If a Hero is Judged by the Quality of His Arch-Enemies...
...Captain Midnight has just made a quantum leap from "space pirate" to "ruler of an entire planet"!
Scientific note: though it was known to the scientific community since the 1930s that Saturn, like Jupiter was a gas giant, science fiction/fantasy stories continued to show them as large planets similar to Earth, but with heavy cloud cover that prevented observation of the surface! Illustrated by Leonard Frank, Fawcett's Captain Midnight #64 (1948) introduces Cap's second (and final) alien arch-enemy, Xog: Ruler of Saturn! You'll see more of him next month!
From extensive research (we're talking off-line and on-site) thru the archives of several dealers and collectors who handle related food ephemera like Ovaltine and Quik (now Nesquik) packaging and advertising, we've yet to come across anything (besides the comic book itself) relating in any way to Inapak!
Could it have been a proposed project that never got off the ground, like Victor Fox's Kooba Kola?
If so, who was behind it?
Magazine Enterprises, the publishers of the The Avenger, FunnyMan, and originalGhost Rider, produced the comic, and it's copyrighted in their name, not an outside corporation, as most licensed comics are! Bob Powell is obviously the artist, though the writer is unknown. It's theorized on the Grand Comics Database that Gardner Fox scripted the two stories in the book.
Speaking of which, here's the short tale from the back of the book...
Now, here's my theory about who Major Inapak is and how he came to be... At this point (1951), there were a number of kids' sci-fi tv shows like Captain Video, featuring characters who also promoted their sponsors' products... ...and there was talk of a tv version of radio/comic/movie serial hero Captain Midnight (who was still owned by Ovaltine) with a heavier sci-fi/space opera flavor to compete with Captain Video, Tom Corbett: Space Cadet, Space Patrol, et al. A Captain Midnight TV series eventually aired in 1954-56 with some sci-fi elements, but set present-day to keep the budget down.
(And of course, it had lots of promotion for Ovaltine products...)
Could this book have been a tryout with the original, futuristic, format for Captain Midnight, spotlighting his sponsor, Ovaltine?
And, when it didn't sell to Ovaltine, the story was retitled/relettered with a new character and a non-existent chocolate drink to demonstrate what Magazine Enterprisescould do for potential clients, and then used as a trade-show giveaway to drum up business for a licensed-comic division (similar to what both Marvel and DC have today)?
You'll see the action-packed space adventure right here on Saturday!
Trivia: The insignia shown in the final panel are from the US Army Air Corps, the predecessor to the US Air Force....which was formed in September, 1947.
But, though the cover date is 1948, the story was written and illustrated around summer 1947...before the official creation of the Air Force!
Dr Osmosis had appeared once before, in Fawcett's Captain Midnight #52 (1947). Intended to be an ongoing genius criminal arch-enemy to Cap, his career was derailed by the introduction of colorful alien enemies to battle Midnight. Dr Osmosis would appear twice more, then disappear into the ether!
...no matter where they were...including Outer Space!
Remember this story was written in 1948 for kids.
The average adult, much less a child, knew little about nuclear radiation. All the typical reader understood about atomic bombs was their sheer destructive power and that they generated incredible heat! (Somewhat) instructional films like Duck & Cover...
...were still several years in the future!
Without an ongoing foe, the "Sentinel of the Spaceways" had a series of one-shot adventures involving alien races, and Earth colonies on other worlds, as shown in this story illustrated by Leonard Frank from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #59 (1948)!
There's always work for Captain Midnight in outer space!
Without an ongoing foe, the "Sentinel of the Spaceways" had a series of one-shot adventures involving alien races, and Earth colonies on other worlds, as shown in thi story from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #58 (1948)!
Is this never-reprinted story from Fawcett's Captain Midnight #57 (1947) really and truly, once and for all, conclusively, cross our hearts and hope to die, the End of Jagga???
