Captain Britain -- Part I
The beginning of the good stuff for Captain Britain begins when Merlin transports him from Otherworld to Earth, but not his Earth. He finds that all the superheroes of this Earth have been killed. He battles a Alice in Wonderland-themed gang called the Crazy Gang, lead by a Mad Jim Jaspers. He meets Saturnyne, who is giving the world a "push" to help it's retarded development. As the push is completed, suddenly everything starts going crazy. (This is Alan Moore coming into the middle of a story. He kind of started modern superhero comic storytelling with this run, actually: ignore what your predecessor was doing and kill off a bunch of characters.)
The government sends in their superhero-killer, the Fury. It beats down Captain Britain and ignores Saturnyne's men's attack, so Saturnyne teleports off-world, leaving Captain Britain behind. She also leaves one of her men, which the Fury swiftly kills, followed by Captain Britain's sidekick, Jackdaw. Captain Britain attacks again, but the Fury breaks his arm through his force field. The Crazy Gang's teapot-shaped helicopter appears and Mad Jim Jaspers welcomes him aboard.
Mad Jim Jaspers tells about how he was a member of parliament and was behind the superheroes of this world being killed. He says he created the Fury, too. Captain Britain looks around the teapot and sees a table that extends far beyond what its capacity should be, with dead people he knows sitting at it. He flees, falling from the teapot. He can't fly due to the pain in his arm keeping him from concentrating and lands in a graveyard, filled with superheroes. He sees that there is one open grave, marked "Captain U.K." The Fury finds him and blasts him, mostly disintegrating him, and his remains fall into the grave. On another world, a woman named Linda McQuillan feels like someone has walked over her grave. (Alan Moore is a fine writer, but he's terribly derivative. Mad Jim Jaspers is kind of like Proteus, and the whole world where superheroes have died is like Days of Future Past. I guess this shows the influence of the Chris Claremont/John Byrne X-Men. Alan Moore points out that the Fury is akin to the Terminator, so they may have had that in mind while writing this.)
On Otherworld Merlin and Roma take the small pieces of Captain Britain and set about reconstructing him: Roma his body and Merlin his mind. Merlin recounts Captain Britain's life and what lead to his current condition. Roma dislikes Merlin's manipulativeness, but he doesn't care, saying it's all part of a bigger picture. Captain Britain comes back at Darkmoor, where he gained his powers in the first place, and thinks that Merlin saved him, not realizing he's died. Roma watches him in the scrying pool, shedding a tear and saying, "Poor thing. Poor, doomed thing." (I'm not sure if this is the first time Merlin's true nature is revealed, but he tended to appear as fatherly and kind in early appearances, I believe. Poor Captain Britain has already died and come back twice before Jean came back a single time.)
Linda McQuillan has a panic attack, bending metal, and on the other Earth, the Fury senses that something's amiss and suspects Captain Britain's escaped. Captain Britain goes to his home, Braddock Manor. It was bombed by S.T.R.I.K.E., but he's astonished to see that it's standing. Further, the charwoman, Emma Collins is alive and takes his coat as if nothing's amiss. He sees himself ready to lose his virginity with some bimbo in a car, which took place when his parents died. He finds two dessicated skeletons of his parents, who begin to talk to him. They convince him that he wants to die. Mastermind, the computer that killed his parents appears in its holographic form and wishes to do the killing. Captain Britain realizes that he isn't crazy, and all he's seen is a hologram projected by Mastermind. He tears through the floor and finds vast caverns beneath the mansion covered in circuitry. Mastermind says he projected a hologram of the mansion being destroyed and has kept Emma alive to keep things tidy. It tries to bargain with him, but he senses an important circuit and pulls it free, shutting Mastermind down. Captain Britain reprograms it so that Mastermind will serve him, then goes to rest. As he thinks nobody knows he's there, the phone rings.
A psychic doing a show is killed by a man with a gun. Meanwhile, Captain Britain has answered the phone to someone asking for Captain Britain. He realizes it's his twin sister, Betsy. She says someone's killing the S.T.R.I.K.E. psi-ops division and she needs his help. There are only five left and they are hiding out in London while they wait for Captain Britain to arrive. Captain Britain shows up at the fast food place Betsy asked to meet him at, but they don't even recognize each other at first, it's been so long; plus, Captain Britain's beefed up a lot, and Betsy now has purple hair. The killer kills two more of the psychics at Forbidden Planet, a comic book store, and Captain Britain moves to confront him. The killer takes off his mask, revealing the old Captain Britain villain, Slaymaster. (Captain Britain and Betsy are the worst twins ever, not even recognizing each other. I think Forbidden Planet is a real place.)
Captain Britain and Slaymaster fight it out, with Slaymaster utilizing an array of tricks and gadgets he's acquired. Captain Britain ultimately defeats him, then flees as the superhero-hating cop Dai Thomas shows up. We see that Arcade sent and trained Slaymaster, as he gets a call from the Vixen. When he hears the name Captain Britain, Arcade says it's personal. (I'm pretty sure the follow-up with Arcade never happens, unless you count his appearance in Excalibur years later, but that wasn't too personal. I think Slaymaster is quite different here than in his earlier appearances.)
Overview: Good issues. This is the first part of the more recent Captain Britain trade paperback, compiling the Alan Davis/Alan Moore issues. Their earliest stuff is a bit dodgy at times, but by the end of this story, it's pretty darn solid. Each paragraph is an issue, and the stories are short, at six pages, being backups for Spider-Man (I think) at this point. There should be five parts to this, which should set up Psylocke's first American appearance a few issues down the road. I'll also be doing a writeup I found online of a supposedly aborted storyline for X-Men that would have involved Captain Britain and his supporting cast.)
The government sends in their superhero-killer, the Fury. It beats down Captain Britain and ignores Saturnyne's men's attack, so Saturnyne teleports off-world, leaving Captain Britain behind. She also leaves one of her men, which the Fury swiftly kills, followed by Captain Britain's sidekick, Jackdaw. Captain Britain attacks again, but the Fury breaks his arm through his force field. The Crazy Gang's teapot-shaped helicopter appears and Mad Jim Jaspers welcomes him aboard.
Mad Jim Jaspers tells about how he was a member of parliament and was behind the superheroes of this world being killed. He says he created the Fury, too. Captain Britain looks around the teapot and sees a table that extends far beyond what its capacity should be, with dead people he knows sitting at it. He flees, falling from the teapot. He can't fly due to the pain in his arm keeping him from concentrating and lands in a graveyard, filled with superheroes. He sees that there is one open grave, marked "Captain U.K." The Fury finds him and blasts him, mostly disintegrating him, and his remains fall into the grave. On another world, a woman named Linda McQuillan feels like someone has walked over her grave. (Alan Moore is a fine writer, but he's terribly derivative. Mad Jim Jaspers is kind of like Proteus, and the whole world where superheroes have died is like Days of Future Past. I guess this shows the influence of the Chris Claremont/John Byrne X-Men. Alan Moore points out that the Fury is akin to the Terminator, so they may have had that in mind while writing this.)
On Otherworld Merlin and Roma take the small pieces of Captain Britain and set about reconstructing him: Roma his body and Merlin his mind. Merlin recounts Captain Britain's life and what lead to his current condition. Roma dislikes Merlin's manipulativeness, but he doesn't care, saying it's all part of a bigger picture. Captain Britain comes back at Darkmoor, where he gained his powers in the first place, and thinks that Merlin saved him, not realizing he's died. Roma watches him in the scrying pool, shedding a tear and saying, "Poor thing. Poor, doomed thing." (I'm not sure if this is the first time Merlin's true nature is revealed, but he tended to appear as fatherly and kind in early appearances, I believe. Poor Captain Britain has already died and come back twice before Jean came back a single time.)
Linda McQuillan has a panic attack, bending metal, and on the other Earth, the Fury senses that something's amiss and suspects Captain Britain's escaped. Captain Britain goes to his home, Braddock Manor. It was bombed by S.T.R.I.K.E., but he's astonished to see that it's standing. Further, the charwoman, Emma Collins is alive and takes his coat as if nothing's amiss. He sees himself ready to lose his virginity with some bimbo in a car, which took place when his parents died. He finds two dessicated skeletons of his parents, who begin to talk to him. They convince him that he wants to die. Mastermind, the computer that killed his parents appears in its holographic form and wishes to do the killing. Captain Britain realizes that he isn't crazy, and all he's seen is a hologram projected by Mastermind. He tears through the floor and finds vast caverns beneath the mansion covered in circuitry. Mastermind says he projected a hologram of the mansion being destroyed and has kept Emma alive to keep things tidy. It tries to bargain with him, but he senses an important circuit and pulls it free, shutting Mastermind down. Captain Britain reprograms it so that Mastermind will serve him, then goes to rest. As he thinks nobody knows he's there, the phone rings.
A psychic doing a show is killed by a man with a gun. Meanwhile, Captain Britain has answered the phone to someone asking for Captain Britain. He realizes it's his twin sister, Betsy. She says someone's killing the S.T.R.I.K.E. psi-ops division and she needs his help. There are only five left and they are hiding out in London while they wait for Captain Britain to arrive. Captain Britain shows up at the fast food place Betsy asked to meet him at, but they don't even recognize each other at first, it's been so long; plus, Captain Britain's beefed up a lot, and Betsy now has purple hair. The killer kills two more of the psychics at Forbidden Planet, a comic book store, and Captain Britain moves to confront him. The killer takes off his mask, revealing the old Captain Britain villain, Slaymaster. (Captain Britain and Betsy are the worst twins ever, not even recognizing each other. I think Forbidden Planet is a real place.)
Captain Britain and Slaymaster fight it out, with Slaymaster utilizing an array of tricks and gadgets he's acquired. Captain Britain ultimately defeats him, then flees as the superhero-hating cop Dai Thomas shows up. We see that Arcade sent and trained Slaymaster, as he gets a call from the Vixen. When he hears the name Captain Britain, Arcade says it's personal. (I'm pretty sure the follow-up with Arcade never happens, unless you count his appearance in Excalibur years later, but that wasn't too personal. I think Slaymaster is quite different here than in his earlier appearances.)
Overview: Good issues. This is the first part of the more recent Captain Britain trade paperback, compiling the Alan Davis/Alan Moore issues. Their earliest stuff is a bit dodgy at times, but by the end of this story, it's pretty darn solid. Each paragraph is an issue, and the stories are short, at six pages, being backups for Spider-Man (I think) at this point. There should be five parts to this, which should set up Psylocke's first American appearance a few issues down the road. I'll also be doing a writeup I found online of a supposedly aborted storyline for X-Men that would have involved Captain Britain and his supporting cast.)