CAPTAIN
POWER
CAPTAIN
POWER
Real Name: Dr. Christina "Chris" Carr
Identity/Class: Human mutate
Occupation: Seeker of vengeance; former lab assistant
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Doctor Octopus (Otto Octavius), Jonathan Rickman, Dr. Ted Twaki, Anders, Wimoro, Polanski, Havelock, Highley, Conner, other unnamed victims
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Abandoned General Techtronics Labs building
First Appearance: Amazing Spider-Man II#9 (September, 1999)
Powers/Abilities: Captain Power can shift between her crippled human female form and a super-powered male form. In the male form, she could fly, fire destructive energy beams from her eyes and hands, and possessed some degree of super-strength. In her human form, she had gray-green skin and a deformed appearance.
History:
(Amazing Spider-Man I#3 - BTS / Amazing Spider-Man II#10 (fb)) - Christina Carr
was a lab assistant at General Techtronics Labs when Otto Octavius caused the
explosion that transformed him into Doctor Octopus. The explosion left
Carr crippled and mutated. Learning that the mutagen in her blood was
killing her, she tried to sue Octavius, but found that impossible, due to his
incarceration. She then turned her rage on those who had been 'unfairly
spared' by the accident, and used her powers to begin killing all other
survivors of the accident. Among those she killed were Anders (see
comments), Wimoro, Polanski, Havelock, Highley, and Conner.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#9) - Captain Power attacked Jonathan Rickman's apartment, setting his entire building on fire. Rickman was badly injured, but managed to escape with the assistance of Spider-Man. The next day, Power attacked Peter Parker, who was snooping around the wreckage of Rickman's building. When Doctor Octopus came to the hospital where Rickman was recuperating, Power ambushed and abducted him, tearing off one of his tentacles in the process.
(Amazing Spider-Man II#10)
- Power dragged Doc Ock back to her
hideout, beneath the shattered wreck of General Techtronics Labs. Mocking
him for his criminal career, she tied him to a large piece of machinery, and
introduced herself as Captain Power. She began to set up lab equipment as
Octavius watched and mocked her, finally calling her 'Chris'. Enraged,
Power asked him how he knew. Laughing, Octavius told her how he'd
recognized her 'pitiful attempts at a laboratory operation', and directed her to
kill the final name on her list - Dr. Ted Twaki, currently a supervisor at
Tricorp and Peter Parker's boss. She smashed into Tricorp's headquarters
and cornered Twaki in his office. As she prepared to kill him, Spider-Man
burst in, distracting her from Twaki. As they battled, Spider-Man fooled
Power into grabbing a pair of cables which he then plugged into an energy
transversion machine. The resulting power surge shorted out Power's
powers, reverting her to the deformed, crippled from of Christina Carr.
She cursed Spider-Man for not killing her, and swore vengeance, after which she
was presumably taken away by the police.
Comments: Created by Howard Mackie, John Byrne, and Ray Kryssing.
The name 'Anders' is on Rickman's list of Captain Power's victims. This may be Mary-Alice Anders, co-worker and ex-girlfriend of Octavius. I don't believe she was actually present at the accident, but Carr may have made a clerical error, or just struck at her to get back at Octavius. Could Captain Power have caused the car accident that killed Mary Alice's husband?
Peter Parker's name is also on Powers' list.
Now, at the time this was written, Spider-Man: Chapter One had retconned Parker
and Octavius' accidents into one, so this made perfect sense. Now that
Chapter One seems to have been written out of continuity, though, this presents
a problem. Power is crazy, however, so she could have made a clerical
error - since both the Parker and Octavius accidents were at General Techtronics
facilities, maybe she accidentally combined the attendance lists for the two
experiments.
Mmm...sort-of: Peter David first established in a
novel (The Ultimate Spider-Man, perhaps) that the U.S. Atomic Research Center,
at which Dr. Octopus was mutated, was actually the same as the one in which
Peter was mutated. He actually ret-conned it so that it was Octavius giving the
experiment, and both he and Peter were irradiated simultaneously. John Byrne
took the idea (or came up with the same one on his own) and ran with it,
bringing it into mainstream comics in the pages of Spider-Man: Chapter One.
However, that series went over like a led zeppelin (not the band!), and it is no
longer considered continuity. Too bad, in my opinion. I actually liked that
idea.
At any rate, Octopus' experiment and mutation took place at
the U.S. Atomic Research Center. Perhaps General Techtonics was somehow involved
with Octopus' experiment?
Further, based on my research on General Techtonics, it
should be an abandoned facility of General Techtonics East, which became
Tri-Corp.
Captain Power reminds me of Superman in look and powers and I don't know if John Byrne patterned Captain Power's shape-shifting power on his Supergirl's or if he read All-Star Squadron letter pages of All-Star Squadron#45 (May, 1985) which said that the Golden Age Superman had the ability to twist his feature into any shape--mentioned in Superman#253 (June, 1972). Roy Thomas asked for more proof of Superman face changing ability before he considered using it and in All-Star Squadron#49 (September, 1985)'s letter page proof was provided--Superman I#45 reprinted in Superman#251 (May, 1972); Superman#18, 23 & 26; Action Comics#55 & 115. If John Byrne wanted to link Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus's origins he shouldn't have reinvented the wheel, all he had to do was have Dr. Octopus show up to do his experiment after Peter Parker left the building (which was after he was bitten). Peter's classmates could have been observing the experiment from an observation booth on the second floor. In the chaos after the accident Peter's name is on the list of students given to the news media by his High School.
--Gammatotem
Clarifications:
Christina Carr, a.k.a. Captain Power, has no known connection to:
JONATHAN
RICKMAN
Rickman was present at the accident that created Doctor Octopus. Rickman lost an eye in the accident, and eventually realized that someone was killing off the survivors. He compiled a list of the survivors, eventually determining that Christina Carr was the killer. Before he could act on this, he was attacked by Carr, now calling herself Captain Power. She set his apartment building on fire and injured him badly, although he was rescued by Spider-Man, who also took Rickman's list. Rickman was later visited by Peter Parker in the hospital, who he warned about the killer. Rickman later died of his injuries.
--Amazing Spider-Man II#9
images:
Full shot - Amazing Spider-Man II#10, p3, panel 2
Head shot - Amazing Spider-Man II#10, p18, panel 4
Carr, pre-mutation - Amazing Spider-Man II#10, p23, panel 4
Carr, post-mutation - Amazing Spider-Man II#10, p28, panel 4
Rickman - Amazing Spider-Man II#9, p5, panel 5
Amazing Spider-Man II#9 (September, 1999) - Howard Mackie
(writer), John Byrne, (penciller), Raymond Kryssing (inker), Ralph Macchio (editor)
Amazing Spider-Man II#10 (October, 1999) - Howard Mackie (writer), John
Byrne (penciller), Scott Hanna (inker), Ralph Macchio (editor)
First Posted: 02/09/2006
Last updated: 02/08/2006
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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