The Original Captain N

Captain N was based on the short story designed for Nintendo Power, as created by the editor of the magazine at the time.

The original Captain Nintendo was quite different from what you saw on TV.

Back in the early days of Nintendo, there was talk of Nintendo looking for a new mascot character with a bit more pizzazz than their current main plumber. They were looking for a super hero. So the editor, a comic book fan himself (known as "the captain"), set to work on designing the character on his own time.

The problem with creating a spokesperson super hero is that it involves much more thought than your average superhero. You have to focus as much on advertising as you do on super heroics. The character has to be a symbol and reflection of the company as much as they are a symbol of justice.

Also, "The Captain," having read any of the letters sent into Nintendo Power, was very well versed in the ideas people had and what they wanted to see in their games. Also, people seemed to be quite interested in Nintendo as a company. With that in mind, Captain Nintendo was given the job of a videogame designer for Nintendo.

There's only so many ways you could become a super hero back then, in the days before mutants and the X-men. Radiation and being from another planet were the main two, but there was a third option: being magically transformed.

--The source of his powers came from special microchips that came from an island steeped in voodoo and magic. Not just any microchips, mind you, but biometric microchips that were in part made up of living biogenetic tissue.-- "The Captain" taken from NESplayer.com

Captain Nintendo's powers were quite a bit different from Captain N's power set. Instead of the zapper and power pad, Captain Nintendo could either enter the world of the videogame characters or bring them out into the real world where he was from. This was done as an easy way to promote the games; Captain Nintendo could just enter or pull out the characters from any game the development team wanted to push.

Also, Captain Nintendo's weakness reflected marketing purposes as well. Like NES cartridges, he was vulnerable to extreme heat and had an allergy to dust. This was added in effort to show the consumers how to better care for their game cartridges.

As any comic fan knows, you're only as good as the villains you fight, so, Captain Nintendo needed an enemy. One that he could beat, but one that would still prove to be a challenge.

He got Mother Brain.

When Captain Nintendo acquired his powers, he was playing Metroid, and the game microchips that gave him his abilities pulled Mother Brain into the real world as well. Like Captain Nintendo, she gained the ability to enter or pull villains out. The twist here was that she could control them. Also, unlike the cartoon Mother Brain, this version was ruthless and programmed for nothing other than conquering.

With Captain Nintendo designed, it was submitted to the "the Captain's" boss for approval.

And here came the first changes.

While she could see the value of the story, there were certain things she wasn't fond of.

Captain Nintendo's girlfriend needed to be a much stronger character, smarter, and equal to the hero. She even pushed for the girl to be given powers as well (she wasn't). She needed to be somebody that didn't need to be saved, despite that most girls in games back then were damsels in distress.

While she insisted on a stronger female character, she seemed to also want Captain Nintendo himself to be much weaker.

“Make him a janitor instead of a game technician.”

"Make him ugly."

"Make him an unpopular computer geek."

Eventually, the story was published with a stronger female character, but still one that needed to be saved (like everybody else).

Also, as a tribute to "The Captain's" boss, she was named Tara Bates.

Tara, after the home of Scarlett O’Hara (who "The Captain" considered the bitchiest character of all time) and Bates as the last name of Norman Bates (and, I'd like to point out, neither are a relation to me).

Despite the almost overwhelming positive response, "the Captain's" boss refused to run any more Captain Nintendo stories, saying that readers would have rather seen the magazine space devoted to tips and reviews.

With that, "The Captain" took the character and story idea to the marketing department. After a few errors on "The Captain's" part, the character ended up taken completely out of his hands and handed over to DiC.

That's where the character changed from Captain Nintendo to Captain N, Got a dog, changed powers, became a teenager, etc etc.

But by that point, "the Captain" had already lost control and was no way involved with what aired on TV.