Tuesday, November 22, 2011

The World's First Permanent Space Station....in DC's Earth-One continuity

The world's first permanent space station, a toroidal-shaped affair like that scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is commanded by Captain James Carone. He has a crew of three under him. It is referred to in one scene as Space-Lab during its appearance in issue number six of the DC Comics series "The Secret Society of Super-Villains", titled "Captains Cataclysmic", and it is a NASA spacecraft (or, at least the astronauts are from NASA. The series was published in 1976 and 1977. During the issue, the station was attacked by three villains, Captain Boomerang, Captain Stingaree, and Captain Cold, using Boomerang's Boomerang spaceship. The three villains are planning on capturing not only black-haired Captain Carone, but a captain of a cruise liner and a captain of a football team...vanity crimes, to prove they are masters of air, space, and land. Eventually, Captain Carone and the cruise ship captain, Captain Timothy Nolin of the world's largest passenger ship, the S. S. Sunset, are freed after the failed attempt to capture the captain of the Eastern Division All-Stars, Jeff Peppard, during the game at Star Stadium in Star City, USA. This is during the era when the Justice League of America maintained a satellite headquarters in Earth orbit.

References at this message board link suggest that Carone's crew includes Lt. Sean Wilkins, with red hair, and Lt. Brad Shanower, with blonde hair. The fourth crewmember is unnamed, but has reddish-brown hair, similar to Wilkins' color. I suspect that page is fanfiction, because it refers to one of the cruise ship's crew as Purser Burl Smith, who was the Gopher character on The Love Boat television series.

A detailed synopsis of the issue, complete with a thumbnail image of the cover, can be found here.

This page has an image of Captain Carone after he was captured by the villains. He seems to have changed outfits...

This series takes place in the Earth-1 continuity, which has been disrupted by the various Crises on various Earths in the DC Universe. Because of that, I do not know if the events of the miniseries take place in whatever the current timeline is, or if the station or the four astronauts exist in the current continuity.