of 24 issues. 

Captain America could commiserate with him.

October 1938: A Man Called Midnight

A mystery-man combat pilot who originally flew out of Chicago’s WGN radio in 1938, Captain Midnight’s serial adventures went national in 1940 on Mutual Broadcasting as Ovaltine’s replacement for Little Orphan Annie. 

“By the time Captain Midnight came to Mutual, the adventure serial was firmly established as an early-evening must for millions of Midwestern kids,” wrote John Dunning in Tune in Yesterday. “The show developed the themes they liked best: action, mystery, a master villain and plenty of peer identification. Like the ever-popular Jack Armstrong, Captain Midnight even had a girl along for the ride.”

Developed by Robert Burtt and Wilfred Moore, the show was purportedly inspired by Burtt’s exploits as a World War I combat pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille.

“Burtt conceived Midnight as a man of mystery whose job in the war was so important that not even his superiors knew his identity,” Dunning noted.

Returning from a dangerous solo mission at the witching hour, a young airman earned himself the nom de guerre “Captain Midnight.” 

“For 20 years, strange stories were whispered about ‘a shadowy plane and a mysterious pilot who, whenever trouble started in any part of the world, was certain to come diving furiously from the night sky.’” Dunning wrote.

Immensely popular, the good captain expanded to comic books in Dell’s The Funnies and Popular Comics, but really came into his own when Fawcett gave him his own title in 1942.

In the Fawcett version, Captain Midnight was a scientific genius who wore a red glider suit emblazoned with his clock insignia, and wielded such crime-stopping inventions as a “drill tank,” a flying aircraft carrier, a “swing spring” grappling hook and his “doom beam torch,” used to mark enemies and penetrate walls.

In both the Fawcett comic and a 1942 Columbia movie serial, Captain Midnight was a full-fledged superhero whose secret identity was Jim Albright.

A newspaper comic strip based on the radio program ran from 1942 until the late 1940s.

A 1944 sequence from the Captain Midnight newspaper strip