Captain Nemo (his name is an obvious alias, Latin for 'no one') was a 19th adventurer, inventor and pirate, commander of the submarine Nautilus. Certain of his exploits were chronicled by Jules Verne in the novels 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and The Mysterious Island. His exact identity is a matter of some dispute, especially since Verne's two works contradict one another in terms of chronology. The latter specifically says he is an Indian prince named Dakkar, said to be a major figure in the Sepoy Rebellion.
Philip José Farmer, following the theory of Professor H.W. Starr, identified Captain Nemo as an earlier pseudonym of Professor Moriarty in his novel The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. Rick Lai, in his article The Secret History of Captain Nemo, proposed that both Moriarty and Dakkar had sailed as Captain Nemo, being the basis for Verne's character in the first and second novels respectively.
Later scholars have postulated other candidates for the identity of Captain Nemo, or leastways that others have used the same identity and modus operandi. Notably, the backstory of the DC Comics superhero Neptune Perkins has Perkins as the grandson of Arthur Gordon Pym whom it is revealed did not die at the South Pole as per Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative but instead survived to use the power of Vril to power a Nautilus of his own.
A version of Captain Nemo plainly based on Prince Dakkar is one of the main characters in Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comics series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. An independent backstory has developed for the character over the various runs of the comic.
Wold Newton Scholar Win Scott Eckert identified Captain Nemo as the grandfather of Napoleon Solo in his article The Amazing Lanes, some time before he discovered that David McDaniel's unpublished Man from UNCLE novel The Final Affair implies that Solo's "real" name is Andante Nemo!
External Links
- Wikipedia article on Captain Nemo
- The Secret History of Captain Nemo by Rick Lai (original version)
- The Captain Nemo/Professor Moriarty Confusion by Michael D. Winkle
- "The Amazing Lanes" by Win Scott Eckert
- "The Original Wold Newton Crossover Chronology" by Win Scott Eckert (see entry for "The Final Affair")