If you're in the dark about that, you're not alone. A large chunk of the world was in the dark as well because a total solar eclipse was arcing its way above the northern USA, southeastern Canada and Greenland. It was also partially visible over almost all of North and Central America and western UK.
Needless to say, I've no memory of any of this. No doubt it was cloudy in Britain, as it always is whenever anything interesting's going off in the sky. This is, of course, when I make my habitual complaint about the Northern Lights having been theoretically visible over my home city at least four times in my life and it having been cloudy on every single occasion.
What's that you say? "That's like totally tragic, Steve."?
Too right it is. And you know what else is tragic?
The Bee Gees.
Or at least they were back then - because hitting the Number One slot on the UK singles chart that week was their unstoppable hit Tragedy. It may have had a negative title but so powerful was it that few singles have had more of an air of inevitability about their climb to the top.
Still, even the Bee Gees didn't know the full meaning of the word, "Tragedy," because, even as that release was hitting its apex, there was tragedy of a far grander scale being played out in the newsagents of Britain.
And that was that, yet again, there were no Marvel UK mags anywhere to be found. The rest of the nation might have gone back to work after the recent national industrial unrest but, clearly, Marvel UK had loved the Winter of Discontent so much they were refusing to give up on it.
All of which poses an obvious question. Just what am I going to write about this week? Am I going to fake it and waffle on about any old rubbish, in the hopes that no one'll notice, like I did last week?
No, I'm not. Ever generous to a fault, I'm going to give you my review of the first ever issue of Captain Britain I ever read. It may have come out in 1976, and not in 1979, but it is at least relevant to a post about Marvel UK.So, here goes.
Brian Braddock's in his local bank when a bunch of distinctly over-armed thugs burst in to rob the place. Needless to say, it's not long before his altered ego Captain Britain is in action and giving them a good bashing while the police hang around outside, randomly shooting at the building in a way that never really happens in real life because it's likely to kill all the customers they're trying to save.
Cap makes quick work of the villains but if he thinks his troubles for the day are over, he has other thinks coming. Handing them over to the police means he has to encounter Chief Inspector Dai Thomas, part Jack Regan from The Sweeney and part J Jonah Jameson from The Daily Bugle. At once, the CID man makes it clear he doesn't like costumed vigilantes on his patch and the flag-wearing adventurer had better watch his step. Can our hero's day get any worse?
At the climax of it all, a homeless man reveals himself to be Britain's first super-villain the Hurricane. Granted, that's not much of a revelation, as we've never heard of the Hurricane before but it leads us into the To Be Continued caption.
The higher production values do suggest someone at US Marvel was taking this book quite seriously, which is intriguing, as Marvel UK was originally just a way of making money by churning out low quality reprint books.
Surprisingly for a Chris Claremont written tale, the adventure's not loaded with people speaking like they've escaped from Mary Poppins, although I do feel that, in 1976, you would have struggled to find one woman in Britain who was called Courtney.
There is one annoyance though. The last page of the tale is in black and white. A message at the top of it tries to convince us this is a special bonus feature included to give us the pleasure of colouring it in ourselves but it's obvious to all but the most naive that this is simply the place in the book where the coloured ink budget ran out.
I'm sort of guessing they can.
The main appeal of this tale is, of course, the elegantly efficient artwork of Buscema at his peak.
Midway through this, we get a full page Nick Fury pin-up credited to, "Stiles/Tartag." Clearly, Tartag is John Tartaglione but I must confess to not having a clue who Stiles is.
Next, we get the Captain Britain Fun Page, featuring a Spot The Difference challenge and a game in which you have to guess the first names of various Marvel characters. It's not the most challenging thing you'll ever encounter.
Next, we get a page promoting that year's Marvel UK annuals and Bring on the Bad Guys, along with a coupon we can clip out, in order to send off for them.
If the colour on Captain Britain's strip is appealing; on this one, it isn't. The colour seems far too strong, especially on people's faces, and is also not lined up with the artwork as well as on the main strip. I think I've said in the past that Steranko's work on SHIELD tends to leave me cold and I'm not a fan of either Nick Fury or his spy agency, so it's a tale that lacks any great appeal to me.
And there you have it, the first issue of Captain Britain I ever owned. Reading it now, all these years later, it's more likeable than I thought it was at the time, although the Fantastic Four strip is the only one that I feel any desire to see the next part of.
Happily, next week, our favourite books are back in the shops and I can get back to declaring that I don't know what happens in them.
Posts
18 comments:
First time I read Captain Britain was in the Marvel Team up with Spider-Man, it wasn’t till later I got to read the original back issues.
This incarnation is a bit 2D but still likeable. I think Stan Lee has a hand in this if I’m not losing my marbles.
And of course the costume rules - by that I mean the mask. Obviously Brian Braddock’s hair is so forgetable that it’s the only thing on show.
That panel by Big John is legend alright.
Hi, Tharg. I must confess that that Marvel Team-Up tale was the first time I was impressed by a story that featured Captain Britain.
Another grim week in my childhood, pretty sure I must have repressed memories of how traumatic this was.
Still, nice to see that (entirely accurate) stereotype of Brits prefering the pub to a coffee shop was being represented. How times have changed eh.
My younger sisters had every Bee Gee single released in America. After a 3 day marathon on their "pitiful, portable picnic player" they mysteriously disappeared. "Tragedy" was the worst. It had to go, less I go mad (or more than I already am.)
Around February '79 I was seeing a girl named Natalie. Her dad was a businessman, owning a car dealership & a furniture gallery. He had the bucks.
For my birthday Natalie got me a half ounce of marijuana, a fifth of Sir Francis Drake rum (my flavor at the time, cheap) & a copy of Bring On The Bad Guys!
What a girl. I should have married her, but I was young & afraid of commitment.
In the words of Frank Sinatra & Sid Vicious, "Regrets, I've had a few..."
Tim, I blame raves and ecstasy for that - when everyone started to get loved up on a Saturday night instead of brawling drunkenly in the streets the proliferation of coffee shops in the UK was inevitable.
Steve, another review already? Good man.
Although this time I find myself in partial disagreement. Obviously being a bit of a godless lefty fenian I was never going to warm to superhero dressed like a poster boy for the National Front, but Captain Brexit became a must-read because I loved Steranko's SHIELD.
And - despite his elevation of style over substance, and the regrettable use of "yellow peril" stereotypes - still do.
-sean
I had every single issue of Captain Britain so don't blame me that it got cancelled after just eight months. I did my patriotic duty by reading it :)
Brian Braddock lived in Braddock Manor which suggests he was rather posh and privileged but he was a student at "Thames University" and slummed it with the plebs. Perhaps he failed the entrance exams for Oxbridge?
The most recent total solar eclipse seen in Britain was the one visible from Cornwall on August 11th 1999. But, as I recall, it was cloudy on that day too so the hopeful eclipse-watchers were disappointed. My father died unexpectedly three weeks later so the eclipse was like an "evil omen" as people had believed in ancient times.
Colin, do you - or anyone else - know whether Brian Braddock was just rich, or was he your actual aristocracy?
I don't recall (even though I'm pretty sure I've asked that question here before).
-sean
Colin, I only became a regular reader of Captain Britain after it switched to black and white. I did always feel, once it got past the John Buscema run, that it was a comic just waiting for the axe to fall.
Tim, it is weird how I have no recollection at all of the Marvel UK titles going missing for several weeks.
Sean, I can't remember what Brian's status was when it came to the class system. His family had their own manor house, named after them, which suggests they were a bit posh but just how posh, I could not say.
I've just found this on Wikipedia:
The family was an aristocratic one that was no longer rich enough to fraternise with their former academic peers, leaving Brian (too proud to fraternise with lower classes) a lonely child who immersed himself in the study of physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Britain#Fictional_character_biography
"Too proud to fraternise with lower classes." Well, there's a thing.
Do I detect a lack of sympathy for Brian Braddock's predicament there, Steve?
He didn't want to fraternize with the riff-raff, but he could still hang around for ages with a f****** elf. So fair enough.
-sean
Ugh, it's like if Jacob Rees-Mogg became a superhero.
When Captain Britain was first created I doubt any thought went into making Brian Braddock a believable character. He was posh/aristocratic because...er, he was English and therefore had to be posh for some reason, like the Union Jack and Spitfire in The Invaders were posh. But Brian Braddock was also meant to be an everyman Peter Parker rip-off so Brian (are any aristocrats called Brian?) had to mix with ordinary people and his upper-class status was never mentioned. The Americans who created Captain Britain didn't consider, or probably even understand, the absurdity of all this and anyway, the pre-teen readers wouldn't care.
And another thing - how is a lout like Jacko Tanner at university?
I hear they let anyone in these days Colin.
Haven't Marvel killed off Brian Braddock in the current continuity?
I may well be behind the times, what with death being an easily curable condition among super-types, but I was under the impression Captain Brexit is now a muslim woman.
-sean
Hmmmm... did American Marvel , or comics in general , have "aristocrats?"
Tony Stark was rich but didn't seem particularly "blue blood." Perhaps only Bruce Wayne? I mean, he did have a mansion so that could be evidence of his blue bloodedness?
Charlie
I think Count Vertigo was some kinda aristocrat.
It's weird, then, that his super power was making people throw up.
M.P.
The Black Panther and the Sub-Mariner aren't just aristocrats, they're royalty.
Come to think of it, so's Thor.
-sean
Yeah, and Aquaman!
But he's kind of a dick about it, reminding everybody all the time he's king of Atlantis.
He's not as bad as Namor, though.
I think maybe Kraven came from the Russian aristocracy that got run out during the revolution. Black Widow too, maybe. She's a Romanov.
M.P.
Post a Comment