While primarily intended to educate readers on the fascinating world of computer science and get them interested in a career working in computers (ideally starting out by studying at the BCSI), the comic also features an extended story featuring the title character taking on the evil Dr. Manfred Zongor, who abducts BCSI director Edward Zapp in order to get him to write a computer program that will allow him to steal a hidden cache of plutonium.
Also known for introducing the world to "The high-tech mechanical genius, Mr. Computer", who serves to narrate the educational segments of the comic.
Tropes include:
- All for Nothing: Captain Electron flies all the way to NASA — at the very least, a journey from New Jersey to Washington, D.C., and potentially even Florida or Texas — in order to get them to construct a fake map to the plutonium... which Edward Zapp promptly deletes after misunderstanding the ruse that Electron was trying to set up.
- Artistic License – Engineering: It's pretty obvious which parts of the comic were fully written by Jay Disbrow, and which ones were at least checked over by the teaching and/or technical staff at the Brick Computer Science Institute. The latter parts are generally accurate (if heavily simplified), while the former... really aren't.
- One of the BCSI's students makes reference to composing a program on their modems. Programs are written on the actual computers, with modems only being used in this context to transmit them to other computers.
- A worm function is mentioned as being something that allows a computer program to self-delete. While it's technically possible for a worm to do this, the term really refers to a broad range of virus-type programs, and it's highly unlikely the students would have worked out from the vague description that Zapp gives that he wanted them to include that functionality.
- Zongor kidnaps Zapp so that he can program a computer map to show where the plutonium cache is. The only way Zapp would be able to do this would be if he already knew where the plutonium was — in which case it would have been much easier for him to just mark it down on a printed map. It's possible that what Zongor actually wanted him to do was hack into some government computers to find the location that way, but it's poorly explained.
- Artistic License – Military: Dr. Zongor talks about NASA as if they'd be the people responsible for plutonium. NASA might possess nuclear materials for research and development purposes, but they'd have no access to the weapons-grade plutonium that Zongor would need to build a nuclear weapon.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Zapp provokes Dr. Zonger into killing him and his students, Captain Electron bursts through the wall of Zongor's lab just in time to save the day and beat up the bad guys.
- Captain Ersatz: A literal example, given that the titular Captain Electron is a very direct copy of Superman, differing only by his outfit being all-blue instead of red-and-blue (albeit his cape is still red), and having a different logo. He also gets his powers from something called a "V-Thrust Drive" rather than Earth's sun, but it's never really expanded on due to the second issue never being published, rendering Electron's origin story an Aborted Arc.
- Disintegrator Ray: Dr. Zongor turns out to own one of these, which can supposedly vaporize "a hundred ordinary men" in one go. Which begs the question as to why he wants to build nuclear bombs if he can already produce such a deadly weapon (other than For the Evulz, presumably).
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: For a superhero who is apparently world-famous, Captain Electron is treated with surprisingly little respect by the authorities, with a police officer early in the story deriding him as "some guy in a funny suit", and another one outside the Chrysler Building openly refusing to believe that a man can fly, despite Electron having picked up a passenger plane from the damaged building and dumped it in Central Park.
- Flying Brick: The title character is a pretty straightforward example of this trope, at the very least having super-strength, super-speed, and near-invulnerability.
- Invincible Hero: There's only one fight in the comic, but Captain Electron wins it without breaking a sweat, even shrugging off a point-blank hit from Dr. Zongor's Disintegrator Ray.
- Mr. Fanservice: Captain Electron wears a spandex outfit that shows off his muscular body from a number of angles, making it a rare comic from this era where most of the fanservice is from a male character; the female characters, by contrast, all dress conservatively.
- No Endor Holocaust: A passenger plane crashes into the Chrysler Building, but stays mostly intact, and Captain Electron only makes references to people being "injured" while helping out.
- Only Six Faces: With the exception of Dr. Zongor, Edward Zapp (who was based on a real person), and various other real-life people in the "History of Computing" section that opens the comic, all the male characters tend to have identical facial features, only being differentiated by their hair and outfit choices. The female characters are slightly more varied, but not by much.
- Poor Communication Kills: After he obtains the fake map, Captain Electron tells BCSI student Alex not to bother programming the worm function, since the map will send Dr. Zongor to the wrong location. However, since Alex can't reveal that the map's a fake in front of Zongor, he merely says that he didn't have time to program the worm function. In turn, Zapp deletes the fake map, nearly getting them all killed by Zongor until Electron shows up to save the day.
- Product Placement: The main reason for the comic's existence, namely to promote the Brick Computer Science Institute. Though it doesn't really give all that much detail about what the Institute actually offers to prospective students.
- Reused Character Design: While Captain Electron bears an extremely conspicuous resemblance to Superman, his design is also noticeably similar to the title character of Lance Carrigan of the Galactic Legion (who, ironically, was more an expy of Flash Gordon than Superman), another comic that Jay Disbrow had illustrated several years earlier.
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Subverted by Mr. Computer, who demonstrates an incredibly bizarre mix of human and non-human aspects. Exactly what he's supposed to be is never expanded on, as he only serves as a narrator-type figure and isn't seen in the actual Captain Electron story.
- Ripped from the Headlines: While the sub-plot with the passenger plane crashing into the Chrysler Building bears some disturbing parallels to 9/11, the incident was likely actually inspired by an incident where a military plane crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945. The building wasn't in any serious danger of collapse (as the Chrysler Building isn't here), but 14 people died.
- A Villain Named "Z__rg": Dr. Manfred Zongor.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Captain Electron guesses that Dr. Zongor will pull this on Edward Zapp and his students as soon as the computer map is in his possession. Though as it turns out, Zapp provokes Zongor into attempting to kill them by destroying the map after a mix-up.
