This is the first in a series of Captain Britain TPBs published by Panini UK. It collects the Captain Britain stories originally published in Captain Britain Weekly #1-23.
Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
This first half of the series was a generic but enjoyable enough introduction to the character. It is nice to see the Marvel universe in a British setting but it is clear that it was not written by Brits.
Reread for X-Men 60th. Still not great but fun to see where some characters start.
This should probably stand as a single star, but the obscurity and the characters and things that end up having a greater significance heighten my interest. We get the first appearances of Brian Braddock, Betsy Braddock, Jaime Braddock, Courtney Ross, Dai Thomas, this version of Merlin, his daughter Roma, the computer Mastermind, and a few other elements that would be sustained and better in later iterations. There’s plenty that will get rightly dropped as their attempt to channel a British Spider-Man feels far from inspired. Strange to see Claremont return to this things as Moore and Davis would put a good layer of meat on the frail bones of Claremont’s creation.
Silver age comics are SO CAMP! Like, I knew this going in, but it's ridiculous just how much these read like an episode of Rocky & Bullwinkle. I mean it. I read all of the narration in the voice of the narrator from Rocky & Bullwinkle. I couldn't help it. Not that that's a bad thing. It just makes the series unintentionally hilarious?
Good bit of comics history anyways. If you just want to know what was going on with Captain Britain pre-Excalibur, then skip to volume 4 of this series with the beginning of Alan Moore's run (or, well, technically David Thorpe's run but Moore takes over quickly).