Captain Future

Captain Future is a science fiction hero – a space-traveling scientist and adventurer – originally published in a namesake pulp magazine from 1940 to 1951. The character was created by editor Mort Weisinger and principally authored by Edmond Hamilton. There have subsequently been a number of adaptations and derivative works. Most significant was a 1978-79 Japanese anime (キャプテン・フューチャー), which was dubbed into several languages and proved very popular, particularly in Spanish, French, German and Arabic.

Publication information
Publisher	Thrilling Publications
First appearance	Captain Future
Created by	Mort Weisinger
In-story information
Alter ego	Curtis Newton
Supporting character of	Simon Wright Grag Otho Prof. Simon Wright Joan Randall Marshall Ezra Gurney Ul Quorn

Origins

Although sometimes mistakenly attributed to science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton, who indeed authored most of the Captain Future stories, the character was created by Better Publications editor Mort Weisinger during the 1939 World Science Fiction Convention.^[1]

The original character was published by Ned Pines' Thrilling/Standard/Better publications company. A different Captain Future was published in Pine's Nedor Comics line.

Published stories

The stories were published in the pulp magazines from 1940 to 1951, featuring bright-colored cover illustrations by Earle K. Bergey and two other fellow pulp artists. The adventures mostly appeared in Captain Future's own magazine but later stories appeared in Startling Stories. Captain Future is Curtis Newton, a brilliant scientist and adventurer who roams the solar system solving problems, righting wrongs, and vanquishing futuristic supervillains.

The series contains a number of assumptions about the solar system which are outlandish by modern standards but which still seemed plausible, at least to the general public, in the time the stories were written. All of the planets of the solar system, and many of the moons and asteroids, are suitable for life, and most are already occupied by humanoid extraterrestrial races. The initial adventures take place in the planets of the solar system but later stories (after the character invents the "vibration drive") take the hero to other stars, other dimensions and even the distant past and almost to the end of the Universe. For example, they visit the star Deneb, which is the origin of Earth humans, as well as many other humanoid races across the Solar System and beyond.

Plot

The series was originally set in 1990; as the series progressed, Hamilton quickly stopped using exact dates (except as "in the past" as in the voyages of the astronauts who first landed on most of the other planets of the Solar System), sticking with a series continuity. In later stories, if the date was asked or revealed, it was done so discreetly.

The series begins when scientist Roger Newton, his wife Elaine, and his brilliant fellow scientist Simon Wright leave planet Earth to do research in an isolated laboratory on the moon. Simon's body is old and diseased and Roger enables him to continue doing research by transplanting his healthy brain into an artificial case (originally immobile—carried around by Grag—later equipped with lifter units). Working together, the two scientists create an intelligent robot called Grag, and an android with shape-shifting abilities called Otho. The criminal scientist Victor Corvo (originally: Victor Kaslan^[2]) arrives on the moon and murders the Newtons. However, before he can reap the fruits of his atrocity, Corvo and his killers are in turn slain by Grag and Otho.

The deaths of the Newtons leave their son, Curtis, to be raised by the unlikely trio of Otho, Grag, and Simon Wright. Under their tutelage, Curtis grows up to be a brilliant scientist and as strong and fast as any champion athlete. He also grows up with a strong sense of responsibility and hopes to use his scientific skills to help people. In the first adventure, he offers his services to the President of the System. The publicity-shy Curtis takes the alias Captain Future. Simon, Otho and Grag are referred to as the Futuremen in subsequent stories. Other recurring characters in the series are the old space marshal Ezra Gurney, the beautiful Planet Patrol agent Joan Randall (who provides a love interest for Curtis) and James Carthew, President of the Solar System whose office is in New York City.

Captain Future faces many enemies in his career but his archenemy is Ul Quorn, who is the only recurring villain in the series and appears in two different stories. He is part Martian—therefore called the Magician of Mars—but also the son of Victor Kaslan, who murdered the Newtons. Quorn is a scientist whose abilities rival those of Captain Future.

Stories

Captain Future, Startling Stories and Amazing Stories magazines

Issue	Story Title	Author	Publication Title	Publication Date	Notes
1	Captain Future and the Space Emperor	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Winter 1940	reprinted with the same title
2	Calling Captain Future	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Spring 1940	reprinted with the same title
3	Captain Future's Challenge	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Summer 1940	reprinted with the same title
4	The Triumph of Captain Future	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Fall 1940	reprinted as "Galaxy Mission"
5	Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Winter 1941
6	Star Trail to Glory	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Spring 1941
7	The Magician of Mars	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Summer 1941	reprinted with the same title
8	The Lost World of Time	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Fall 1941
9	Quest Beyond the Stars	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Winter 1942	reprinted with the same title
10	Outlaws of the Moon	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Spring 1942	reprinted with the same title
11	The Comet Kings	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Summer 1942	reprinted with the same title
12	Planets in Peril	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Fall 1942	reprinted with the same title
13	The Face of the Deep	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Winter 1943
14	Worlds to Come	Joseph Samachson as William Morrison	Captain Future	Spring 1943
15	Star of Dread	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Summer 1943
16	Magic Moon	Edmond Hamilton	Captain Future	Winter 1944
17	Days of Creation	Joseph Samachson as William Morrison	Captain Future	Spring 1944	reprinted as "The Tenth Planet"
18	Red Sun of Danger	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	Spring 1945	reprinted as "Danger Planet"
19	Outlaw World	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	Winter 1946	reprinted with the same title
20	The Solar Invasion	Manly Wade Wellman	Startling Stories	Fall 1946	reprinted with the same title
SS01	The Return of Captain Future	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	January 1950
SS02	Children of the Sun	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	May 1950
SS03	The Harpers of Titan	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	September 1950	reprinted as part of Doctor Cyclops
SS04	Pardon My Iron Nerves	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	November 1950
SS05	Moon of the Unforgotten	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	January 1951
SS06	Earthmen No More	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	March 1951
SS07	Birthplace of Creation	Edmond Hamilton	Startling Stories	May 1951
Side Story	Treasure on Thunder Moon	Edmond Hamilton	Amazing Stories	April 1942	see explanation in notes below

Characters

Captain Future 

A tall, athletic and handsome man with red hair, Captain Future was born on the moon as Curtis Newton. After the death of his parents, he was trained by Professor Simon, Otho and Grag in all scientific and athletic pursuits necessary to fight crime and injustice across the solar system.

Prof. Simon Wright 

A human brain living in a transparent, nuclear-powered life support case, with tentacle-mounted optics. He is Captain Future's mentor and chief consultant in scientific matters.

Grag and Otho

Grag is a seven-foot-tall metallic robot; Otho is a white-skinned android. Both were created by Roger Newton with artificial intelligence and human emotions to be friends and helpers to mankind. Grag and Otho have a friendly rivalry in the stories. Grag is big and strong, but not very bright, while Otho is quick-witted, agile, and (with the aid of a special chemical) able to radically alter his physical appearance.

Eek und Oog 

Grag and Otho's pets, respectively. Eek is a moonpup, a canine-like creature which does not need air to survive and consumes soft metals for food. Oog is a amorphous creature called a mimic, an artificially created pet that can change its shape as Otho does. Both are telepathic, and are very attached to their respective master.

Joan Randall 

A beautiful female agent of the Planetary Police on Earth, with brunette hair (blonde hair in the anime series). While she and Curtis share a mutual romantic attraction, their respective duties and Curtis' social awkwardness prevent them from taking their relationship to a significant depth.

Marshall Ezra Gurney 

A high-ranking veteran officer in the Planetary Police.

Ul Quorn 

Son of Victor Corvos, the man who murdered Captain Future's parents. While a scientific genius, he has chosen to use his intellect for evil purposes.

Johnny Kirk 

A young orphan boy and a dedicated fan of the Futuremen. During his debut appearance in "The Magician of Mars", he impresses Captain Future with his determination to become one of his crew, and is later entrusted to Joan and the Planetary Police to be trained as a future crewmember. He appears in the anime series in an expanded role and under the new name Ken Scott.

Adaptations and other derivative works

Anime

Captain Future
Screenshot from the anime series
キャプテン・フューチャー (Kyaputen Fyūchā)
Genre	Adventure, science fiction
Anime television series
Directed by	Tomoharu Katsumata
Written by	Masaki Tsuji Takeo Kaneko Fumio Kannami
Music by	Yuji Ohno
Studio	Toei Animation
Licensed by	ZIV International Harmony Gold
Original network	NHK
Original run	November 7, 1978 – December 18, 1979
Episodes	53

In 1978, one year after Hamilton's death, Toei Animation of Japan produced a Captain Future (キャプテン・フューチャー Kyaputen Fyūchā) anime television series of 53 episodes, based on 13 original Hamilton stories. Despite the differences in cultural references and medium, the animated series was true to the original in many ways, from the didactic scientific explanations to the emphasis on the usefulness of brains as opposed to brawn.

The series was translated in several languages and distributed globally. The four episodes comprising the series' second story arc were dubbed into English and released on video by ZIV International in the early 1980s as The Adventures of Captain Future. In the late 1980s, Harmony Gold dubbed the series' initial four-part story as an edited "TV movie" simply entitled Captain Future, but with alterations regarding some character names^[3] (different from those in Hamilton's stories - whether for licensing law or other reasons, remains a broad field for speculation). A Blu-ray Box in Japanese only was released in September, 2016 (Box 1) and November, 2016 (Box 2).^[4] A German "Limited Collectors Edition" Blu-ray Box was released in December 2016, featuring not only the remastered Japanese uncut version (with German subtitles) but also the heavily cut German version.^[5]

While only eight episodes in total were dubbed into English, the series met huge success particularly in France, where the title and lead character's name were changed to "Capitaine Flam", in Italy with the translated title of "Capitan Futuro", in Latin America and Spain with the title "Capitán Futuro", in Taiwan with the title "太空突擊隊" ("Space Commando"). The Arabic-language version has the title of فارس الفضاء (Faris al-Fadha'a, or "The Knight of Space") and was broadcast many times during the 1980s.

The series was also broadcast in Germany, where it appeared under its original title. However, this version was cut by about a quarter of the original length, which mainly affected violent scenes or those considered "expendable" for the storylines.

Score

The original incidental music was composed by Yuji Ohno, while the English-dubbed version had a new soundtrack composed by Mark Mercury. Mercury's work survived on the Latin American version, but a new opening was added for it, composed by Shuki Levy and sung by Chilean performer Juan Guillermo Aguirre (a.k.a. "Capitán Memo").^[6]

For the German version, a completely new soundtrack was created by German composer Christian Bruhn. To this day, the futuristic soundtrack is considered cult for giving the series the right feeling. Not only the theme song is still used as background music in many magazines and other shows. A soundtrack CD was released in 1995. A remix of the theme Feinde greifen an ("enemies attack") by German DJ Phil Fuldner, called "The Final", entered the top ten of the German and Austrian single charts in 1998.^[7] The German publisher Bastei-Verlag released a Captain Future comic series with original adventures.

Episodes

1	恐怖の宇宙帝王 （Captain Future and the Space Emperor）	宇宙帝王現わる
2		炎の海の牢獄
3		天翔ける砦の奇蹟
4		衛星ヌーンの決戦
5	時のロスト‧ワールド （The Lost World of Time）	SOS1億年前
6		聖なる星クウムの謎
7		太陽系創世記
8		遥かなり50億年の旅
Special episode	謎の宇宙船強奪団 （Star Trail to Glory）	華麗なる太陽系レース （The Super Solar System Race）
9	挑戦！嵐の海底都市 （Captain Future's Challenge）	破壊王の陰謀
10		海底の罠
11		戦慄の海悪魔
12		破壊王の謎
13	輝く星々の彼方へ！ （The Quest beyond the Stars）	惑星に空気がなくなるとき
14		悲劇の暗黒星
15		見張りのおきて
16		甦える惑星
17	透明惑星危機一髪！ （The Magician of Mars）	ウル・クォルンの挑戦
18		暗闇族のすむ地底
19		惑星ただ一人
20		透明惑星の幻人間
21	太陽系七つの秘宝 （Captain Future and the Seven Space Stones）	銀河に眠る神秘の石
22		銀河サーカスの死闘
23		キャプテンフューチャー死す！
24		未知のミクロ宇宙
25	暗黒星大接近！ （Calling Captain Future）	渦巻く墓標
26		吠える大氷流
27		怪獣狩人は語る
28		幻の星、幻の文明
29	宇宙囚人船の反乱 （The Face of the Deep）	囚人船ハイジャックさる！
30		銀河からの大脱走
31		ゼロからの出発
32		星くずのスペースマン
33	魔法の月の決闘 （The Magic Moon）	キャプテンフューチャー募集！
34		恐怖のスペース・ロケーション
35		幻影の惑星
36		放たれた最終兵器
37	彗星王の陰謀 （The Comet King）	消えた宇宙船
38		彗星の支配者
39		アルルスの正体
40		悪夢の世界・四次元
41	脅威！不死密売団 （The Triumph of Captain Future）	不死密売シンジケート
42		不死帝王の挑戦
43		生と死の幻影
44		永遠の都の決斗
45	惑星タラスト救出せよ！ （Planets in Peril）	よみがえれ伝説の英雄
46		グラッグ奪回作戦
47		ひとりぼっちの地獄刑
48		英雄カフールの謎
49	人工進化の秘密！ （The Star of Dread）	宇宙遺跡の謎
50		半獣人の謎
51		死都の対決
52		光と闇の彼方へ

"The Death of Captain Future"

The Death of Captain Future (Asimov's Science Fiction, October 1995) is a novella by Allen Steele about a man named Bo McKinnon who collects "ancient pulp magazines" and acts out an elaborate fantasy life based on the Captain Future stories. It won the 1996 Hugo Award for Best Novella. In the story, as in the real world, Captain Future is a fictional pulp character. The Exile of Evening Star (Asimov's Science Fiction, January 1999) continues and concludes the storyline; it includes many quotes from the original magazine novels.

Steele's novel Avengers of the Moon (2017) features Captain Future as its protagonist, and has all the main characters from the original pulp fiction stories.^[8]

Feature film

In March 2010, it was announced that German Director Christian Alvart (Pandorum, Case 39) secured the film rights for Captain Future and is working on a live-action adaptation in 3D.^[9]

In 2015, a short trailer of a CGI version of Captain Future by Prophecy FX was leaked.^[10] The trailer was said to be a study for a yet-undisclosed project. In March 2016, Chris Alvart confirmed in an interview on a RocketBeansTV podcast to have acquired the design rights from TOEI Animation so that the movie will have the look and feel of the animated series.^[11]

Other appearances

• The Japanese TV series Captain Ultra, a placeholder series between two actual Ultraman series, was more or less a live-action adaptation of the Captain Future series (which has remained popular in Japan as well). The characters were all present, even if the names were changed.
• In the TV series The Big Bang Theory, a Captain Future magazine cover is featured as a wall poster beside the entrance door in Leonard's and Sheldon's apartment.
• Also, in Cat Planet Cuties, Episode 9 features a well known song from the anime television series of Captain Future. The Cat Planet Cuties series is now being dubbed to English.^[12]
• In the Pre-Crisis DC Comics, a character named Edmond Hamilton was featured as a minor adversary of Superman. This character, as a result of his homonymy with the science fiction author and his most famous work, took up the identity of Colonel Future and ended up battling Superman despite having heroic intentions.^[13] This character is a homage to the real Edmond Hamilton and his work in DC Comics.

See also

• Captain Comet

References

1. ^ Allan Steele, The Death of Captain Future (with introduction and author's note) in The Space Opera Renaissance, ed. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, 2006, p.556-586
2. ^ Hamilton, Edmond. "An Inside Look at Captain Future". pulpgen.com. Estep, Larry.
3. ^ Harmony Gold, "Captain Future - Special Agents and Alien Cut-Throats", VHS cassette, runtime approx. 94 min.
4. ^ "CF BluRay Box Release Dates". The Fandom Post. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
5. ^ "Captain Future Komplettbox BD". Universum Film. Retrieved February, 2017.
6. ^ "Le Site du Capitaine Flam - Captain Future". Capitaineflam.free.fr. Retrieved 2010-11-05.
7. ^ "The Final". swisscharts.com.
8. ^ Steele, Allen (2017). Avengers of the Moon: A Captain Future Novel. NY: Tor. ISBN 9780765382184.
9. ^ "Exclusive: Pandorum's Christian Alvart talks Captain Future adaptation". quietearth.us. Quiet Earth.
10. ^ "Project FX feature trailer". mobilegeeks.de (in German). 2015-07-27.
11. ^ Alvart, Christian (March 17, 2016). "#104 Christian Alvart". Kino+ (Interview) (in German). RocketBeansTV. rocketbeans.tv. Retrieved April 29, 2016.
12. ^ "Manga Entertainment Announcements at London MCM Expo Including Wolf Children (Updated)". Anime News Network. 27 October 2012. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
13. ^ Superman #378 (December 1982) and #399 (September 1984)

External links

• The Site of Captain Future (in French)
• Haffner Press, publisher of The Collected Captain Future hardcover books
• Edmond Hamilton on Captain Future
• Robert Weinberg's Captain Future page
• Futuremania, The Captain Future Fan Site (in German)
• Captain Future bibliography at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Captain Future (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Captain Future Convention 2010 (in Japanese)

1978 in anime

The events of 1978 in anime.

Allen Steele

Allen Mulherin Steele, Jr. (born January 19, 1958) is an American journalist and science fiction author.

American Eagle (Standard Comics)

The American Eagle is a fictional superhero from the Golden Age of Comics. He first appeared in Exciting Comics #22 (cover-dated Oct. 1941), published by the Standard Comics imprint, Nedor Comics. American Eagle was revived by two others comics publishers: first AC Comics, and then by America's Best Comics, by writer Alan Moore as part of his Tom Strong comics and its spinoff Terra Obscura.

Captain Future (Nedor Comics)

Captain Future is a fictional superhero character (not to be confused with the pulp magazine character of the same name) who first appeared in Startling Comics #1 (June, 1940) from Nedor Comics.

Captain Future (magazine)

Captain Future was a science fiction pulp magazine launched in 1940 by Better Publications, and edited initially by Mort Weisinger. It featured the adventures of Captain Future, a super-scientist whose real name was Curt Newton, in every issue. All but two of the novels in the magazine were written by Edmond Hamilton; the other two were by Joseph Samachson. The magazine also published other stories that had nothing to do with the title character, including Fredric Brown's first science fiction sale, "Not Yet the End". Captain Future published unabashed space opera, and was, in the words of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, "perhaps the most juvenile" of the science fiction pulps to appear in the early years of World War II. Wartime paper shortages eventually led to the magazine's cancellation: the last issue was dated Spring 1944.

Captain Ultra (TV series)

Captain Ultra (キャプテンウルトラ, Kyaputen Urutora) is the titular intergalactic hero of a pulp-style tokusatsu science fiction space adventure television series titled Space Tokusatsu Series: Captain Ultra (宇宙特撮シリーズ キャプテンウルトラ, Uchū Tokusatsu Shirīzu: Kyaputen Urutora). Produced by Toei Company Ltd., the series aired on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) from April 16 to September 24, 1967, with a total of 24 episodes.

This series is based very loosely on Captain Future, the pulp science fiction saga created by the influential Edmond Hamilton. This was not the only time his work was adapted in Japan: Captain Future was officially adapted into an anime series by Toei Doga in 1978, and that same year, Tsuburaya Productions adapted his Starwolf novels into a tokusatsu sci-fi action series of the same title.

Originally, this series was aired by Tokyo Broadcasting System right after the end of the original Ultraman show to serve as a filler series to while Tsuburaya Productions geared up for the production of Ultra Seven. So only 24 episodes of Captain Ultra were ordered by the network. So, the week following the conclusion of Captain Ultra, Ultra Seven premiered on TBS. Still, while short-lived, the series has been released in Japan on all of the major home video formats since the 1980s: VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD, and in 2005, a tankōbon of the original serialized manga、illustrated by Shunji Obata, was published by Manga Shop.

Captain Ultra is among the more memorable tokusatsu series from the 1960s, and was one of the three cornerstones of Toei's programs of 1967, including Akakage and Giant Robo (better known in the US as Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot). Some Japanese fans also compare the looks of Captain Ultra to that of Captain Scarlet, the title hero of Sylvia and Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (which had been shown in Japan around the same time and was very popular).

Christian Alvart

Christian Alvart (born 28 May 1974 in Jugenheim) is a German filmmaker and screenwriter.

Prior to working in the film business Christian Alvart worked in various positions, most recently as a senior editor at Filmmagzin X-TRO. In 1999 he made his debut as a film director with the thriller Curiosity & the Cat, for which he also wrote the screenplay. His next film was the thriller Antibodies. Pandorum was Alvart's first Hollywood movie. His latest film was Case 39, in which Renée Zellweger played the lead role.

In March 2010 it was announced that Christian Alvart secured the film rights for Captain Future and is working on a live-action adaptation in 3D.

Cimon (robot)

Cimon or officially CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile companion) is a head-shaped AI robot used in the International Space Station.

The device is "an AI-based assistant for astronauts" developed by Airbus and IBM, with funding from the German Aerospace Center.

The device is modelled after the character of Professor Simon Wright, "the flying brain," from the anime series Captain Future. Cimon runs on Ubuntu.

Deneb in fiction

The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in much science fiction.

Edmond Hamilton

Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century.

Fantastic Story Quarterly

Fantastic Story Quarterly was a pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1955 by Best Books, a subsidiary imprint of Standard Magazines. The name was changed with the Summer 1951 issue to Fantastic Story Magazine. It was launched to reprint stories from the early years of the science fiction pulp magazines, and was initially intended to carry no new fiction, though in the end every issue contained at least one new story. It was sufficiently successful for Standard to launch Wonder Story Annual as a vehicle for more science fiction reprints, but the success did not last. In 1955 it was merged with Standard's Startling Stories. Original fiction in Fantastic Story included Gordon R. Dickson's first sale, "Trespass", and stories by Walter M. Miller and Richard Matheson.

Manly Wade Wellman

Manly Wade Wellman (May 21, 1903 – April 5, 1986) was an American writer.

While his science fiction and fantasy stories appeared in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, Wellman is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales, and for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains, which draw on the native folklore of that region. Karl Edward Wagner referred to him as "the dean of fantasy writers." Wellman also wrote in a wide variety of other genres, including historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction, and non-fiction.

Wellman was a long-time resident of North Carolina. He received many awards, including the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award. In 2013, the North Carolina Speculative Fiction Foundation inaugurated an award named after him to honor other North Carolina authors of science fiction and fantasy.

Three of Wellman's most famous recurring protagonists are (1) John, a.k.a. John the Balladeer, a.k.a. "Silver John", a wandering backwoods minstrel with a silver-stringed guitar, (2) the elderly "occult detective" Judge Pursuivant, and (3) John Thunstone, also an occult investigator.

Neptune in fiction

The planet Neptune has been used as a reference and setting in various films and works of fiction:

In H. G. Wells's short story The Star, Neptune is destroyed in a collision with another supermassive object which reduces its orbital velocity to zero; the wreckage falls into the Sun, narrowly missing Earth.

In the Captain Future series, Neptune is portrayed as a sea planet, not out of any scientific theory but evidently because Neptune is the Roman sea god.

In Olaf Stapledon's 1930 epic novel Last and First Men, Neptune is the final home of the highly evolved human race. The planet is depicted as having a dense atmosphere but with a solid surface.

In Hugh Walters' 1968 novel Nearly Neptune, the first manned expedition to Neptune ends in apparent disaster as a fire destroys vital equipment on board the spacecraft as it nears the planet.

The majority of the 1997 science fiction horror film Event Horizon takes place in orbit around Neptune with the eponymous space ship Event Horizon reappearing in a decaying orbit around Neptune after a seven year disappearance.

In Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Neptune is the setting for the multiplayer map, Frontier, which takes place on a space station orbiting the planet.

The humorous short story, "The Elephants on Neptune" by Mike Resnick, was published in Asimov's Science Fiction, and was nominated for both a Hugo and a Nebula award (2001).

The pilot of the TV movie Virtuality centers around a starship preparing to make a flyby of Neptune before leaving the solar system.

The Star Trek: Enterprise pilot episode “Broken Bow” briefly mentions Neptune, with Jonathan Archer saying that at Warp 4.5 speed, it is possible to fly to “Neptune and back [to Earth] in six minutes.”

In the point and click game Anastronaut: The Moon Hopper, the player visits the planet Neptune in a future setting.

In the anime series Sailor Moon, one of the supporting characters is named Sailor Neptune; she is also known as Michiru Kaioh (Michelle in English dub). She fights along with the other Outer Senshi for the Moon Kingdom and protect the Solar System from outside enemies. She carries a talisman known as Deep Aqua Mirror and her powers are based in deep water.

In the cartoon series Futurama, the character Robot Santa Claus has his heavily fortified home base on the north pole of Neptune.

In The Fairly OddParents episode "Wishology! Part 3: The Final Ending," Poof went to Neptune to make a magic wand.

The Doctor Who episode "Sleep No More" is set on a space station orbiting Neptune.

In the Hyperdimension Neptunia video game series, Neptune is the goddess of the nation known as Planeptune.

The French comics Les Fantômes de Neptune (2015), by Valp is a steampunk adventure. The stories begin on Europa, a moon of Jupiter, and continue on Neptune.

Pulp magazine

Pulp magazines (often referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the 1950s. The term pulp derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges.

The pulps gave rise to the term pulp fiction in reference to run-of-the-mill, low-quality literature. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century. Although many respected writers wrote for pulps, the magazines were best known for their lurid, exploitative, and sensational subject matter. Modern superhero comic books are sometimes considered descendants of "hero pulps"; pulp magazines often featured illustrated novel-length stories of heroic characters, such as Flash Gordon, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and The Phantom Detective.

Standard Comics

Standard Comics was a comic book imprint of American publisher Ned Pines, who also published pulp magazines (under a variety of company names that he also used for the comics) and paperback books (under the Popular Library name). Standard in turn was the parent company of two comic-book lines: Better and Nedor Publishing Collectors and historians sometimes refer to them collectively as "Standard/Better/Nedor".

Startling Stories

Startling Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published from 1939 to 1955 by publisher Ned Pines' Standard Magazines. It was initially edited by Mort Weisinger, who was also the editor of Thrilling Wonder Stories, Standard's other science fiction title. Startling ran a lead novel in every issue; the first was The Black Flame by Stanley G. Weinbaum. When Standard Magazines acquired Thrilling Wonder in 1936, it also gained the rights to stories published in that magazine's predecessor, Wonder Stories, and selections from this early material were reprinted in Startling as "Hall of Fame" stories. Under Weisinger the magazine focused on younger readers and, when Weisinger was replaced by Oscar J. Friend in 1941, the magazine became even more juvenile in focus, with clichéd cover art and letters answered by a "Sergeant Saturn". Friend was replaced by Sam Merwin, Jr. in 1945, and Merwin was able to improve the quality of the fiction substantially, publishing Arthur C. Clarke's Against the Fall of Night, and several other well-received stories.

Much of Startling's cover art was painted by Earle K. Bergey, who became strongly associated with the magazine, painting almost every cover between 1940 and 1952. He was known for equipping his heroines with brass bras and implausible costumes, and the public image of science fiction in his day was partly created by his work for Startling and other magazines. Merwin left in 1951, and Samuel Mines took over; the standard remained fairly high but competition from new and better-paying markets such as Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction impaired Mines' ability to acquire quality material. In mid-1952, Standard attempted to change Startling's image by adopting a more sober title typeface and reducing the sensationalism of the covers, but by 1955 the pulp magazine market was collapsing. Startling absorbed its two companion magazines, Thrilling Wonder and Fantastic Story Magazine, in early 1955, but by the end of that year it too ceased publication.

Ron Hanna of Wild Cat Books revived Startling Stories in 2007. Wild Cat Books folded in 2013. A statement of the closure is still posted on the Facebook page All Pulp dated March 12, 2013 (as of January 29, 2019).

Tomoharu Katsumata

Tomoharu Katsumata (勝間田 具治, Katsumata Tomoharu, born in February 4, 1938 in Shimoda, Shizuoka, Japan) is a Japanese film director best known for his work on various anime works. A leading director at the Toei Animation studio during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, Katsumata worked as a director on several of Toei's anime television adaptations of manga by Go Nagai, including Devilman (1972), Mazinger Z (1972), Cutey Honey (1973), Great Mazinger (1974), UFO Robo Grendizer (1975) and Gaiking (1976) (both Grendizer and Gaiking became later part of Jim Terry's Force Five package on U.S. television). Katsumata also directed a TV adaptation of Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin in 1986.

Katsumata graduated from Nippon University's film school in 1960 and began working with the Kyoto division of the Toei Company that same year as an assistant director to Masahiro Makino, Eiichi Kudo, Tomotaka Tasaka on his samurai dramas. After a few years, Katsumata moved to Toei Doga (Toei Animation) in Tokyo, working as a director on some of Toei's early television series, including Ken the Wolf Boy (1963), the original Cyborg 009 anime (1968) and Tiger Mask (1970).Among Katsumata's other credits for Toei as a director include the TV series Captain Future (1978), Fist of the North Star (1984) and OVA series Saint Seiya: Hades (2005, episodes 14 to 31), and the feature films Mazinger Z vs. Devilman (1973), The Little Mermaid (Anderusen Douwa Ningyo Hime, 1975), and Arcadia of My Youth (1982), New Attacker You (続・アタッカーYOU　金メダルへの道 Zoku atakkā YOU- kin medaru e no michi?) in 2008.

Wonder Story Annual

Wonder Story Annual was a science fiction pulp magazine which was launched in 1950 by Standard Magazines. It was created as a vehicle to reprint stories from early issues of Wonder Stories, Startling Stories, and Wonder Stories Quarterly, which were owned by the same publisher. It lasted for four issues, succumbing in 1953 to competition from the growing market for paperback science fiction. Reprinted stories included Twice in Time, by Manly Wade Wellman, and "The Brain-Stealers of Mars", by John W. Campbell.

Yuji Ohno

Yuji Ohno (大野 雄二, Ōno Yūji, born 30 May 1941 in Atami, Shizuoka, Japan) is a Japanese jazz musician. Ohno is known for his musical scoring of Japanese anime television series, particularly Lupin III, and most famously the 1977 series Lupin III Part II and the feature film The Castle of Cagliostro. Later anime series scored by Ohno include Shingu: Secret of the Stellar Wars, the 1979 Toei series Captain Future (known as Capitaine Flam in France) and the 1982 series Space Adventure Cobra. He has composed scores for live-action films, namely Toei's tokusatsu series Seiun Kamen Machineman, his only work on this genre to date.

Ohno is also a member of a jazz trio with Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous and American drummer Lenny White.