Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Who's Who: Captain Frake

Captain Frake
by Russell & Siskoid


Real Name: Alisia Frake
Super-Power(s): None
Planet of Origin: New Tartuga
Relationship to Legion: Villain and romantic interest

Legion Log
Captain Frake crossed the path of the Legion of Super-Heroes when her pirate ship, the Antares, came across a sole body heading towards it while in deep space. Her crew took the "corpse" aboard, hoping to find credits on him worth stealing. All the pirates were surprised when the corpse turned out to be alive, and fought back against being manhandled. It turned out that the body was the amnesiac Ultra Boy, still recovering from an attack on him by Pulsar Stargrave. Disoriented and having nowhere else to go, Ultra Boy joined the pirate crew.

Captain Frake took an immediate liking to the handsome youth, especially after she verified his strength and invulnerability for herself. At captain's prerogative, Ultra Boy, now called "Seeker" for lack of a better name, became her consort. Armed with the strongest man she had ever met, Captain Frake began to take more risks. When she ordered the Antares to attack inside United Planets territory, this put her on a collision course with the Legion.

Within days, the Legion managed to track the space pirates to their hide-away on the planet New Tartuga. By this time Captain Frake and Ultra Boy were drifting apart, as he had seen glimpses of Phantom Girl and was beginning to remember his love for her. More importantly, he was beginning to remember that he did not approve of robbery and murder.

When Captain Frake attempted to blast the Legion cruiser out of the atmosphere with a laser weapon called the Star Crusher, Ultra Boy stepped in front of the ray and stopped her. The ray appeared to obliterate Ultra Boy, and the ricocheting rays destroyed the whole building. Captain Frake and her entire crew were killed in the resulting explosion.

Captain Frake does not appear in the Reboot or Threeboot.

After Infinite Crisis, Captain Frake's original history has presumably been more or less restored.

Only Captain Frake stories:

Legion of Super-Heroes (v3) #274
Captain Frake makes her debut as she makes a move on an amnesiac Ultra Boy

Legion of Super-Heroes (v3) #275




Captain Frake has eyes on Ultra Boy, the Legion, and murder, in that order

5 comments:

  1. My first Legion stories! Ah good times...

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  2. I want to read her adventures in her own book.

    DC .. take my money!!

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  3. One of the few pieces of Legion original art that I own is the page where Frake pushes and kills the peasant. (I don't have the same aversion to Jimmy Janes' art that some others have.) Thus, I have a soft spot for this story - I was beginning to embrace the Legion fully during this period.

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    1. That's cool! I'm glad we reprinted that page of yours. Jimmy Janes was absolutely adequate. I liked him at the time (better than Joe Staton, whose style just didn't work on the Legion) but after Broderick and Giffen etc came on board, Janes' star waned pretty quickly in my eyes. ;-)

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    2. When I was a young lad, my first exposure to the Legion was the Grell era and Dave Cockrum back issues (or old comics, as we called them).


      And as much as I loved Staton on other comics, I agree, he wasn't a particularly good match with the Legion. And the brilliant Ditko wasn't either on his few issues. So like you, I was primed for Janes. (I also have his Tyroc page from Secrets of the Legion... and I'm actually pretty impressed with how detailed it is.)

      Broderick -- I liked some of his stuff, but preferred him on Firestorm.

      But yeah... the return of Levitz and the coming of Giffen was a TOTAL game changer. The Legion would never be the same.

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