The mysterious, enigmatic and (in my opinion) underused Captain Black was a character and the main foe in the cult kid's show, Captain Scarlet.

A high-ranking Spectrum officer and leader of the first Earth expedition to Mars, Captain Black came across a strange alien-looking complex hidden in a crater on the Martian surface. The beings inside, the Mysterons, a peaceful race, saw the Earth vehicle and decided to have a closer look at it, using their unfortunately-shaped probes.

Quite ignorantly, Captain Black and the jumpy young Lieutenants accompanying him on the mission mistook these probes for mounted armaments, causing Captain Black to order one of the youngsters to fire upon the complex, completely destroying it.

To the surprise of Black and his colleagues, a strange beam started to shine over the remains of the complex, and in a matter of moments it was rebuilt to the same undamaged state it was before the attack. Following this the 'voice of the Mysterons' told Black and his cohorts of their blunder and went on to declare war on Earth, and how one of them would be their main agent on Earth itself.

Suddenly, and quite strangely, Captain Black was a Mysteron, complete with a five o'clock shadow, paler skin and blackened eyes. I say strangely because usually the Mysterons have to kill to add to their number, and I didn't see any dying on Black's part.

Upon his return to Earth, Captain Black immediately went missing, much to the bemusement of Spectrum. Unfortunately this is where Captain Black remained for most episodes of the series, making one or two brief appearances to perform a kidnapping or a shooting, mostly leaving the dirty work to throw-away Mysteron characters who would invariably end up driving off a cliff or suffering some sort of similar fate shortly before the end of that episode. This made Captain Black the only Mysteron character of the show to persist between episodes.