Reading Room: CAPTAIN AERO "Moon That was Motionless"

Yesterday, we asked: "What do you do with a wartime aviator character after a war?"

 In the case of fighting aviator Captain Aero, you make him into a shirtless extraterrestrial fighter!

Art by Rudy Palais, writer unknown.

Captain Aero was one of numerous costumed aviators who fought the Axis in comic books during World War II.

His distinctive traits included a mustache that came and went depending on the artist and an aircraft that could use its' propeller like a buzz-saw.

In his early days he was assisted by the Sky Scouts, a gang of kids who wanted to be aviators, and who were popular enough to have their own backup strip.

By the time of this never-reprinted story's publication in Captain Aero Comics #26 in 1946, WW II was over, and sales on military-themed comics were dropping.

A number of them, like Blackhawk, shifted to battling criminals and/or Communist spies.

But not Captain Aero!
He was destined for bigger things...like battling Nazis on the Moon, a concept which survives to this day in the recently-released movie Iron Sky!

BTW, this was Captain Aero's final issue, and his last appearance in comics.

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featuring the cover art from this issue of Captain Aero Comics by LB Cole!