Captain Britain Omnibus

Product Information

The Wild Ways / New Mutants Annual is a pretty good character piece for the New Mutants and a very nice integration of Captain Britain and Pyslocke into the X-Mythos. So all in all a huge book of varying quality but the strength of Davis' stories makes this so worth having, and deserving of 4 stars. Thorpe left after a falling-out with Alan Davis and Marvel UK editors over an episode which would have stood as an allegory for The Troubles in Northern Ireland - one of a few examples of potential political turns for the strip which were never followed up on. But there was another reason I shunned it, unrelated to quality: Captain Britain was kind of a loser.

Brian Braddock as Captain Britain (and his many multiverse iterations) has the virtue of always being the same essential representative of a national ideal while he or she transmutes constantly into new variants of national destiny and dies and resurrects as magic competes with science. Delano's biggest contribution would really end up being the bringing of Betsy Braddock into prominence—a character which would eventually become the immensely popular X-men character known as Psylocke under the guidance of Chris Claremont. Eventually it declines into an X-men 'riff' on intolerance as the logic of Moore's world is explored to its natural limits.It's obvious straight away that things are different, starting with the uniform which is immediately done-away with and replaced with the now iconic Union Jack costume with helmet. Indeed, the omnibus ends with two X-men annuals focusing primarily on Betsy Braddock and her harrowing experiences that would shape her into the “Psylocke” character that most people are familiar with today. Despite my proselytising, this omnibus does have another 800 or so pages of content, which run the gamut from acceptable to good, to even great on very rare occasions. Claremont's early collaborations with Davis, an X-Men and a New Mutants annual, finish this vast book. I remember reading the early adventures of Captain Britain in the mid 70's and enjoying them, even though I was only 7 years old.

Many of the themes of 'V for Vendetta' (1988-1989) and perhaps, Americanised, 'Watchmen' (1986-1987) are to be found in his Captain Britain work from 1982-1984.And when the events that destroyed that world begin to repeat themselves on his own, Captain Britain faces a destiny that he cannot avert. The X-men annual is memorable for Psylocke ripping off her outer skin to reveal a steel form underneath. The truly gonzo material unfortunately runs out leaving us with stories that are simply very bad (mostly by Larry Lieber) but ropey plots aside this is an attempt to do a Captain Britain that owes something to the Avengers TV show and James Bond - a British take within the Marvel formula. Story thread is great in later issues, but the whole thing suffers from all the monochrome reproduction in a large portion of the product.