Customer Reviews

Captain Midnight Chronicles

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As the editor of the Captain Midnight Chronicles, and the author of the character "bible" that the contributing writers used in writing their stories, I would like to respond to the review written by Mr. Kallis, who was sorely disappointed that we did not provide him with the flight back to the days of the original Captain Midnight radio show - which he considers the "definitive" version of the character. The fact that our stories incorporated elements from later incarnations of the character seems deeply offensive to him, and I genuinely regret that. I understand his affection for the radio show; it was a classic.

But which radio show does he consider the "definitive" one, I wonder? The original Skelly Oil-sponsored series? Or the more well-known version of the program famously sponsored by Ovaltine? The two shows had some notable differences in the portrayal of the character and his supporting cast, after all.

The point I'm clumsily attempting to make is that for fans of any classic fictional character - especially one that has had as long and successful run as the dear Captain - the "definitive version" is usually the one a person is exposed to first. For some people, James Bond is Sean Connery, for others it's Daniel Craig. For me, it's the guy that Ian Fleming wrote about.

Whereas Mr. Kallis clearly first encountered the heroic aviator's adventures over the air, other fans first met the Captain in the comic book series published by Fawcett Comics in the early 1940's where he was portrayed as a scarlet-clad superhero who battled alien invaders like Yog from Saturn, or the 1942 Columbia movie serial starring Dave O'Brien. Many Captain Midnight fans - apparently a bit younger than our Mr. Kallis - know the character only from the early Fifties television series starring square-jawed Richard Webb, who piloted the sleek jet plane, the Silver Dart.

When we started the process of reviving this classic but long-dormant character, a great many creative and commercial choices needed to be made. If we stuck religiously to any one specific version of the character, we risked disappointing those who favored another. And as several decades had passed since the last time the Captain had taken flight in the public eye, we had to also acknowledge that a great many of today's readers had no idea whatsoever who Captain Midnight was. If we had decided to target, say, only the fans of the radio version (not a particularly large audience, these days, I'm afraid), it was unlikely that we would sell enough copies of the book to make the effort worthwhile. If bringing the character back was worth doing at all, we needed to at least try to make him appealing to as many readers as possible - young and old and in-between.

So, I tried to pick what I thought were the most interesting and unique elements of all of the character's various incarnations and created an amalgamated Captain Midnight. I listened to all the surviving radio episodes, read the comics, Big Little books and watched the serial and TV series. I consulted with several well-known Captain Midnight fans and started drinking Ovaltine. And, in the end, I put together a new version of the character that incorporated the best (I hope) elements of all his incarnations. It was suggested by several people that we simply update the character and bring him into the modern day, but being a fan of the Captain and his Secret Squadron myself, I rejected that idea outright. It may have been necessary to make some alterations to the concept to make it viable for contemporary audiences, but I didn't want us to lose the essence of the character.

I can't speak for every author who contributed to the book, but I wouldn't have spent - literally - the last five years of my life working on this volume if I didn't love and respect the character.

I'm posting this not solely to address Mr. Kallis' criticisms - he paid his money, and he's entitled to his opinion, after all - but to try and let other readers know exactly what the book contains, so that they can make their decisions about whether or not to buy the book based on what the book actually is, and not what their expectations might be. I am quite sincerely saddened that he could not enjoy our efforts, and would like to help make sure that no one else is taken by surprise by what we've done with the character.

The Captain Midnight Chronicles portrays a version of the classic aviation hero that, we hope, is recognizable to existing fans and also relevant for new, 21st Century readers who have never encountered him before. The stories are varied - some are gritty war stories, some are fantasies, some are two-fisted pulp adventures - but all of them feature a Captain Midnight of great personal strength, integrity, and idealism. He exists in a fictional universe where history is somewhat different from our own, a world where one man - and his Secret Squadron - can stand against the forces of global tyranny and injustice and keep the peace through the wise application of strength and intelligence.

I suppose one could say, "This isn't your grandfather's Captain Midnight!" - but I think he is. He dresses a little differently, his equipment, aircraft and relationships may be somewhat altered, but he's still a champion of peace and protector of freedom.

Those kinds of heroes are kinda hard to find these days... and we thought it was time to bring one back.


(Oh, and while it may be in somewhat questionable taste for an editor/author to rate his own book here, Amazon wouldn't let me post this without doing so.)

I enjoyed reading this book tremendously. The stories occur in the 1930's & '40's and are written in pulp fiction style which was popular then, but could also happen today. I've been a fan of Captain Midnight & the Secret Squadron (a paramilitary organization unrestricted by politics) on radio, TV, comics & movie serial. I enjoyed decoding messages from the radio & TV shows using the latest Captain Midnight Code-O-Graph. I like the meld of these four different genres of Captain Midnight in this book, and I hope the next issue is published ASAP.

The Captain Midnight character originated on brosdcast rsadio as an adventure serial, and by the early 1940s, had a large listenership. It was so popular that a newspaper comic strip, a movie serial, and a comic book derived from it. The radio show was the "official" version of the character. Eventually, it was made into a much-different children's television show.
The publisher, which advertises itself as "publishers of fine comics, graphic novels, and other fiction,has put out an anthology of "Captain Midnight" short stories that are based on the old comic book, with elements from the television show. Those of us who are old enough to be familiar with the old radio show (which ended in 1949) are likely to find the stories disappointing.
The stories have the pacing of a comic-book feature, with fast-paced, action-oriented plotting, and some of the stories use gadgets found only in the comic books. Some of the dialog has been made more "adult" (meaning using turns of phrase that never could have been broadcast over the radio in the 1940s), which further removes the book from the original radio shows. In one story, Captain Midnight and a companion are wing-walking, but on a monoplane;whoever thought of that doesn't understand aerodynamics any more than those who think the "Gliderchute" could work: the original radio program had pilots as scriptwriters, and the radio show's aeronacutics was scrupously accurate. Versimilitude was ignored for comic-book-like fantasy.
The stories aren't terrible, but they're a long way from the original. (A minor point is that a major character's name is spelled differently in the stories than it was in the original show, too. Admittedly, a small point, but it suggests that the authors of the stories were not that familiar with the characters' origins.

First off, I should offer a disclaimer: I've sadly never listened to the original Captain Midnight radio show, though I intend to rectify that in the future. Thus, I am probably coming at this from a different perspective (one I don't claim to be more valid) than some of the reviewers who have criticized the anthology for drawing from various different versions of the character rather than the original show. That being said, this Captain Midnight novice enjoyed the anthology in question a good deal. While the stories in some respects have different tones (Chuck Dixon's "Captain Midnight Meets Airboy" seeming, to me at least, somewhat darker than most of the other tales, for instance), I found them as entertaining as those in the other anthologies I've read from Moonstone. The illustrations were all well-done, as well, and P.C. Hamerlinck's piece at the end offered insight into just where some of the elements in the stories herein originated. If I have one real issue with the book, it is that certain technical issues appear to have resulted in a number of odd characters appearing in Win Scott Eckert's otherwise excellent story "Captain Midnight at Ultima Thule" in place of hyphens and quote marks. Still, it is a minor complaint, and these things do happen from time to time. It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of another fine effort by Moonstone Books.

I admit it.... I'm a fan boy of the worse caliber, especially of the pulp era and radio show era heroes. Which means I inevitably buy a lot of... well... crap.

I'm happy to report that the *Captain Midnight Chronicles* isn't remotely part of the manure-heaped masses. I *devoured* this book in the course of a couple of days, lamented that I couldn't get a model of a twin-engined anphibian, a toy of a Nightfire or a red scarf, and then accused my mate of working for the Shark because she wouldn't make one for me...

Um... can we forget that last little part?

(The rumors of a Glider-Chute accident later in the week were false. I was... err... checking the gutters like any 40+ year old man would be...)

There's one initial warning though. If you open the volume expecting to find one slavishly singular version of Albright and his crew as opposed to another, you might be a bit disappointed. You see, The stories use an amalgamated version of Captain Midnight and his Secret Squadron - a "sum of the parts" so to speak - and incorporate elements from all various media incarnations, including the original Moore/Burtt radio scripts, the movie and television serials from Columbia and Screen Gems (partial aired as Jet Jackson, the name changed because of a rights dispute with The Wander Company), the Dell and Fawcett comic books, and the Chicago Sun comic strip.

That's 20 years of history and stories, and a lot of incarnations, but the writers take pains to keep constancy with the help of Christopher Mills. Every time Red hits the pages (bad guys?) you'll see the things you liked about him, regardless of the source.

Now, I'm not saying the the volume is perfect. Like any publication there usually a glitch or two the slips through. As an anthology, there are different writing styles and very rarely will a reader not bump into a story that doesn't quite "jibe" with him. I also found that, for example "Black Dragon" and "At Ultima Thule," had some issues technically that could have made the stories a bit easier to read. Having not read other Moonstone volumes (although several have not been added to my Wish List :) ), I can't say if this is something in the company or this specific collection. I would encourage a little more care in the the technical editing of future "episodes."

I found that, with the exception of the editing issues, the stories were highly enjoyable and extremely faithful to the body of Captain Midnight work *as a whole.* It was a well rounded and thoughtful collection of stories, much like the original audio plays, but not limited to them. Were the physics exact... well, I'm not a pilot, retired or otherwise. But I am a long time fan of the pulp radio drama heroes and I don't see a thing wrong with the book.

MY advice to newcomers, detractors, and fans of Captain Midnight, for what it's worth (besides not trusting reviews that take a solely negative views and then pitch another product. 8D )... check it out and read with an open mind and a light heart...

... You'll be glad you did.

Oh... one last thing. How many boxtops for my Code-O-Graph again?

First off let me say I greatly enjoyed the stories in this volume, they were for the most part well written and intriguing. But there were tons of editorial flubs and mistakes, especially in At Ultima Thule. The number of extra characters and other mistakes are horrendous. Made the story a trifle hard to read, which is bad, since it was a good story.

Quoth the Raven...

As one of the authors in the collection, I was pleased to be part of the project. I cannot rank my story, but as many reviewers have noted, there is not a turkey in the bunch and each gives a reading adventure most enjoyable.

My fellow authors include Stephen Mertz, Robert T. Jeschonek, Mark Justice, Chuck Dixon, Robert Greenberger, Trina Robbins, Win Scott Eckert, Howard Hopkins and editor Christopher Mills. Vatche Mavlian proivdes some kickass illustrations.

Is this the Captain Midnight from TV, the Radio, or pages from the Fawcett comic book?

Nope.

We are Moonstone, and we wanted to update the character while preserving the essence of the man of mystery. We succeeded.

Give this great collection a readover with fresh eyes. You will love it.

I know all the Captain Midnight radio and television episodes found and issued to date, and have the novelized radio adventures as well. There are also reprints of WWII comic strips that are pretty fair stories, plus old comic books that aren't. The latter, issued by Fawcett Publications, turned Captain Midnight into a caricature who glided through the air with a silly, flying squirrel-like "gliderchute," but those comics aren't worth considering except as collectibles based on scarcity.

For months, I had looked forward to these "Captain Midnight Chronicles" with eager anticipation. But what an awful disappointment! What resulted, instead, is a phony hack collection at the comic knockoff level. This literary bomb is drastically below the writing skills, creativity and integrity of Captain Midnight's original authors, Rob Burtt and Wil Moore, who were also retired military pilots and who did enormous research in crafting their tales. "Chronicles," on the other hand, presents such inanities as an actual gremlin (from another world), an actual witch, and Atlantis in Antarctica -- not to mention changing Steele into a woman and Fury into a platinum blonde (along with erotic innuendos in relation to Midnight); plus drawing from a sorry T.V. show that even the sponsor became so embarrassed about as to require a name change for the show from "Captain Midnight" to "Jet Jackson;" and many episodes were even fully dubbed, accordingly, with dialogue and everything. A couple of the many shameful examples about the T.V. program were changing master-tech Ikky into a bumbling nerd, and even having the Captain make a 2-way radio out of a spoon!

Oh, well. For those who want the real deal, and want to enjoy why and how the genuine saga sparked millions of young and adult fans, then pick up Stephen Kallis' "Radio's Captain Midnight - The Wartime Biography" and George Garabedian's C.M. record with Sheba and Shark episodes. Or read one of the novelizations on the used circuit, such as "Joyce of the Secret Squadron." Then hope for Kallis' rumored postwar biography, which would doubtless recap how Burtt and Moore kept doing it, and rekindle an authentic direction for future, quality Captain Midnight stories regardless of time frames and technologies.

The stories in this great collection take Captain Midnight in a facinating new direction. This is Captain Midnight not as old fashioned pulp, but as revitalized pulp for a new generation of readers.

Win Scott Eckert's story along with that of editor Christopher Mills are standout efforts, but there isn't a dud in the bunch.

More please!