Brian Braddock: Captain Britain Appreciation 2021

[Panic]

I have to admit I never read it. It came out when I wasn't really reading any Marvel comics regularly, though I had a friend who was and I'd flip through the occasional issue. Thing was, it was Chris Claremont writing CB, and I swore I'd never read his take on the character again. So often I'd read what amounted to hostile takes on Brian's Captain Britain from American writers that the character simply wasn't my CB any more, and I needed really strong word of mouth before I'd be persuaded to read CB again (which proved to be Captain Britain & MI:13).

When I was younger I would pretty much pick up any book featuring one of my favourites because I knew I'd get to see them much as I remembered them, and they'd do something relatively cool or heroic, even if it was just one panel; these days though, you see a former favourite character in a book, you know there's a good chance they will be trashed by the writer and bear little resemblance to the character you liked. It's stupid on Marvel's part - putting a minor hero as a guest star in a book used to guarantee that characters fans picking up the book and giving a little boost in sales; now I don't even think of picking up a book with CB in unless I see people talking positively about it here in this thread.

[Raffi Ol D'Arcy]

I have to admit I never read it. It came out when I wasn't really reading any Marvel comics regularly, though I had a friend who was and I'd flip through the occasional issue. Thing was, it was Chris Claremont writing CB, and I swore I'd never read his take on the character again. So often I'd read what amounted to hostile takes on Brian's Captain Britain from American writers that the character simply wasn't my CB any more, and I needed really strong word of mouth before I'd be persuaded to read CB again (which proved to be Captain Britain & MI:13).

When I was younger I would pretty much pick up any book featuring one of my favourites because I knew I'd get to see them much as I remembered them, and they'd do something relatively cool or heroic, even if it was just one panel; these days though, you see a former favourite character in a book, you know there's a good chance they will be trashed by the writer and bear little resemblance to the character you liked. It's stupid on Marvel's part - putting a minor hero as a guest star in a book used to guarantee that characters fans picking up the book and giving a little boost in sales; now I don't even think of picking up a book with CB in unless I see people talking positively about it here in this thread.

I totally understand your aversion to Chris Claremont, and I also approached the Uncanny X-Men: House of M and New Excalibur issues which had Captain Britain as one of the main protagonists and penned by Claremont with apprehension. I was very positively surprised by the House of M issues and had high hopes for the New Excalibur issues and following that the X-Men: Die by the Sword mini-series. As I wrote in my previous post, New Excalibur wasn't bad in that respect.

I checked out of comics in the mid-late 1980s, and missed out on the whole Excalibur and Marvel UK invasion of the US (Knights of Pendragon, Mys-Tech, Death's Head II.......) and therefore I've recently being catching up on Captain Britain, Union Jack and others from that era.

The UXM: House of M issues set up how Meggan "disappeared" and thus followed through somewhat through the New Excalibur issues and found closure in the CB & MI13 issues. Also previous to that the Excalibur (2001) mini-series by Ben Raab (which was pretty good) had Captain Britain becoming king of the extra-dimensional realm of Otherworld. All of the aforementioned issues therefore created a kind of cohesiveness and are important for us CB fans in understanding where he and Meggan were at. I wouldn't mind Marvel putting out an Omnibus with all of these runs and those couple of issues from Avengers with Kelsey Leigh and calling it Captain Britain & New Excalibur or something to that effect.

The Cornell CB & MI13 series was great. I only have a couple of questions/qualms regarding that series. Blade and Spitfire together seemed a little off but I suppose Cornell needed it it for the whole story to kind of glue together. Why did Doom help Meggan? Was it solely because of their similar gypsy backgrounds?

[Raffi Ol D'Arcy]

Excalibur (2001) Vol. 2 covers by Pablo Raimondi:

[Raffi Ol D'Arcy]

[freemach]

https://aiptcomics.com/2021/06/14/x-...e-gala-week-2/ Great to see Jordan D. White, Editor in charge of x-men is such a fan of Brian...

And listen, by the way, Brian screwed up all the time. Like, I love Brian Braddock. I love him. But he screwed up. He was an alcoholic who mistreated his wife terribly

I really hate this angle on Brian.

[Panic]

https://aiptcomics.com/2021/06/14/x-...e-gala-week-2/ Great to see Jordan D. White, Editor in charge of x-men is such a fan of Brian...

I really hate this angle on Brian.

Yeah, you're not the only one. It's pretty indicative of the the way Marvel is passive-aggressively hostile to non-American alpha-male heroes (and even to many non-white American heroes), usually depicting them as having culturally backwards views on the opposite sex. Basically, the cooler, more powerful, idealised-looking your non-white-American alpha hero is, the more likely they are to be portrayed as arrogant and sexist, even if in early appearances they did not display those qualities. It's a very convenient thing for American writers to say "but that's his personality, it's how the last writer wrote him," and overlook the unfortunate cultural bias in Marvel's writing over the years. I find it unfair, unpleasant, and rather hypocritical, but they control how characters are written. Both Davis and Cornell tried to undo some of the damage, but those American Marvel guys are pretty resistant. Someone should kick up a fuss in the media now that Marvel are becoming so dominant globally, but at the moment I can't even be bothered to make a blog about it. Maybe later, when I'm a bit more angry!

Also previous to that the Excalibur (2001) mini-series by Ben Raab (which was pretty good) had Captain Britain becoming king of the extra-dimensional realm of Otherworld. All of the aforementioned issues therefore created a kind of cohesiveness and are important for us CB fans in understanding where he and Meggan were at. I wouldn't mind Marvel putting out an Omnibus with all of these runs and those couple of issues from Avengers with Kelsey Leigh and calling it Captain Britain & New Excalibur or something to that effect.

I think Raab was well-intentioned, but he puts in something, perhaps unconsciously, that is pretty par for the course as far as American Marvel writers go:

I'm talking about Brian calling Roma "woman" rather than using her actual name - this is something American Marvel writers tend use to tell the reader that a foreign hero is not as enlightened as his American counterparts, and not someone to be looked up to. Now, I don't know about other British people here, but I have never heard a British man talk like this - it's considered incredibly rude, and is not how anyone well brought up would speak, at least not since I've been alive. But there it is, Brian calls Roma "woman" because... well, I guess because he's being written by an American writer. I laugh, but really it's not funny. Just unpleasant.

This is something of a tradition at Marvel, though; Claremont used this a fair amount - I remember he painted Sunfire with this particular brush in the Byrne era adventure where the X-Men show up to defend Tokyo from Moses Magnum and the Mandroids - and maybe it's unconscious; Marvel's Hercules has always been portrayed this way, iirc, and Aaron's portrayal of Thor is very much in this mode; but as I've said before, it's just indicative of many of the Marvel writers attitude to heroes that aren't 'their guys'.

Sorry for the rant, this stuff just really makes me angry.

[Raffi Ol D'Arcy]

X-Men: Die By The Sword (2007) covers by Jelena Djurdjevic:

[Raffi Ol D'Arcy]

Captain Britain by Alan Davis:

[Lucas 35]

Opinion? These characters weren't mutants, right?

[Panic]

Opinion? These characters weren't mutants, right?

I would have classified them as mutants by default, as they all had psychic powers but there was no suggestion of those gifts being acquired by external means (eg. super-serum, lab accident, alien genes, etc).

[Digifiend]

If they weren't mutants before, they've been retconned as being mutants.

Why does this cover use a flag that's centuries out of date? No St Patrick cross on the Union Jack. It's like Brian's promoting Eirexit!

[Panic]

Political jab I expect.

[Digifiend]

I'm not sure the art is even new. There's a dozen other covers for October in the same art style, and the characters all seem to be in 90s costumes.

[Panic]

No, it's from an old trading card. However, then as now, how can you not notice the absence of the St Patrick's Cross?

[Milk Tray Man]

It was Alan Davis designed wasn't it? I think so colourists wouldn't have too much trouble (not that it always worked even then).