Gardner was a lieutenant in the U.S. Marines who turned to crimefighting when it became a rage in the late 1930s. He began correspondence with the first Silk Spectre (Sally Jupiter) and her agent, Laurence Schexnayder. The result was the publicity and notoriety of the Minutemen in 1939.

He enjoyed the sense of being a leader, but how effective he was as any kind of a leader is questionable. After the Minutemen dissolved and the younger generation of vigilantes came on the scene, he attempted to form a new "justice fraternity"--"The Crimebusters"--but it never happened due to the Comedian's disheartening appraisal of such a "trivial" endeavor in the era of Cold War politics, government corruption, and the real threat of nuclear holocaust.

Gardner was racially prejudiced against blacks and hispanics. He vehemently opposed anti-war protests during the Vietnam War and attacked the so-called drug culture. His letters to the remaining members of Minutemen suggest he was homosexual, possibly in an affair with Hooded Justice and jealous over "all the boys" Hooded Justice "cavorted with."

Captain Metropolis was decapitated in a car crash in 1974.

Captain Metropolis, 1966