In Stephen King’s novel The Stand, the superflu that devastates the United States is called Captain Trips.
Captain Trips is the common name for a genetically engineered strain of influenza known officially as Project Blue. The virus escapes from a secret military laboratory, spreads rapidly, and kills almost the entire human population in the United States and much of the world.
The nickname gives the catastrophe a memorable cultural identity, while Project Blue identifies its military origin. Readers sometimes answer “the superflu,” which describes the disease but is not its distinctive name in the novel.
The Stand was first published in 1978. King later released an expanded edition in 1990, restoring material removed from the original publication and updating the story’s chronology.