2008-06-19 The origin of Captain Britain

As one observant reviewer writes below this book contains the Captain Britain tales from the first 23 issues of the early British Marvel title of that same name. There is no Alan Moore or Alan Davis input here, those reviews have been either incorrectly transposed or wrongly written.
The tales gathered here were written c. 1976/1977 by Marvel greats Chris Claremont and Gary Friedrich and mainly drawn by Herb Trimpe. The stories are fast paced, mainly due to the fact they came in 7 or 8 page chunks to tie in with the alloted space in each issue. Space was limited as these tales ran alongside re-runs of The Fantastic Four and Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD.
The origin, shrouded in Arthurian mystery with a Merlin figure giving Brian Braddock a new role as a hero to protect the British people. It does not seem clear what his powers are at first as both Hurricane and Dr. Synne manage to give him a good hiding.
His limited powers are assisted by his quarter-staff which has a series of buttons which can be used as a weapon or create a force field; it can also be used to clout someone on the head. He defeats Dr. Synne with assistance from a totally unexpected helper.
The last series of tales here bring in Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D., its British equivalent S.T.R.I.K.E. and Captain America, who realises Captain Britain may be more powerful than he thinks. The Captains get together to take on the menace of the Red Skull which is the highlight of this book. It may seem odd that they have chosen to end with a cliffhanger with London under threat from the Skull as the allies close in on him but #23 was a water-shed for the title.
Included are a copy of the Captain Britain mask that came with the first magazine but not his boomerang (er!) that came in the second issue. Another offbeat gimmick was a black & white page in some issues for fans to colour in themselves, if you liked that idea then buy volume 2 and get your crayons ready as budget cuts meant it was all printed in black & white from issue 24 onward.
That aside these comics were great buys at the time at just 10p and offered original material alongside the American Marvel repeats.
It's well worth 4 stars as we see the start of something great here and it introduces Betsy Braddock and sees Insp. Kate Fraser return. It also sees the PM at that time James Callaghan involved in a heroic role, "Sunny Jim" indeed.