Captain Strong is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

; he was created as a parody of Popeye

Popeye

Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929...

.

Publishing history

First appearing in Action Comics

Action Comics

Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...

#421 (February, 1973), Captain Horatio Strong was created by writer Cary Bates

Cary Bates

Cary Bates is an American comic book, animation television and film writer.-Biography:Bates began submitting ideas for comic book covers to DC Comics at the age of 13, and a number of them were bought and published, the first as the cover to Superman #167...

, who had wanted to see what would happen if Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

 and Popeye (or a reasonable proxy of him) were to meet. In the first story, Bates presented a darker side of the famous sailor; the green vegetable that gave him his strength was a drug, making him dangerously irrational as well as superhumanly powerful.

The character was designed to be more realistic-looking than Popeye, but still similar to him in appearance and speech. Other characters who appeared in his stories included his girlfriend Olivia Tallow (a takeoff of Olive Oyl

Olive Oyl

Olive Oyl is a cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar in 1919 for his comic strip Thimble Theatre. The strip was later renamed Popeye after the sailor character that became the most popular member of the cast; however Olive Oyl was a main character for 10 years before Popeye's 1929...

), whom he later married, and his idle rich friend J. Wellington Jones (a knockoff of J. Wellington Wimpy

J. Wellington Wimpy

J. Wellington Wimpy, generally referred to as Wimpy, is one of the characters in the long-running comic strip Popeye, created by E. C. Segar and originally called Thimble Theatre, and in the Popeye cartoons based upon the strip...

). In one story Strong was reunited with his long-lost father, Pappy Strong (a takeoff of Poopdeck Pappy

Poopdeck Pappy

Poopdeck Pappy is a fictional character featured in the Popeye comic strip and animated cartoon spinoffs. Created by E.C. Segar in 1936, the character is Popeye's 99-year-old father.-History:...

).

Captain Strong appeared in five stories from 1973 to 1985, and in one post-Crisis

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a 12-issue American comic book limited series and crossover event, produced by DC Comics in 1985 to simplify its then 50-year-old continuity...

 story (so far):

Issue	Date
Action Comics #421	February, 1973
Action Comics #439	September, 1974
Action Comics #456	February, 1976
Superman #361	July, 1981
Action Comics #566	April, 1985
Green Arrow Green Arrow Green Arrow is a fictional superhero that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. Created by Mort Weisinger and George Papp, he first appeared in More Fun Comics #73 in November 1941. His secret identity is Oliver Queen, billionaire and former mayor of fictional Star City... (vol. 3) #22	May, 2003

Fictional biography

Horatio Strong, captain of The Fantasia, is naturally stronger that most men, but one day he discovered a strange seaweed he called "sauncha," the consumption of which made him superhumanly strong. At first he used his newfound power to do good for others, but the sauncha (which turned out to be of extraterrestrial origin) had unexpected side-effects; it acted like a drug, making its user dangerously irrational and causing severe withdrawal pains. After being stopped by Superman and taken to a hospital, Strong swore off ever using sauncha again, saying that he would only rely on normal vegetables to keep up his strength. Strong became a friend of both Clark Kent and Superman (never realizing they were the same man, of course).