Captain Britain meets Dark Angel

Not many comic characters get threatened with legal action from the Hell’s Angels but Marvel UK’s Dark Angel did when she appeared under her original title of you guessed it Hell’s Angel. However despite getting off to a rocky start Dark Angel was a great addition to the Marvel UK universe so let’s have a look at her, her origin and the time she met Captain Britain.

Dark Angel’s origin is a twisted affair that starts when Shevaun Haldane’s father betrays the demon Mephisto who as punishment kills him and takes his soul to torment, Shevaun witnesses the Angel of Death arrive too late to save her father’s soul and is offered the chance to confront the evil her father had perpetrated. To do so the Angel gives Shevaun a fragment of the universe, a suit of body armour to control her new power and a new title Hell’s Dark Angel, basically if this sounds a bit complicated owning a fragment of the universe meant Shevaun could amongst other things absorb and manipulate energy and turn her body into a pocket dimension known as the Void to prevent attacks striking her.

Anyway the cross over with Captain Britain takes place in Dark Angel number 6 written by Simon Furman while Gary Frank and Andy Lanning handle art chores, the story goes that due to reports of a monster eating people on Darkmoor the local police call in Excalibur for help.

Being as this is a Captain Britain Excalibur appearance naturally Cap is all clumsy and it is left to Meggan to realise the beast is actually Shevaun’s brother but only after the necessary fisticuffs have taken place.

A a quick aside much as I despise Captain Britain being made to look like a buffoon you’ve got to love the ” ooof, ” panel above for its marvelous depiction of a bemused Cap.

Dark Angel despite its intriguing premise of techno-wizardry and a great leading character only lasted 16 issues and some cross overs before she fell into limbo not to appear till years later in Captain Britain and MI-13 which you can see here.

Andy Lanning has said we can expect to see Dark Angel in his Marvel UK relaunch (covered here) and I for one am intrigued to see how she has been faring and what Lanning’s plans are for this interesting character.

Captain Britain, Death’s Head and Marvel UK vs Dracula.

Captain Britain and MI-13 by Paul Cornell was one of the best series to star Cap and although it was sadly cut short after fifteen issues and an annual believe me it went out with a bang, as I will explain in a moment.

Now I’ve already covered the final page of that issue and its unending brilliant Britishness here and my thoughts on the spiffing ” Hell comes to Birmingham ,” story here but what I didn’t mention is that the last issue is also chockfull of great Marvel UK characters.

Here is the splash page as the Marvel UK bunch make their grand entrance to help Captain Britain deliver a solid ass kicking to Dracula and his minions.

We have from top to bottom Dark Angel, Digitek, Tangerine and Death’s Head all ready to help Cap and MI-13 kick some vampire ass, no Motormouth though despite myself being convinced she was in this issue.

As the scan isn’t the best you might miss Death’s Head great three word announcement “Surprise appearance. Yes ? ” which pretty much summed up how I felt when I first read the comic !

More Captain Britain and Marvel UK tomorrow as I look at the time Cap met Dark Angel.