Captain Britain at Wimbledon. The joyful insanity that is Spidey Super Stories 32.

Did you know that in 1978 Captain Britain appeared at Wimbledon or as it was known then Wimbleton? Did you know that at the hallowed tennis club he joined Spider-Man in a tennis match against Dr Octopus? No? Well all of this happened in Spidey Super Stories issue 32, let me tell you about it.

Before we start I must confess I only found out about this story in the last twenty-four hours and I am indebted to followers of the Captain Britain fans’ page and blog Facebook page, in particular Janet Black for bringing this piece of Captain Britain madness to my attention. This story is so great it would be rude not to share it with my readers but first a bit of background

Started in the Seventies Spidey Super Stories was a comic spin-off from the TV show of the same name. Issue 32 saw Spidey team up with Captain Britain in a rather topical adventure set at the Wimbledon/Wimbleton tennis tournament. For those who like the facts this story was written by Jim Salicrup and penciled by Win Mortimer, it was published in March 1978.

Please enjoy the story as it appeared so many years ago below, apologies for the quality of the scans they are taken from YouTube.

Cap attempts to foil a heist by Doc Ock. You have got to love those old fashioned bank bags full of coins, so impractical.

Spidey in London for various reasons joins in, only for there to be the usual mix up. I love the last panel here with the “SOCK” as Cap brains Spidey.

Aunt May is dragged into the fight as Doc Ock uses her as a hostage to get to Wimbledon/ Wimbleton. At no time is it explained why Aunt May has a flower pot on her head but moving on.

Cap and Spidey team up and head after him, despite the petty name calling. Flag face indeed!

Doc Ock shows he’s certainly not going to play fair.

Armed with a web bat and staff Captain Britain and Spidey challenge Doc Ock. Gotta love those super mustaches on the Wimbleton judges.

And Doc Ock reveals his true motives, stealing the Wimbledon/Wimbleton prize money.

Luckily with a combination of web and force field Cap and Spidey stop the nefarious villain.

And with Aunt May rescued by Spider-Woman, Doc Ock is marched off to jail

I’m for once lost for words, this one-off story is so mad and marvelous in its insanity. I love the idea that Captain Britain appeared at Wimbledon/Wimbleton, I love the idea Doc Ock is good at tennis simply because he has so many arms and I love the fact Cap uses his brains and force field to capture the Doc.

I’m not sure why Wimbledon is renamed Wimbleton, I mean it was only in 1977 that Cap faced off against the Queen and Marvel didn’t see fit to change anything then so why Wimbledon’s name was altered is beyond me?

Apparently I’m informed this isn’t Cap’s only appearance in Spidey Super Stories and I have an eBay order out for another wild tale. If your interested in this series why not check out Robin Barnard and his talented friends excellent parodies of these comics on Facebook. Check it out here.

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As there’s no Captain Britain in Time Runs Out this week here’s some puzzles to help you pass the time.

This week in Avengers 38 and New Avengers 26 Time Runs Out continues, but sadly without any Captain Britain appearances. So to help you pass the time until Cap does show up here are some puzzle pages from the pages of Seventies Captain Britain weekly.

I’m not sure how Cap lost his shadow and why you need to be careful finding it again but that tag line for next weeks puzzle of A Lion in Winter sounds intriguing doesn’t it?

Oh it’s just a maze. Would Richard the Lionheart be afraid of it? Sadly that answer is lost to history, unlike the terrible lion pun.

You can keep up to date with Time Runs Out and other Captain Britain news by following The Captain Britain Blog on Facebook, on Pinterest, or subscribe to this blog by entering your email in the link top right.

Captain Britain, The Sweeney and the Seventies.

Despite Captain Britain being a fictional superhero and me being a forty year old blogger with too much time on his hands we both have something in common, in that we are both children of the seventies. Cap made his debut in 1977 whereas I made mine a few years earlier, and I was a lot younger. However I like to think we both “grew up” in the Seventies so to speak.

So today I have decided to look back on my memories of the Seventies and see how much of an influence those years had on Captain Britain’s early stories. Read on to discover how Seventies cop shows, smoking and sci-fi films all – in my opinion –  had a direct effect on the origin of Captain Britain.

So let’s start by looking at the TV of the Seventies and a program that I think had a major influence on the design of Captain Britain’s world. No it wasn’t Dr Who, though I did discuss its influence on Cap here, I mean cop shows and one I was probably too young to be watching, The Sweeney.

Almost immediately as you read Cap’s if you’re a citizen of the UK you can’t help notice how Captain Britain’s Chief Inspector Thomas channels The Sweeney’s detectives.

Chief Inspector Thomas

 

The Sweeney’s Regan and Carter

The reason I am sure is that maybe without the benefit of much reference material in the Seventies Captain Britain artist Herb Trimpe may well have turned to the TV for help, and the Sweeney was one of the most popular Seventies cop shows – well in my school anyway.

I even believe the Sweeney’s influence on Captain Britain extends to the Police Cars portrayed in early issues, let’s compare, here is a real Seventies Cop car

Here’s a Captain Britain Cop car

And here is a Cop car from the Sweeney.

Coincidence?  I think not, anyway time to move on.

A common chant on Seventies TV news and in the papers was the phrase, “nuclear power no thanks.” The reason behind this was the world’s growing desire to see the end of nuclear weapons and power plants that many believed were time bombs of the worst kind. I want to focus in on nuclear power plants as that is where Captain Britain worked.

Nuclear power in the Seventies was a growing source of what was believed at the time to be safe energy without reliance on fossil fuels, and I remember barely a week going without the news covering demonstrations against anything nuclear. So it’s no surprise that when Claremont tried to make Captain Britain rooted in current – Seventies – culture that he chose nuclear power. Interestingly this was also the first reference to the fact that Captain Britain was a genius, something that became an erratic personality trait as his character grew.

Now another memory of the Seventies was triggered by the last panel of the above picture, let’s look at it in more detail.

Yes Cap like a lot of people I knew in the Seventies smoked, hell Cap’s that hard he’s even smoking inside a nuclear power plant! Everyone as I grew up seemed to smoke due to I imagine the lack of health and safety info about its dangers, cigarettes and beer were even advertised in between kid’s Saturday morning TV shows in the UK. Smoking also invaded Seventies children’s lives even further as there were sweet cigarettes and pipes! Because of this large smoking culture it’s no surprise that Captain Britain lights up, but if memory serves me correctly this is the first and last time we see him with a pipe, though his battle with alcohol was to plague him for a lot longer

Children’s Licorice pipes

In the summer of 1977 Star Wars hit cinema screens and science fiction was never the same again, but there is one particular point in that film that to me is reflected in Captain Britain. You see in the film when Kenobi and Vader duel I can’t help but think of this scene from Captain Britain.

To me this whole fight wears its Star Wars influence firmly on its sleeve even down to the design of the baddie and that the staff and sword wielded by the combatants could just as easily be lightsabers. Have a look at the Marvel version of the famous Star Wars duel below, and marvel at both scenes incredible sound effects.

So there you have four – probable – Seventies influences on the early stories of Captain Britain. Influences I would like to point that are really only recognized by me casting my mind back nearly forty years to when I was very young. Agree or disagree please sound off in the comments section below.

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Captain Britain and Grant Morrison.

If I was asked to rate my top five comic book writers Grant Morrison would certainly be in my top three, maybe even occupying the prestigious number one slot. Hence I was a little disconcerted when I read his comments about Seventies Captain Britain in his book Supergods.

Morrison starts by saying: “When Marvel dipped its toes in the British market by launching Captain Britain, the assignment was handed to American anglophile Chris Claremont on the grounds that he’d visited the place once or twice and had a fondness for TV shows like The Avengers.”

Morrison then goes on to comment that Captain Britain was created to “appeal to a mainstream American sensibility weaned on the Marvel tradition…England was depicted as a place of Tudor tea shops and cobbled streets. Scotland could be rendered in its entirety with a single drawing of a castle flying a tartan flag.”

The quote got me thinking about how much of it was actually true, so I decide to revisit Captain Britain from 1977 and see how much of what Morrison said seemed correct or not to me. Let’s be honest I undertook this not as an excuse to bash Morrison, simply because I thought it might be interesting to look at the quote in context.

As a quick aside in Captain Britain Volume 2 issue 13 from 1986 Morrison wrote a short story about Captain Granbretan, who is pictured below.

For some reason the good Captain reminds me of Morrissey, anyway let’s move on.

First let me address the idea that the book was handled by an American anglophile, certainly writer Chris Claremont was born in Britain though artist Herb Trimpe was probably more of an anglophile having lived in the UK for some time, and traveled its length and breadth. So Morrison is correct Claremont and Trimpe could indeed be described as anglophiles, but I’m certain Marvel threw their best staff at Captain Britain to make it a success, and I’m sure Claremont and Trimpe would have been wanted to contribute whether they had a British connection or not.

Certainly when re-reading Seventies Captain Britain some of the ideas and art are so anglocentric it’s almost like the comic was made out of tweed. We have Merlyn, knights of old, ancient moors of mystic power and a sword in the stone, and they’re just in issue 1. Does this “anglophile” touch make the comic any worse, hell no it makes it the origin of Britain’s greatest superhero, just what it should be. Anything non-British shoehorned in would make Captain Britain’s illustrious origin and adventures all the less for it.

Next we need to look at the Britain Cap is launched into, is it all ” Tudor tea shops and cobbled streets?”

Well the first issue takes place on a mysterious moor and inside a secret nuclear complex, not really very Tudor to say the least. However Cap does see a lot of action in London, where the distinctive landmarks of the city are woven into the plot, I can’t recall many Tudor tea shops though.

Let’s not forget north of the border and is it true that  “Scotland could be rendered in its entirety with a single drawing of a castle flying a tartan flag?”

Well check out my post on Captain Britain verses the Loch Ness Monster to see if you agree with that statement of Morrisons . OK it’s hard to tell the action takes place in Scotland if you take away the loch and Nessie, but the story is none the worse for its basic depiction of Scotland. I actually dislike comics that spend too many panels telling me where the action is taking place as it usually means the story suffers.

One statement of Morrison’s that certainly rings true is that Captain Britain was created specifically to “appeal to a mainstream American sensibility weaned on the Marvel tradition.”

My full thoughts on this statement and how Captain Britain was originally meant to be the UK version of Spider-Man can be read here. But yet again Marvel were not seeking to reinvent the wheel with Captain Britain, they knew what worked comic book wise, and they were never going to stray from their winning formula and risk losing sales revenue.

So Grant Morrison was actually quite accurate in his summary of Captain Britain, but even so I’m certainly not going to burn my copies of All-Star Superman or WE3 in protest at what he said, there far too good for that. To me the facts about Captain Britain Morrison uses are to me what defined Cap and made sure he has a place in our big super hero loving hearts today. Without anglophiles and Tudor tea shops Captain Britain could have easily become a more mundane hero and not one that inspires me to write about him many years after his 1977 debut.

The Captain Britain that nearly was. UPDATED.

UPDATED 24/07/14- see below for the costume colour reveal.

UPDATED 25/07/14 – lots of new pages found.

As a Captain Britain fan you may not be aware that he nearly had a very different start to his comic book career. It all started In 1973 when UK comic publisher IPC floated an idea for their version of Captain Britain which remained hidden for many years, until its reveal in the Captain Britain trade “A Hero Reborn.”

Code named JNP52 (Juvenile New Project 52) to keep the idea secret from other publishers this Captain Britain was placed in the hands of writer Tom Tully while Eric Bradbury handled the art. Tom Tully was a distinguished comic scribe better known for his work on UK football strip Roy of the Rovers; while Bradbury had a long list of sterling work on UK comic strips and was later to draw the controversial Hook Jaw for 2000AD.

Below are the only two pages of pencils that exist for this project, click to enlarge. ( UPDATED Not true check out Super I.T.C.H. here.)

Comic book guru Dez Skinn a former IPC employee who bought this secret project to light is interviewed in the Captain Britain trade about this Cap who never was, and why the comic never took off. Skinn puts it bluntly:

“Imported US comics sold around 10-15000 a month whereas UK titles sold in excess of 250,000 a week. So the super hero style was hardly a model worth emulating.”

What would this Cap have been like? Skinn answers:

“The IPC version differed in every way imaginable. rather than an anglicized Spider-Man (see my article about that here ) …it was far more SF based strip with a bleak future-Britain where our hero comes back in our time of need, almost Arthurian.”

Sadly beyond the one page feature in the Captain Britain trade from where I drew the above interview quotes there are little details about this alternate Cap. This doesn’t stop me however from arming myself with the star scepter of speculation, and trying to second guess some more details about this Captain Britain that never was.

The first thing that strikes me is a passing resemblance to Miracle/Marvel man, I’ve done a composite picture below for comparison.

I’m going to imagine the prototype Captain Britain might have even been wearing a similarly coloured costumed to his counterpart; as red, white and blue being the UK’s national colours it would be rather unpatriotic if he wore anything else.

UPDATED – see the tiny pic below for the actual costume colour reveal. Please note the quality isn’t that great but the costume colour is the red, white and blue I predicted plus some dashing yellow boots and wristbands.

Theses new details came from the forum post here which links to the Albion comic database about this version of Cap which you can read about here for more details.

As for the setting it was quite common in comics of the Seventies to imagine the future as an atomic wastelands devastated by war or instead a world controlled by a 1984 type dictatorship. As Captain Britain is super powered I think the writers would have gone with atomic destruction,the reason for this is that irradiated monsters and insects that might be present would have given our hero a worthwhile tussle or two. Sadly the new picture posted above just shows Cap beating up some generic looking thugs with not a mutated foe in sight.

Now is this Captain Britain a product of the comic’s dystopian future or was he summoned through time and space to this new world? I imagine Cap as a time traveler for two reasons. Firstly Cap being new to the setting allows it to be explained in great detail for the readers, and secondly a certain time travelling BBC hero Dr Who was extremely popular at the time this idea was around, so a time travel element to the story might have lured in readers.

This never was Cap does have something in common with the one who was to emerge from Marvel UK a few years later. Note Skinn said  that his coming in the time of Britain’s need was almost Arthurian, the Captain Britain we know and love today had his origin and many of his adventures firmly in the Arthurian mythology with characters like Merlin etc.

So what do you think of the Captain Britain that never was? Sound off in the comments below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Was Seventies Captain Britain meant to be the UK version of Spider-Man?

While recently re-reading some of Captain Britain’s earliest adventures, I found I was beginning to harbor a growing suspicion about his role in the Seventies Marvel Universe. Then when I came to his first official US cross-over in Marvel Team Up 65-66 my suspicion became a conviction, was the Captain Britain of the Seventies meant to be the UK version of Spider-Man?

Grabbing my Seventies Captain trades I started to make notes, and found a list of similarities between Cap and Spidey which seemed to reinforce my conviction. So join me now as I present my light-hearted list of why I believe Captain Britain could have been mistaken during the Seventies for Spider-Man, and remember if I kid I do it out of love for the characters involved.

Parentage – Or lack off.

Peter Parker and Brian Braddock are introduced to us as orphans, Pete’s parents were killed in an air crash and Brian’s died at the hands of the super computer Mastermind. Interestingly they both, unlike some comic book characters, never made the direct choice to become heroes because their parents were dead.

The death of Captain Britain’s parents

Boffins.

Captain Britain and Spider-Man are both highly intelligent, some might say almost to the genius level. Sadly after the Seventies Cap’s intelligence took a tumble –  though to me he still remains a physics genius – while Spidey was never ” lobotomized ” by his writers.

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Similar costumes.

Both our heroes costumes are red and blue and both bear a chest logo that defines who they are. While we’re on looks both our boys in the Seventies were never drawn predominantly muscled, of course Cap’s body mass changed later on but only to rightly represent his change of powers and costume.

Both threatened to quit the day job.

There’s almost a symmetry to these respective Cap and Spidey covers which show them walking away from their superhero personas. Interestingly both have to be reminded of their responsibilities by Spidey witnessing a crime or Cap being berated by Merlyn, to both quickly change their unemployment prospects.

Your problems don’t end when the suit comes off.

Captain Britain and Spider-Man both had turbulent family lives that caused them problems outside their superhero issues. Spidey has his frail Aunt May to look after while Cap had a dependent sister and brother. In a similar vein both had troubled love lives with rejection and misunderstandings from the fair sex aplenty. Last but by no means least both had friends and family turn on them , Spidey mainly with the his Green Goblin troubles and Cap with sister Betsy targeted by villains or his brother Jamie’s racing career used to lure him to his death.

A pensive Jamie Braddock

 

The misunderstood hero.

As well as their rosta of super powered crooks Cap and Spidey both had enemies who had no powers determined to bring them down no matter what the cost. For Spidey trouble was never far away with newspaper editor J. Jonah Jameson constantly on his case, while Cap had to deal with the strong-arm of the law in the form of detective Dai Thomas who constantly dogged his footsteps.

So there you go the main reasons I believe Seventies Captain Britain was heading down the road to becoming the UK’s Spider-Man, until the talented team of writers and artists at his helm took him in his own unique direction, laying the ground for his eighties triumphs. If you want to see my thoughts on some of Cap’s distinct seventies adventures then go here.

I’m well aware here a lot of my arguments could apply to Captain Britain and Superman or any one from a whole host of superheroes, but as Cap and Spidey often appeared in the same comic it just struck me as more logical to compare the both of them.

Agree, disagree or think Seventies Captain Britain was a unique hero in his own right. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below,

Captain Britain in Night of the Hawk.

Welcome back to my look at the early adventures of Captain Britain, when we last saw Cap he and Captain America had just defeated the Red Skull but heroes can never rest.

But first the Cap facts. Night of the Hawk came out in Captain Britain issues 27 to 32 published in 1977, it was written by Gary Friedrich and Larry Lieber with John Buscema and Tom Palmer handling the art, but we now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Our adventure starts with a blissful Brian Braddock remembering how he helped an old friend of his Professor Scott by building him a fully functional mechanical hawk, keep quiet at the back if you have already guessed where this adventure is going.

In a quick flashback we learn the prof has been robbed of his real hawk pets by pollution, hence Cap making him a mechanical one out of the goodness of his heart.The sneaky Prof then takes this harmless toy and recruits an out of work munitions engineer to upgrade it to a destructive level, so armed the Prof begins his crusade too rid Britain of all its sources of pollution but a photo of his hawk in action leads Captain Britain to his door.

Cap and the hawk face off but by snatching his quarterstaff Cap is defeated, typically with the hero at his mercy the Prof does as all good villains do and refrains from killing him, instead he inserts a homing device into Cap so his hawk can track him down later.

Widening his targets for destruction the Prof seeks to destroy Piccadilly Circus , however Cap is on the scene and so faces off again against the hawk. Seemingly unable to defeat the mechanical bird and concerned about the effects of the battle on the innocent bystanders Cap poses for a moment of guilt before the police arrive and he and the hawk flee the scene.

Just a quick interjection here look at how guilty Cap is and how well this comes through in the art just with the look in his eyes and the angst ridden fists, Buscema and Palmer really nail the art in just one small panel. Then in the next shot that evil grin on the Prof’s face is just superb and we are left in no doubt he’s mad, bad and dangerous to know !

Cap flees to his university for safety but the Prof and his foul feathered fiend follow him and again they fight but this time the hawk seizes Cap himself and carries him high into the air without his quarterstaff. Now next the story does something we rarely see in Captain Britain comics and that is it allows our hero to solve his dilemma with his brain power, as Cap rewires the hawk to carry him to safety

But as Captain Britain lands the law is waiting for him and yet again he is threatened with an unmaksing until a mysterious voice rings out summoning Cap to an unknown fate.

These seventies stories are an insane roller coaster of action, angst and then more action, its hard to put across to anyone reading this article that each chapter of Night of the Hawk is only about seven pages long, yet so much happens. Surely the ability to put so much story into so little a space is due to the tight scripting of Friedrich and Lieber but they are helped in no small manner by the art team who use every single panel be it big or small to great effect.

Anyway join me again soon for the next Captain Britain seventies story which is a real milestone in his early adventures.

Captain Britain in ” A Hero Unmasked. “

When we last left Captain Britain in our overview of his seventies adventures he was in rather a sticky situation.

Now read on to find out how Cap escapes an unmasking, teams up with his counterpart from across the pond, rescues the Prime Minister and defeats the Red Skull.

All this madcap action takes place in Captain Britain 16 to 27 and was written by Gary Friedrich and Larry Lieber with art by John Buscema and Herb Trimpe.But now back to the action.

Luckily before disaster strikes Captain Britain who should appear but Captain America (who seems to have a bit of an inferiority complex, )  before both heroes have the obligatory we’ve just met so lets fight sequence.

Captain Britain in a bizarre moment of patriotism is rescued from the fight by his former unmaskers and before you can say here come the Nazis here they come. But the Red Skull is a devious enemy and his troops are just a distraction as he has actually set a deadly trap in Captain Britain’s home Braddock Manor itself.

Things seem to be going our heroes way when they escape until the Red Skull has the whole manor house itself destroyed and a nation mourns as Captain A and B are believed to have perished.

For no reason other than it looks good Nick Fury ( who along with SHIELD have been crammed into the story,) escapes the clutches of the Red Skull with a cigar he probably stole from James Bond and promises the Prime Minister to avenge the fallen heroes by taking out the Red Skull personally.

The Red Skull however moves first in a dramatic moment..

.. but our heroes are still alive and track the Red Skull to his lair to rescue the PM only to end up all captured and facing a firing squad.

The execution is postponed when Parliament surrenders to the Skull’s demands but the Skull has for reasons not quite made clear also planted a germ bomb in Big Ben, which he now plans to detonate.

The scene is set for a nerve shattering showdown between Captain Britain and the Red Skull on Big Ben itself, of course our hero triumphs but sadly the Red Skull escapes.

So there we go 12 issues of Captain Britain seventies insanity and also Cap’s first long multi part story and his first meeting with Captain America so it’s a story packed with firsts.

If I had to choose a favourite moment from the madness I am probably going to find it hard to choose between the kidnapping of the Prime Minister ( which I covered in more detail here,) or the final showdown on Big Ben ( brilliantly called Hickory Dickory Death in the comic.)

The whole twelve issues read like the old Flash Gordon cinema shows where the heroes escape one peril only to plunge into the next trap at the end of the issue, but I like it as compared to the exposition heavy modern stories readers can encounter its great to have near constant action with a seat of the pants feel.

If you fancy reading this or any of the other seventies Cap Stories they are collected in volumes one and two of his adventures by Marvel. Join us again soon for more seventies Cap mayhem in “Night of the Hawk.”

Captain Britain in the malevolent menace of Mastermind.

Have you ever had one of those days when your sister tried to kill you, you get blasted with a shotgun, a super villain tried to destroy you and then when you get home the computer your parents built is waiting to fight you ?

Captain Britain has and all of the above can be read about here in last weeks post where he fought Dr Synne.  The climax of that fight revealed a terrible menace behind Synne’s actions which is where we join Captain Britain now in an adventure entitled ” the malevolent mind of Mastermind.”

Before we get into the story lets pause for a quick look at Mastermind himself in the shot below. Herb Trimpe I feel has come with a great design, notice how Mastermind towers over Cap physically but also has the enlarged head of the villain who is also a genius and a sinister electrical like glow indicating his computer powers.

Any fight with a baddie doesn’t start well if they know your secret identity and Mastermind is quick to throw Cap off his guard by revealing he knows his, then he attacks him with a deadly blast of what we are told is light transmitted as energy. OK I imagine the term laser wasn’t that common in 1977 when this comic came out but Mastemind has worse tricks up his electronic sleeve to come.

Not content with physically beating Captain Britain Mastermind then tries to mentally beat him as well with his own secret origin and how Brian Braddock’s selfishness caused the death of his own parents.

Poor Cap is knocked for six by this evil attack and the cliffhanger sees him actually wishing he was dead. I must say this is a great plot idea from Claremont in that the hero is beaten not by brawn but a sneaky psychological attack which has all the power of a good right hook.

Help comes in an unlikely form as just like when he battled Dr Synne Captain Britain’s cleaning lady rescues him again by distracting Mastermind and causing our hero to have a change of heart and decide to take Mastemind on. Trimpe’s picture of an angry Mastermind in the last panel below is one of my favourites, doesn’t he look cross !

In a nice combination of brains and brawn Captain Britain uses his staff to end Masteminds evil ways, look at the great expression of fear Trimpe now gives the evil computer.

The story ends with out hero not basking in his triumph but determined to get Emma the cleaning lady to hospital, however waiting outside is his old nemesis Inspector Dai Thomas who arrests Cap and then threatens worse as you can see below.

Tune in next week for  ” A Hero Unmasked,”  a surprise guest star or two and another great Cap story from the seventies.