Very few pulp magazines were written to be taken seriously, but some are a lot less serious than others. For instance, CAPTAIN FUTURE, the Summer 1942 issue of which has recently been reprinted by Adventure House. Every month, the publisher puts out three pulp replicas at $15 each. Pulp lovers, you can’t beat this deal with a stick.
Captain Future, originally as Mr. Future, was the brainchild of Mort Weisinger, an editor with Standard Magazines, publishers of THRILLING WONDER STORIES, among other science fiction titles. Sometime in 1939, he ran the idea for this new character past one of the top writers of space opera, the old Galaxy Smasher himself, Edmond Hamilton.
Hamilton liked the basic concept: an adventurer who prowled the spaceways in search of worlds to save and supervillains to defeat. He changed “Mr.” to “Captain” — a more impressive title for the kids who were the character’s intended audience — and issue 1 hit the stands in 1940.
Taking a cue from Doc Savage, Captain Future didn’t work alone. He was born as Curtis Newton, on the moon, and raised by three oddball father figures: Grag, a 7-foot-tall robot; Otho, a green-skinned android who seems to be made up of some kind of chemical soup; and Simon Wright, aka The Brain. I wonder how many brilliant scientists in the pulps were called “The Brain”? I dunno, but I bet Simon was the only one who was just that, and that alone: a brain, in a square box, who saw things through eyes stuck on the ends of tentacles. Hamilton having a little fun? Oh, yeah.
Each issue of Captain Future contained a complete novel by Hamilton. The tale in this reprint is THE COMET KINGS, about a race of creatures from the fourth dimension who are trying to extract all the energy from our dimension and suck it into theirs. They are the Allus, the Dark Masters who found a member of the Cometae, the race that lives in Halley’s Comet, who would invite them into this dimension in exchange for eternal life.
Now they are using a super-powerful magnet to attract spacecraft to the comet, where they kidnap the crews and force them to become Cometae so that — hey, you know what? I don’t remember why. I do remember that they’re up to no good.
Hamilton uses the narrative structure that had worked so well for Edgar Rice Burroughs for almost 30 years: He splits his heroes into two groups and then uses alternating chapters to tell their stories, reuniting the groups for the smash-up finale. The story moves along at a clippity-bang pace. Action isn’t the main thing; it’s the only thing. Much of the science seems imaginary and all of it is outdated but, come on, you read Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke for the science, not Hamilton. I love books that make me feel like a 12-year-old on a rainy Sunday afternoon with nothing to do but read a walloping good adventure yarn, and this one pulls the plow.
The reprint also contains a pair of short stories. “The Hole in the Sky” by Manly Wade Wellman is about tracking down and capturing a gang of space pirates, and the other is by William Morrison and called “The Lion-Hearted,” which is about — well, here’s the blurb supplied by the magazine: “Hollywood ’s Most Pompous Producer Comes to Grips with Hormones.” Go on, tell me you don’t want to read it. I’ll believe you.
In the story, a mousy scientist named Dr. Brackett calls on Turner, the producer with the God complex, to ask for money to conduct further experiments with hormones. When Turner has him tossed out, Brackett slips varying combinations of hormones into food in the studio commissary, resulting in changes in the faces of everyone associated with Turner’s new movie. The guy playing the villain acquires the face of a sheep. The leading man looks like a wolf. Turner himself gets the mug of a lion.
Now, if any of this were serious, it would be just silly, but Morrison tells the tale from Turner’s POV and slips in some subtle jokes in the wording that many of the young readers probably didn’t get. Like this, as Turner attempts to bribe Brackett:
“’A half million, no less,’ (Turner says). ‘And that isn’t a publicity agent’s story, either.’ Then I put my famous charm to work. ‘Now, Dr. Brackett, I have always liked you,’ I said with dithering cordiality.
“’You don’t say!’ he sneered politely.”
“He sneered politely.” Ring Lardner couldn’t say it any better.
The magazine also contains a section of a serialized novel by the great Jack Williamson, but I make it a practice never to read just part of one of these stories. There is also a brief history of how the surface of the Earth changed in the mid-21st century, and a short anecdote from the teen years of Curt Newton and the Futuremen.
All in all, it’s a terrific bundle of pulp joy. Buy it. Read it. Save it. Read it again. —Doug Bentin
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Of course, Hamilton was married to Leigh Brackett!