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[Captain Speed]
Real Name: Harry Christos
Alter Egos: Jack B. Quick, Johnny Quick
Group Affiliation: The Justifiers (a.k.a. the Assemblers)
Base of Operations: New York on Angor
First Appearance: Justice League of America #87 (1971)
Death: Radiation poisoning after his world’s nuclear destruction
See Also: Quicksilver, The Whizzer

In another dimension—one not unlike that chronicled by Marvel Comics—there was a team variously called the Justifiers or the Assemblers (essentially the Avengers, with Captain Speed analogous to Quicksilver). As one of its members later said, “We fought all the bad guys they could throw at us, one at a time. We always won. We had fun. We spent a lot of time posing for the press.”

Eventually a group of ruthless villains calling themselves the Extremists took control of the world’s nuclear weapons, holding the entire world hostage. The Assemblers came to Earth looking for help, but the JLA mistook them for villains. By the time they returned, it was too late. Captain Speed had survived the devastation, but died of radiation poisoning soon after.

Only their leader Wandjina, the Silver Sorceress and Blue Jay survived. The three of them traveled from world to world, hoping to stop the threat that had destroyed their own, until they came once again to Earth, and Wandjina sacrificed himself to stop a disaster at a nuclear power plant. Blue Jay and Silver Sorceress became pawns in American-Russian politics for a while before joining the Justice League.

Text by Kelson Vibber. Do not copy without permission.

Top of Page Primary Sources

  • “The Extremist Vector Part 2: Conquest” - Justice League Europe #16 (July 1990), Keith Giffen & Gerard Jones
  • “When You Wish” - Justice League Quarterly #3 (Summer 1991), Keith Giffen & Gerard Jones

Art

  • Justice League Europe #16 (July 1990) - Bart Sears & Randy Elliot

The Full Story

  • Justice League of America #87 (February 1971): “Batman—King of the World,” Mike Friedrich & Dick Dillin
  • Justice League America #2–3 (June–July 1987): “Make War No More!” & “Meltdown,” Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
  • Justice League Europe #15–19 (June–October 1990): “The Extremist Vector,” Keith Giffen & Gerard Jones
  • Justice League Quarterly #3 (1991): “When You Wish,” Keith Giffen & Gerard Jones

Notes

In the early 1970s, Marvel and DC each created homages to each others’ flagship superhero teams, the JLA and the Avengers. DC’s version of the Avengers disappeared for fifteen years, then showed up as secondary characters in the late 1980s Justice League series. Marvel’s version of the JLA, the Squadron Supreme, enjoyed further success in its own right.

After Infinite Crisis, DC re-imagined the Marvel-like world of Angor as Earth-8. This world was further explored in the miniseries, Countdown Presents: Lord Havok and the Extremists (2007–2008). As of issue 3, an analogue of Quicksilver has not yet appeared... but an alternate Flash has.