Captain Britain Omnibus

Product Information

Ok I'm lying—the omnibus actually ends with two Captain America issues guest starring Captain Britain and one of his old baddies, but these are on the whole pretty forgettable. It also suits the British national character (certainly of that period) where gloomy dystopian fears, a dislike of bullies, a penchant for the supernatural, a respect for practical science, a relative lack of interest in space-faring and a sense of history can co-exist in uneasy balance. Story thread is great in later issues, but the whole thing suffers from all the monochrome reproduction in a large portion of the product. The silver age stuff, especially that featuring Captain America is cheesy as hell, with only the biggest silver age fans likely able to stomach it, yet its decent for what it is.

Moore's story, though, is not joyful at all: on my first read of it in the 90s it felt dramatic and unpredictable.This omnibus begins right after the “Siege of Camelot” epic; Merlin sends Brian Braddock back to his universe, and gives him some new threads and powers. And then the characters are handed back to Claremont, who will go on to use them in Excalibur, a book that's often a tribute to the ideas of Thorpe, Moore, Davis and Delano here. Thorpe left after a falling-out with Alan Davis and Marvel UK editors over an episode which would have stood as an allegory for The Troubles in Northern Ireland - one of a few examples of potential political turns for the strip which were never followed up on. And Captain Britain remains one of the greatest 'superhero' runs I've had the privilege to read yet.

A character who has occasionally popped up here and there over the years, being butchered, retconned and generally destroyed, especially in more recent times. A short story by Grant Morrison ("Captain Granbretagne") offers an interesting and eerie variation on Captain Britain's origin story that also makes this volume worthwhile reading. The Black Knight strip wasn't that bad, but seemed to go on forever even though each individual story was only a few pages long. But ultimately, he doesn't know what to do with the character either, any more than anyone else did. The troubled history of the creative activity behind the character can be read on Wikipedia for those interested enough.

He spends his adventures confused, misguided, amnesiac, terrified, the dupe of mystical forces, the pawn of multiversal ones, or most often simply outmatched. The whole tempted by their greatest desire trope gets old, and I’m really not convinced by some of these “desires”. Some later iterations seem to avoid 'politics' by emphasising the magical elements of his origin story although he subsequently gets integrated into the Avengers' story lines and is certainly not allowed to die off as an integral character although never again one of the top-liners.

Worthwhile, but if Marvel publishes a collection of just the Moore stuff, jump on that instead, unless you HAVE to have everything, like me. This was an adventure from the early 80's after they revived the character and gave him a new uniform, and dispensed with his 6 foot staff. First, Moore is the guy who brings the fantasy elements present in Captain Britain together in a way that feels holistic and which sets a tone for his stories ever since. The Cherubim backups by Mike Collins are barely worth reading because there’s nothing interesting in the characters or the plots [4/10].After Moore, the quality stays strong with Davis writing as well as drawing, before Delano comes in and takes us to the end of the Captain's run as a solo story. This omnibus lives up to its name with over 1300 pages of Captain Britain material from his first appearance through his various British serials onto an X-Men Annual in 1987. Chris Claremont is best known for his work on Marvel Comics' The Uncanny X-Men, during which time it was the bestselling comic in the Western Hemisphere; he has sold more than 100 million comic books to date. He blends four different strands of British fantasy - Arthuriana in his origin, portal fantasy with journeys to Otherworld, Lewis Carroll whimsy with his bizarre and reality-bent or -bending cast, and Doctor Who style science-fantasy in his aspect as a multiversal voyager.