| Captain Black | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Real Name |
Unknown |
|
First Appearance |
The Iron Pirate: A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea (1893) |
|
Original Publisher |
Cassell & Company Limited |
|
Created by |
Max Pemberton |
Origin[]
Captain Black is a ruthless pirate captain who appeared in The Iron Pirate: A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea (1893) and it's sequel, Captain Black: A Romance of The Nameless Ship (1911). He is short with a black beard, wearing black clothes in stark contrast to his crew, who all wore red. Much like Captain Nemo, Captain Black used as transport an electric-driven submarine in Captain Black after the ship in the original book was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. Before he became a pirate, Black had set out for Michigan to mine for copper, and became quite rich. However, after discovering that his wife had died of starvation and his son had died of fever in Panama, Black began to feel hatred of all men, and a fierce desire to make mankind pay for the wrongs he had suffered. Thus, he used the wealth he had acquired from copper mining to build a gas-driven ship (not named in the novel) constructed of phosphor-bronze that made it shine like gold. Captain Black was seemingly killed at the end of the first novel, drowning himself in sorrow after his ship was sunk by European fleets.
In Captain Black, the 1911 sequel to The Iron Pirate, Captain Black was revealed to have survived his apparent drowning. He now possesses an electric-driven submarine called the Zero. It is described in the novel as a long fish-shaped craft not unlike a monster torpedo with gleaming silver plates which gleams in the sunshine. It is equipped with periscopes, electric projectors, liquid oxygen, gyroscopic compasses, and engines for dealing death on a vast scale.
Public Domain Appearances[]
Literary[]
Novels[]
- The Iron Pirate: A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea (1893)
- Captain Black: A Romance of The Nameless Ship (1911)