Captain Triumph

[3] When America is drawn into the Second World War, Michael enlists in the U.S. Army Air Corps, becoming a pilot, while Lance "crusaded with his own weapons – the word and pen" by becoming a journalist.

His fiancée, Kim Meredith, and brother Lance witness this act of sabotage, and the latter races into the burning structure, managing to find his badly injured sibling, only for Michael to die in his arms.

Beginning in Crack Comics #46 and ending only with the book's cancellation, Captain Triumph's adventures are penciled and inked for an unbroken 17-issue run by Golden Age great Reed Crandall.

In one adventure, after being kidnapped, she refuses to give her captor any information on Captain Triumph even though she is beaten "…until [her] face is covered with blood and welts and open wounds".

[12] In his fourth appearance, Captain Triumph encounters a down-on-his-luck professional clown named Biff who is on the verge of being fired from his job.

Even though in the aftermath his job as a clown is at least temporarily assured, after being drawn into one of Cap's adventures, and thoroughly enjoying it, Biff readily accepts Lance Gallant's offer to become his personal assistant.

[13][14] Though Lance Gallant is presented as being born into "a middle-class family"[15] and at the time supposedly has as income only his journalist's pay, he has no problem affording a personal, live-in assistant.

[16] According to Jess Nevins' Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, "his enemies include Sydney Greenstreet-like Spade the Ruthless, the mad scientist Dr. Vossburg ("the Man Who Conquered Flame"), the Nazi spy the Raven (and his stolen sonic death grenades), and the unspeaking criminal mastermind known only as Silent".

Though they are presented as being very similar, throughout the series it becomes obvious that Lance is the more thoughtful, and intellectually inclined of the two, while Michael is more the daredevil,[21] witness their differing vocations of journalist and military pilot, respectively.

"[23] When the brothers are separated into two individuals, Michael, as a ghost, can move through walls, spy invisibly and then report back to Lance.

he controls a rat to gnaw through ropes binding Kim[26] and he compels a criminal to not search the hiding place of an important document.

[27] Captain Triumph has the ability to alter his physical appearance, shape and size, and at the same time change his voice, a power that comes in very handy when his adventures require impersonation.

He can also punch through a brick wall,[34] steel bank vault doors[35] and jail bars,[36] and routinely holds his own in physical confrontations against multiple, normal human attackers much larger than he is.

After a foray into other genres such as war, humor, romance and horror, the company ceased operations with comics cover dated December 1956.

[45] Captain Triumph appears in flashback in a small cameo in one issue of Grant Morrison's Animal Man series, fighting the unsuccessful supervillain The Red Mask who describes him - from his not unbiased viewpoint - as possessing "the personality of a deck chair".

Lance tries to confront the fiancé on the matter but is taken over by Michael's ghost, who as Captain Triumph quickly murders the man for his infidelity to his friend.

In it, Lance Gallant has retired as Captain Triumph and is trying to lead a normal life, despite his brother's ghost urging him to become a hero again.

In the end he refuses to listen to his brother's pleas and dies fighting the original Golden Age Robotman as a normal man, defending the Tigress.

[51] James Robinson intended that The Golden Age be canon, and his subsequent series Starman assumed that many of the events in The Golden Age (for instance Ted Knight, the original Starman, having a nervous breakdown after his research was used to help create the atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) actually happened.

Lance Gallant meets his dead brother Michael. Crack Comics #27, art by Alfred Andriola.
The cover to Crack Comics #54, one of only four times the character was shown with light blue jodhpurs; [ 8 ] art by Reed Crandall.
Captain Triumph with his partners in adventure, Kim Meredith and Biff (and another appearance of the light blue jodhpurs). Crack Comics #49, art by Reed Crandall.
The Fates discuss the state of the world, and their newly created champion, Captain Triumph. Crack Comics #28, art by Alfred Andriola.
One of the powers given to Captain Triumph by the Fates is the ability to fly. Crack Comics #47, art by Reed Crandall.