The Coming of Captain Britain (photo, left) Even Stan “the Man” Lee reads Captain Britain, as hyped in the fanzine FOOM #17 (Mar. 1977). (below left) The team of Claremont, Trimpe, and Kida continued Captain Britain’s origin in issue #2 (Oct. 20, 1976). © 2008 Marvel Characters, Inc.
Although there had been an earlier attempt a few years before to create a British superhero comic called Captain Britain by publisher IPC (which was ultimately aborted because British comic creators at the time couldn’t produce any material on a par with the American superhero fare), it was developed under a codename to fool rival publisher D. C. Thomson and had no comparison to the eventual Marvel version. The official Captain Britain himself came from the Captain America/Daredevil mold of heroes (while emulating Spider-Man’s cast of supporting characters), a normal person with enhanced agility and a non-fatal weapon, a red, white, and blue extendible quarterstaff capable of projecting force fields— it also provided CB with fast transportation by allowing him to pole vault into action! CB’s origin was spread over the first two issues and introduced blond-haired Brian Braddock, a Thames University physics student working between terms at Darkmoor Research Centre, researching nuclear alternatives to the energy crisis. When an industrialist named Joshua Stragg attacks the center and his armored henchmen begin killing all the staff, Braddock escapes on a motorcycle but comes off the road, tumbling down a hillside and finding himself facing the apparition of the fabled Merlyn and his raven-haired daughter Roma, who loom over a ring of Neolithic stones. This area is the Siege Perilous, a magical nexus under the control of Merlyn, and one central stone has a necklace (the Amulet of Right) hung around it, while another has a blade (the Sword of Might) embedded in it. Merlyn commands Braddock to choose one with the fate of all life on Earth depending on his decision. As he is not a killer, Braddock chooses the amulet over the sword and is transformed into Captain Britain. Garbed in red spandex emblazoned with a yellow lion chest emblem and sporting a mask trimmed with the union flag (which is technically only the union jack when hoisted above a ship, pedantic ones), CB quickly takes down Stragg (who pulls the sword out of the Siege Perilous and is transformed into the armored Reaver) before accepting Merlyn’s offer of becoming his champion against evil. So begins Captain Britain’s superhero career. He fought such enemies as the turbinepowered criminal Hurricane and the illusionist Dr. Synne, who was powered by Mastermind, a machine built by CB’s late father in the bowels of the Malden, Essex, family home, Braddock Manor. With #11 (Dec. 2, 1976), writer Gary Friedrich replaced Claremont, who had managed to introduce CB’s love interest Courtney Ross and superhero-hating J. Jonah Jameson-like Inspector Dai Thomas in #3, as well as CB’s blonde sister Betsy in #8 and older brother Jamie in #9. The strip officially joined mainstream Marvel continuity when Captain America arrived in #16, closely followed by the Red Skull and Nick Fury. Thirty years on, Herb Trimpe has only distant memories of the strip, which was just another assignment for him. “It was extra work and I did it for the money,” recalls the artist, also famous for his 1970s Hulk run. “For me, eight pages of CB was two days work and that was it. I was mostly doing tight layouts, which could be done fairly quickly. I learned at the feet of 3 6
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