Captain Midnight (later rebranded on television as Jet Jackson, Flying Commando) is an American adventure franchise first broadcast as a radio serial from 1938 to 1949.

The character's popularity throughout the 1940s and into the mid-1950s extended to serial films (1942), a television show (1954–1956), a syndicated newspaper strip (1942 – late 1940s), and a comic book title (1942–1948).

[4] When the U.S. Government broke up the NBC Red and Blue Networks, Ovaltine moved the series back to Mutual, beginning September 1945, where it remained until December 1949.

When the show was taken over by Ovaltine, the origin story explained how Albright was recruited to head the Secret Squadron, an aviation-oriented paramilitary organization fighting sabotage and espionage during the period prior to the United States' entry into World War II.

When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, which curiously was foreshadowed in the program, the show shifted the Secret Squadron's duties to fight the more unconventional aspects of the war.

Popular actor-stunt man Dave O'Brien had the title role in the Columbia Pictures 15-episode serial Captain Midnight (1942).

The serial was later aired (one chapter per week) on select TV stations in the fall of 1953 and early 1954, under the title Captain Midnight's Adventure Theatre.

The Captain Midnight TV series, produced by Screen Gems and starring Richard Webb, began September 9, 1954, on CBS, continuing for 39 episodes until January 21, 1956.

In the television program, Captain Midnight (now a veteran of the Korean War) heads the Secret Squadron as a private organization, in contrast to the radio show.

The aircraft featured in the series is the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket, named the Silver Dart, and was based on using both models and occasionally stock footage.

Viewers could send away for a special decoder device and membership kit by including the inner wax seal from a jar of Ovaltine to "Capt.

Some episodes included movie actors such as Frank Lacteen, Sally Fraser, Harry Lauter, I. Stanford Jolley, Mel Welles, Byron Foulger, Shelley Fabares, Buddy Baer and others.

In the strip, Captain Midnight was referred to as "an unofficial fighter for freedom," which is at variance from the radio show, where the Secret Squadron was set up by a high governmental official ("Mr. Jones"), which the hero was recruited to head (unless, of course, "unofficial" meant, in the modern pop-culture sense, "subject to official disavowal if caught or killed on a politically sensitive mission").

Captain Midnight in the comic wore a skintight scarlet suit and used an array of gizmos like Doctor Mid-Nite which released clouds of blinding darkness, the infra-red "Doom-Beam Torch" which he used to burn his emblem into walls and unlucky villains, and a "Gliderchute" (similar to the flying Wingsuit) attached to the sides of his costume.

[11] In 2010, Moonstone Books' revival of the Hillman Periodicals 1940s title Air Fighters Comics published its issue #1, which included a new Captain Midnight story.

In 2012, Dark Horse Comics reintroduced the character, with a three-part story written by Joshua Williamson with art by Victor Ibañez and Pere Pérez.