Most things that parody superheroes or use discount versions of them will almost always have someone named “Captain Something” like “Captain Power” or “Captain Justice”. Captain Caveman is an example of a parody superhero name, while Captain Planet is an example of somebody just grafting the word Captain to a completely unrelated hero.
Obviously Captain America is the biggest and most obvious Captain superhero, but was he the origin of naming superheroes Captain? Or was it already in place beforehand and if so was it done because of its military or its police connotations? Is there a reason why even when Captain America’s popularity was at its lowest (in the late 50’s when he wasn’t even in comics and then in the late 80’s IIRC when he was often ranked as the least popular of the “main” Marvel heroes) that people were still named superheroes Captain?
Captain Marvel might be among the oldest Captain names (though it has been used by several distinct personages.) I believe that one dates back to the late 1930s, whereas Captain America didn’t show up until 1941.
I don’t know what the inspiration for the name is, other than the fact that “Marvel Man” sounds pretty weird. (And indeed, DC alleged at the time that Captain Marvel was a ripoff of Superman.)
Captain Marvel first appeared in Whiz Comics #2 in February 1940.
Captain America first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 in March 1941.
So there was about a year’s difference between the appearance of the two characters. Note that Captain Marvel didn’t get his own dedicated book until 1941, until then he was just one of the characters in Whiz Comics (though he was also the most prominent one).
Indeed, I’d say it’s a stretch to call Captain Midnight a superhero. He first showed up as a radio character in 1938, but he was basically just a daring Air Corps pilot. He did have a secret identity of sorts (“Midnight” was not his real name, although he did hold the actual rank of Captain), but the show was largely an aviation-themed adventure program, rather than what we usually think of as a superhero show.
Later, he showed up in the comics as well, but even there he was more in the Adventurer With a Bunch of Gadgets genre than the superhero genre. Granted, that can be a fuzzy line at times, but Captain Midnight mostly stayed on the other side of it.
