Captain America Nearly Killed Another Marvel Hero Just Because Of His Name
Marvel has some silly superheroes, but none quite as absurd as The Captain. Possessing what he admits is a “generic set of special superhero abilities,” The Captain would be completely forgettable if it weren’t for his ridiculous antics and inability to come up with a good superhero name. His first try was apparently so offensive that Captain America almost killed him over it.
The Captain In Nextwave
Noted weirdo Warren Ellis created the Captain for his satirical early ’00s comic book Nextwave. Along with Ellis’s new creation, Nextwave featured several already-established Marvel heroes, including Monica Rambeau, Elsa Bloodstone, and former X-Force member Tabitha Smith, AKA Boom Boom.
One look at the book and most readers would assume it takes place on an alternate Earth, but shockingly, Nextwave and, by extension, The Captain, are denizens of Earth 616, making them canon.
Crazy Origin Story
As recounted in Nextwave issue #4, The Captain was created when two benevolent aliens approached a black-out drunk somewhere in Brooklyn and gave him a powerful cosmic artifact.
The drunk immediately gained superhuman abilities from the artifact—abilities he then used to beat the two innocent aliens to death.
This satirical take on Green Lantern’s origin took a dark turn because the inebriated Captain “thought when you hit leprechauns on the head they turned into gold coins.”
Captain XXXX
The man who would eventually go by simply “The Captain” sobered up and decided to become a superhero.
He chose a vulgar name using the logic that a superhero from Brooklyn couldn’t call himself “Mr. Friendly.”
The offending moniker was written as Captain XXXX (in the comic, the X’s are skull and crossbones) and was supposedly so bad that it drove Captain America into a nearly homicidal rage.
Fight With Captain America
According to The Captain, when he ran into Steve Rogers, the Avenger asked him his name.
When the new hero said the words “Captain XXXX,” Rogers got so mad that, as The Captain tells it, “He beat seven shades of it out of me. He left me in a dumpster with a bar of soap shoved in my mouth.”
It’s hard to imagine a word so offensive that it would send Captain America into a blind rage, but apparently, such a word exists in the Marvel Universe.
Other Names Taken
Upon receiving the beating of a lifetime from everyone’s favorite Avenger, The Captain tried out several other hilarious codenames. Captain Video and Captain Ron both resulted in lawsuits, while Captain L. Ron resulted in another beating, this time from Tom Cruise.
After finding out that Captain Marvel and even Captain Kerosene were taken, he eventually settled on The Captain.
It turns out that name was already being used by “some Marine-looking melon-farmer,” resulting in The Captain having to shell out cold hard cash just for the right to use the most generic name ever adopted by a superhero.
Nextwave Mostly Forgotten
Nextwave, in general, is a criminally forgotten book, and anyone reading this should absolutely check it out. Just don’t expect anything positive from The Captain. His whole life is one big streak of bad luck played for laughs. Just like the time Captain America left him in a dumpster for having a curse word in his name.
Dude could have just said, “Language!” and left it at that.
