If there’s anything I like better than an obscure superhero, it’s an obscure superhero who’s a pastiche of an already obscure superhero.
Commando D was writer/publisher Bill Black’s nod to the Jack Kirby and Joe Simon one-shot wonder Captain 3-D, created to cash in on the short-lived “three-dimensional” movie and comic book craze of the early 1950s.
Although Superman, Batman, Mighty Mouse, Felix the Cat, and the Jungle Queen Sheena had their own 3-D titles in 1953, only Captain 3-D was created specifically with that gimmick in mind. He had dimensionality built into his very concept.
Appearing in an eponymous title for Harvey Comics, Captain 3-D is the last survivor of an extradimensional race, placed into a book by Professor Five during an invasion by cat people. The volume falls into the hands of young Danny Davis, who can summon Captain 3-D from its pages when cat-like aliens threaten our own planet. A “great force from the invisible 4th dimension,” channeled through his belt, gives Captain 3-D the power of flight.
While the original Captain 3-D faced feline foes, Commando D fought an invasion of lizard people. He’s Page Connors “…a denizen of Altran, the capital of the tech-state Altrannas on the planet Amonn,” recalled comics historian Jeff Rovin.
There, the lizard-like beings of Vardax Prime are the threat. Dr. Zan, a mortally wounded scientist, “…places Connors in a dimensional converter so that he, no longer restricted by height, width and depth, can ‘transfer from one dimensional plane to another… pass impenetrable steel.’ Time, too, no longer represents a barrier.”
Young Danny Brant controls access to Commando D through a crystal ring, calling him forth when lizard men disguised as human beings require a good trouncing.
Roy Thomas offered his own affectionate homage to Captain 3-D — 3-D Man— for Marvel Premiere 35 (April 1977).
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