Origin
âRambling’ Sid Ridley, as Captain Midlands, is the English equivalent of Captain America. Under the Super Soldier program of the early 1940s his strength, stamina and agility was increased to the peak of human fitness. This allowed him to fight as a British super soldier during WW2. Unlike Captain America, Captain Midlands was not frozen or preserved in time and therefore has aged accordingly. Somewhere in his 80s he still posses his superhuman abilities but has the aged body of a pensioner.
The history of his life is largely unknown but he was married to a woman named Nancy who died in 1963. This was Captain Midlands’ greatest loss and when offered his hearts desire by the Duke of Hell known as Plokta his wish was to live happily with her.
Creation
Captain Midlands was created by Paul Cornell and Trevor Hairsine and first appeared in Wisdom issue 1 (2007).
Major Story Arcs
With Wisdom
He fought as one of Pete Wisdom’s team in MI-13 which deals with “Weird Happenings” and other out-of-the-ordinary events that threaten the UK and the world. As part of the team he has lead an assault on the Fairy King of Otherworld after he had kidnapped the child of a cabinet minister and sent fairies to attack our world. He was also responsible for stopping the sleeping giant Pantagruel after she was awakened in the British countryside. He did this by convincing her that she was destroying the country and hurting innocents. During his time on the team he also fought multiple-dimensional Jack the Rippers and on a separate occasion defended England and the earth from Martian invaders.
Secret Invasion
After the Skrull invasion of earth, Sid spent his time protecting the innocent citizens of Britain from less paranormal things such as drug smugglers. On one such drug bust in Birmingham he stumbled across Plokta, the Duke of hell’s base of operations for taking over Britain and the World. Captain Midlands fought the mindless ones but was overpowered by them. He sent out a distress call to Pete Wisdom and his current MI-13 team bringing them to Plokta’s base to save him. When they found Sid he tricked them into entering the dream corridor which trapped them and used their magical energies to create more mindless ones to attack earth. Sid had been working for Plokta since he was captured by the mindless ones and offered his heart’s desire; his long dead wife Nancy. Pete Wisdom destroyed Sid’s fantasy and MI-13 escaped from the dream corridor to defeat Plokta. They took Sid with them where he was declared a traitor and put in maximum security prison to await trial. Before the trial Wisdom visited Sid in his cell and gave him a gun so that he could shoot himself rather than go through a trial for treason.