The Good Captain

"Captain Cold... Captain Boomerang... they probably would have gone for it if I was a captain."

— Trickster, Justice League Unlimited, "Flash and Substance"

There is a definite prejudice in Superhero comics towards using force rather than reason to sort things out. As a result, a fighting man with a military-sounding background gets more respect than a thinking man with a doctorate or a medical qualification. This is probably an inheritance from the early days of comics, where the patriotic World War II setting made military good guys obvious. The rank of "Captain" probably became common as, in the Army, it is low-ranking enough to be approachable and avoid the inevitable moral ambiguity of the most senior ranks, but high enough to deserve some respect.

The upshot of this is that characters whose names begin with "Captain" are almost always good, unless explicitly subverting this or a Nazi. (In the case of a Nazi, or in the case of German officers from many other periods, the correct title Hauptmann could occur.^note  Until 1945 cavalry and some artillery captains were properly called Rittmeister. From the 17th to early 19th century infantry and foot artillery captains could also be called Kapitän in many German armies. If the Nazi Captain is referred to as Kapitän we might have a research mistake, since Kapitän exclusively refers to the navy (Kriegsmarine) and merchant marine. Another trap for the unwary is referring to an SS officer of this rank as Hauptmann when he would in fact be a Hauptsturmführer.)

"Commander" carries similar connotations to "Captain." As a naval rank, it's a likely designation for commanding officers in Space Navies.

Not necessarily The Captain; in fact, The Good Captain is rarely seen leading anyone, despite his rank.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Attack on Titan gives us Captain Levi, though while he's undeniably on the 'good' side, Levi is a surefire case of Good is Not Nice and Good Is Not Soft - and though he has plenty of brawn he also seems to have shades of The Strategist to back it up.
• Buso Renkin: Captain Bravo is a noble leader who cares deeply for those under his charge. Even when ordered to terminate Kazuki before he can become a Walking Wasteland, he was planning to kill himself afterwards, and is relieved when Kazuki manages to overcome him in their second battle.
• In Gundam, Captain Bright Noah of the White Base, Argama, Nahel Argama, and Ra Calium: Good, Team Dad.
  • Also from the Universal Century: Captain Eiphar Synapse, good. Captain Norris Packard, good for a Zeke. Captain Ethan Ryer, General Ripper of a Feddie.
  • Zeta Gundam's Henken Bekkener of the Argama and the Radish. Good. Team Dad and Only Sane Man.
    • Captain Bask Om. Titans field leader. Bad.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED's Captain Murrue Ramius of the Archangel: Good, Team Mom
    • Captain Natarle Badgiruel of the Dominion: A Sergeant Rock, but still Good
    • Captain Andrew Waltfeld of the Lesseps and Eternal: Anti-Villain, Heel–Face Turn to the heroes' side.
    • Captain William Sutherland of the Earth Forces General Staff and later, the Doolittle: General Ripper, fantastic racist, Obstructive Bureaucrat, and The Dragon to Muruta Azrael. Bad. Very bad, and The Strategist to boot.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny's Captain Talia Gladys of the Minerva: Good, but loyal to a Well-Intentioned Extremist leader.
    • Captain Neo Roanoke of the Girty Lue. Manipulative Bastard, Criminal Amnesiac, and all around bastard. Bad, Team Dad. Later pulls a Heel–Face Turn after regaining his memory.
• The Captain from Hellsing: Evil because he's a Nazi, but shows occasional helpfulness to the goodies.
  • On the other hand, Captain Pip Bernadotte stays on the good side to the end... and even after that.
• Irresponsible Captain Tylor: The titular Justi Ueki Tylor — Good for the most part. Now, whether this is through sheer dumb luck or the most brilliant tactical mind or some combination of the two is up to debate.
• Lyrical Nanoha: Captain Nanoha "Ace of Aces" Takamachi - Good. Likes to befriend people.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Captain Viral — Became captain of the Chouginga Dai Gurren after his Heel–Face Turn.

Comic Books

• Captain America: Good. Was briefly "Nomad" and later "The Captain" before Nextwave's version, but went back to America. Still good. Was actually a Captain in the US Army before getting frozen and being listed as MIA.
• Captain Atom: Good, but occasionally falls into Knight Templar; led to the accidental destruction of Kansas in Kingdom Come. Note that he originally actually had the rank of Captain in the Air Force, but was later promoted to Major.
• Captain Britain: Good.
• Captain Canuck: Satirical but good.
• Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew! — Captain Carrot: Also good.
• Captain Comet: Good.
• Captain Marvel (Marvel Universe. Multiple Incarnations): Good, although the Genis-Vell incarnation was a Knight Templar and completely off his rocker.
  • Currently Carol Danvers: Good. Was actually a Major in the US Air Force, meaning she outranks Captain America.
• Captain Nazi: A hero of his nation, but as his nation was Nazi Germany, evil.
  • In Justice Society of America, the current Captain Nazi leads a squad of other Nazi villains, many of whom are also Captains. This gets lampshaded.
• Captain Rectitude was not actually a made-up example. Bad. Also badly dressed.
• Dynamo5: The titular Captain Dynamo — Good.
• Empowered: Capitan Rivet: Good, and one of the few Superhomies who at least tries to avoid openly laughing at Empowered.
• Enemies of The Flash:
  • Captain Cold: Evil.
  • Captain Boomerang: Evil.
  • The above two led to a Lampshade Hanging in the Justice League Unlimited episode "Flash and Substance," where they teamed up, and the Trickster laments that they never bought into his ideas, saying, "Maybe if I were a captain they'd listen to me."
• Jack Staff: Kapitan Krieg is a Third Reich Super-Soldier, but more of a German patriot than a Nazi and hence a Noble Demon / Worthy Opponent.
• New England Comics: Captain Liberty — Employed as a hero by the US government. Purposely given a name that would make people assume she's a man.
• The Captain of Nextwave: Grand mockery of this trope.
  • HIS NAME IS THE CAPTAIN!!!
• Hauptmann Deutschland, Marvel Comics' German equivalent to Captain America. Good. Despite this name directly translating to "Captain Germany," when issues featuring him were licensed and translated in Germany, they changed his name to Freiheitskämpfer ("freedom fighter") to avoid any implications of Nazism. Later on he was renamed Vormund ("legal guardian") in America.
• Captain Jan Haring from Jommeke: Good.
• Captain Oliepul from Nero: Good.
• Captain Skæg from Rasmus Klump: Kindhearted.
• Shazam!: Captain Marvel (The DCU. Currently known as Shazam!): Good.
• Captain Haddock from Tintin: Good.
• Captain Wal Rus from Tom Poes: Good, but grouchy.
• Watchmen: Captain Metropolis — Good... but bigoted.
  • There's also Captain Carnage, who is not so much evil as a totally fucked up Combat Sadomasochist.
  • And a Captain Axis, who the first Nite Owl once beat up.
• Mad Magazine's Captain Klutz (a Don Martin creation), who is good but goofy and got his name and position purely by accident.
• Dr. Blink: Superhero Shrink has Captain Omnipotent and Captain Magnificent. Major Amazing insists he outranks them.

Fan Works

• In the Star Trek: The Original Series fanfic Insontis, Uhura invents a superhero persona for the de-aged Kirk called "Captain Sunshine."

Films — Animation

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Commander Lyle Rourke is a subversion of this, and a good one too. There are a couple hints in his dialogue that he's not what he seems, but overall he does a good job faking the audience out and setting up the reveal.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame's Captain Phoebus — the one from the Disney adaptation. The original was kind of a jerk.

Films — Live-Action

• The Cannonball Run:
  • Captain Chaos: Good but goofy in the film; evil but goofy in the Scottish Amicable adverts.
  • And Captain USA at the very end of the movie. Dom De Luise's blooped "Captain America" as can be seen in the end credits.
• Captain Zoom: Initially reluctant, but heroic in the end.
• C.K. dezerterzy: Captain Wagner, A Father to His Men. His book counterpart, Captain Zivancic, is also stated to be a Professional Slacker with pretty much no interest in the war.
• In Godzilla: Final Wars, Captain Gordon: Good, and a incredibly huge badass. The man defeated Godzilla by burying him in ice, successfully lead a resistance against the massively powerful alien force with just his crew and Godzilla and killed aliens with a katana and his bare hands, and even at the end of the movie when Godzilla brought down he still is prepared to fight him with just a sword.
• Hornets' Nest: Has the morally gray, mustached American Army Captain Turner, and the refined, no-nonsense but not entirely unreasonable Captain Friedrich von Hecht, as well as Captain Kreuger.
• In M*A*S*H, Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, "Duke" Forrest, and "Trapper" John McIntyre are all Captains. They're not quite as good as their television counterparts, but they're much better than their counterparts in the novel.
• Mystery Men's Captain Amazing: Strictly commercial. Vanquishes baddies, but also occasionally gets them released from prison for selfish, publicity-seeking reasons.
• Pirates of the Caribbean:
  • Captain Jack Sparrow: Good (?), though often drunk/crazy. Or is he? Occasionally sells out his friends as part of a Batman Gambit. It's okay, they frequently return the favor, and unlike them, Jack usually has a Plan B to get them out of it...
  • Captain Hector Barbossa: Affably Evil.
• The Return of Captain Invincible Captain Invincible: Disillusioned, out of practice, alcoholic...unambiguously good once he gets out of his funk.
• Star Wars's Captain Han Solo: Good.

Literature

• A Brother's Price: Captain Raven Tern. Good.
• Discworld's Captain Carrot: Good.
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea's Captain Nemo: It varies, depending on the interpretation used in the film/story in question.
• Treasure Island's Captain Smollett: Somewhat reprehensible (except when played by Kermit the Frog), but basically good. Captain Silver: Ostensibly the villain, but far more affable.
• Aubrey-Maturin: Captain Jack Aubrey - Good Dude, Badass.
• Captain Horatio Hornblower - Good. Hornblower's sidekick eventually becomes Captain William Bush - also good. In fact even the 'evil' Captain Sawyer was really a figure of pity due to his increasing insanity, and had been good until he cracked from the stress of war.
• Moby-Dick's Captain Ahab - Antihero or Villain.
• Captain Underpants: Good, but dumb.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events's Captain Widdershins: good.
• Island in the Sea of Time's Captain Marian Alston: Badass lesbian samurai. Obviously good.
• Destroyermen: Plenty of good and bad examples over the long series. Captain Matthew Reddy starts out as a lieutenant commander, but eventually get promoted to full captain, and only after much pleading from everyone. He refuses promotion to admiral, but still becomes commander-in-chief of the First Fleet, while also retaining command of his destroyer USS Walker. The most obvious example of an evil captain is Hisashi Kurokawa, the captain of the battlecruiser Amagi, although he later becomes "General of the Sea" (the Grik don't have admirals). There are also army and marine captains in some novels.

Live-Action TV

• Blackadder'':
  • Captain Blackadder: Jerkass.
  • Captain Darling: Paper Tiger.
• Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future — Captain Power: Good.
• Doctor Who and Torchwood:
  • Captain Jack Harkness — starts out a bit dodgy, but turns good once he meets the Doctor. ^note Though he's not technically a captain until Torchwood.
  • Captain John Hart — Captain Jack's Evil Counterpart.
• Firefly's Captain Malcolm Reynolds: Tries to be a Jerkass. But underneath it all....
• Star Trek: The Original Series's Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Good.
  • Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise-D and E. Good.
  • Captain Johnathan Archer of the Enterprise. Good.
    • Captain Jonathan Archer of the ISS Enterprise. Evil.
    • Even the good Archer made some questionable choices, such as committing outright piracy against a ship in distress.
  • Commander Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine. Good.
    • Captain Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine and the USS Defiant. Better.
  • Captain Kathryn Janeway of the USS Voyager. Good. Noticing a pattern yet?
  • Mirror Captain Gabriel Lorca of the USS Discovery. Morally ambiguous until The Reveal, where he turns out to be Evil All Along. When Chris Pike takes command in season 2, the contrast couldn't be more stark. In season 3, Saru finally loses the "acting" prefix after Burnham passes on command and starts wearing a uniform with a gold trim. This also makes him the first hero ship captain in Trek who isn't human or Vulcan. He's also new at this and tries to learn from other captains he meets, such as Pike and even Admiral Vance.
  • Captain Carol Freeman of the USS Cerritos in Star Trek: Lower Decks. And Captain William T. Riker of the USS Titan, of course.
  • The Klingons are the only other power in the galaxy that actually use the rank Captain, and they're also much more frequently allies to the heroes than the Romulans, Cardassians, Dominion, etc. Beta canon has Captain Klag of the IKS Gorkon, whom Riker befriended aboard the IKS Pagh. He finally got his own command (a new Chancellor-class cruiser) after becoming the Sole Survivor, losing an arm, and killing a dozen Jem'Hadar single-handedly (pun intended). In one novel the Gorkon even fights side-by-side with the Enterprise-E.
• Babylon 5:
  • Captain Sheridan — Good, though with a wicked destiny complex.
  • In Season 5, Captain Lochley — Good, but much more ambiguous due to her being an unknown to the rest of the crew and obviously keeping secrets about her past. It is revealed that she is Captain Sheridan's ex-wife.
  • Crusade Captain Gideon — Good, but definitely keeping secrets from his crew.
• Captain Kangaroo: Good.
• Lost's Captain Gault: Good, after some uncertainty. He opposes Keamy's plans and helps Sayid.
• Lampshaded in Top Gear (UK) by James "Captain Slow" May (Good, compared to his cohorts).
• Chuck's "Captain Awesome" Devon Woodcomb - Awesome.
• Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger's Captain Marvelous - Good by means of being Goukai Red.
• Classic Battlestar Galactica's Captain Apollo
• Discussed in the Big Bang Theory. Sheldon assigns the rank to himself when taking Paintball too seriously as it's a high a rank as one could have but still be in the field rather than doing paperwork back at base. Of course he doesn't match the approachablity part of the trope.
• Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda Ascendant and Captain Beka Valentine of the Eureka Maru. Both good.
• SeaQuest DSV: Captain Nathan Bridger of the titular submarine. In season 3 gets replaced by Captain Oliver Hudson. The latter is more militant but still good. The former used to be more militant but got cured of that by his son being MIA.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street's Captain Vegetable — Good for you.

Tabletop Games

• In the Forgotten Realms setting one of the alternate titles of Valkur, the Chaotic Good god of naval warfare, is Captain of the Waves.

Video Games

• Ace Combat 5's Captain Bartlett, "The Captain", Captain Nagase, Captain Davenport (post-humously promoted to Lieutenant Colonel), Captain Grimm, and Captain Snow. All good.
• Advance Wars's Captain Brenner/O'Brian: An All-Loving Hero. In an After the End setting. Good.
• Call of Duty:
  • Captain Price: Good, if a bit too eager to resort to brutality in his CoD4 incarnation.
  • SAS. They are brutal. But patriotic and rather too good at lateral thinking for regular squaddies.
  • Captain "Soap" MacTavish: Good, and he's taken more than a few levels in badass since the last time we saw him.
• Captain Comic: Good.
• Captain Commando: Good. Equal opportunity employer, as evidenced by partners being ninja, mummy and infant.
• Disgaea's Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!: Good, but kinda dumb...and hammy.
• Captain Novolin — Real, Good, but bad concept...
• City of Villains's Cap'n Mako — Ax-Crazy.
• Comic Jumper's Captain Smiley: Self-absorbed idiotic Jerkass.
• Dawn of War: Captains Gabriel Angelos, Davian Thule and Inrick Boreale - Good, for Imperium commanders, although the last one is an exemplar of The Peter Principle.
  • In Dawn of War II: Captain Apollo Diomedes - Good, but too proud for his own good.
  • From Retribution, there's Kaptin Bluddflagg - Space Pirate Blood Knight, but hired to do something Good.
  • From Warhammer 40000 Spacemarine, there's Captain Titus. Good.
• F-Zero's Captain Falcon: Good. Will Knee you in the face if you say anything about his outfit.
• Mass Effect's Captain David Anderson: Good. Mentor to Cmdr. Shepard, who is varying degrees of good.
• Pikmin's Captain Olimar: Good, teamed up with Captain Falcon in the Subspace Emissary.
• Ratchet & Clank's Captain Qwark - Initially a Villain with Good Publicity and Fake Ultimate Hero, though eventually becomes more a Lovable Coward and Anti-Hero with a small bit of The Atoner.
  • Also Captain Sasha, Girl of the Week from Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. Good. Her biggest flaw is probably that she was hyped as a "female Han Solo" but turned out to be more of a Faux Action Girl in practice.
• Valkyria Chronicles's Captain Eleanor Varrot — Good. Boss of the young leader of The Squad.
• Viewtiful Joe's Captain Blue! Henshin a go-go, baby! Evil, until his Heel–Face Turn at the end of the first game. ^note Was previously good, then was warped by his entrapment in Movieland; shows some signs of his former moral fiber when playing Spirit Advisor to Joe, but how genuine that was is up for debate.

Web Animation

• Red vs. Blue's Captain Butch Flowers: Good, and disturbingly nice towards his men- until it turns out he was actually Evil All Along and his kindness was an act. (No word on whether his captaincy was faked too.)
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: The Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes (better known as Kitten): Good. He was elected Captain-General in the first place because he was A Father to His Men.

Webcomics

• Breakfast of the Gods's Cap'n Crunch: Good-licious!
• Captain SNES: The Game Masta: Good, a Jerkass.
• Captain Heroic in Evil, Inc.: Usually good.
• Girly's Captain Fist: Dumb as a box of hammers, but he means well.
• Captain Tagon from Schlock Mercenary. In his own words, "[Yes, we kill people], but they're almost always bad guys, and we only do it for the money."

Web Original

• TV Tropes — Captain Obvious: Self-Explanatory. Also explains the perfectly obvious a lot.
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog's Captain Hammer: Subverts and Lampshades this trope. Despite being a superhero and beloved by the whole city, he's also a tremendous jerk and far less sympathetic than villainous Dr. Horrible.
• Whateley Universe's The other Captain Bravo: good. Well, he thinks he's good, but he's a pinhead. And he's not allowed to use the "captain" part of his codename until he graduates from Whateley Academy and earns the title in the military. Titles from the military, nobility, and academic titles must be earned the hard way before they can be used in a codename.

Western Animation

• Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels's Captain CAVEMAAAAAAAN! — good. In the Laff-A-Lympics comic book story "The Search for the Purple Pig," Snooper uses the term "The good Captain" after the Yogis and Scoobys discover the Purple Pig figurine in Cavey's club.
• Captain N: The Game Master. Also Good.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • Captain Planet: Good.
  • Captain Pollution: Evil.
• Drawn Together:
  • Captain Hero: Dumb as a box of hammers, doesn't mean so well.
  • But there's also Captain Hero from SimCity: Definitely Good — if he decides to show up.
• The Octonauts: Captain Barnacles Bear - Good.
• South Park's Captain Hindsight: Good, but doesn't do anything other than point out what could have been done.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars's Captain Rex: Good... Which very likely changes with Order 66. Preserved, actually. As of Rebels, it is confirmed that Rex had nothing to do with Order 66, as he'd had his inhibitor chip removed beforehand. He's now working with the Rebellion.

• In the Futurama episode "Less Than Hero," Fry's superhero alter ego is "Captain Yesterday." Possibly a Shout-Out to Captain America, since he and Fry share a similar backstory.

---