Sometimes a Nineties Captain Britain story can surprise the reader with a tale so bizarre you wonder if it was just a fever dream, Excalibur volume 1 issue 28 by Terry Austin and Colleen Doran is one such issue. So read on and find out how a story about Captain Britain and Meggan on a trip to the pub have the most insane evening you can imagine without imbibing any ale.
The insanity for this tale starts on the very first page, as you can see from the cover below.
Mermaids, beer, oddly colored clothes and a host of look-a-like drunks, oh my.
Anyway onto the plot, Cap and Meggan sneak away from their team mates to attend the last night of revelry at the Gilded Lady pub before it’s knocked down. You know trouble is going to hit our heroes and hit hard when they make as much effort to go incognito as when the Fantastic Four’s Thing just dons a trench coat and goes to a bar.
Let’s face it Cap and Meg look like they have donned coats over flashy wet suits, and what if the pub’s central heating is on?
Anyway once inside we are treated to a magnificent interior shot fantastically depicted by Doran, check out the picture below – wish my local looked like that and can you spot the obvious toupee?
Things get off to a bad start when Cap – at this point in his career a recovering alcoholic – won’t drink and the locals get aggrieved. A quick aside, I’m sure those glasses hold more than a pint, this pub just gets better and better.
The revelry is interrupted by the arrival of this weeks throw away villains, who seem to believe people will fall for the old wild west con trick of “there’s gold in them there hills.”
Luckily the wily lady has the super power of amplifying the greed of others, which makes them see what their greed wants them to see to help her skullduggery. Even Meggan (disguised as Captain Britain – don’t ask) is not immune, though I’m not sure of the writer’s Cap facts but hey ho.
A fight ensues and Cap gets the worst of it, while the Police outside seem more keen to fondle sausages than go in.
Cap fights back though I imagine looking back he will be rightly embarrassed by use of the word ” chubbins.” Also Meggan sums up the whole story in just one panel.
Luckily good triumphs, but only at the cost of the pub being totally destroyed, which having seen many of my favourite hostelries destroyed in my time to make way for a ring road or cinema made me sadder than seeing Meggan save the day over Cap.
So there we have a hearty chunk of Nineties Cap madness, I really love the Doran art in parts here, and Austin writes a tale that although treats the Captain with some disrespect stays true to continuity with Cap’s drink problem, and isn’t afraid to have fun at the same time and not all of it being pokes at Captain Britain.
Do you know what chubbins means? Can you place when Captain Britain went insane when faced with the occult ( unless Austin is referring to the X-Men event Inferno?)
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