Captain Britain 50th Anniversary Special #1 Review
Marvel even celebrating the 50th anniversary of Captain Britain is a pleasant surprise. Aside from Betsy’s time in Krakoa, where even there she featured largely in teams, it’s rare to have a Captain Britain book at all, long gone is the era of Marvel UK and classic Excalibur, where he was a fairly regular character in the Marvel Universe. Captain Britain 50th Anniversary Special features 2 classic Captain Britain creators, Chris Claremont and Alan Davis, and renowned UK writer Dan Abnett covering a variety of eras from early Captain Britain stories to the modern day.
First up, Chris Claremont and Paul Davidson tell a story between the pages of a classic Captain Britain story, #9 specifically, which was actually the issue after the first appearance of Betsy Braddock. The story is a mix of Claremont’s worst impulses and a classic tale that feels like it’s right out of its era. We find Brian on his brother Jamie’s plane, joined by his sister Betsy, so newly introduced she’s still blonde, and some business partners of Jamie’s, none other than Sebastian Shaw and “Tessa”, who would later be revealed as the X-Man Sage. While there’s nothing wrong with throwing in a bit of foreshadowing on your flashback stories, the Tessa stuff is pretty egregious, thinking to herself about how “her true employer, Charles Xavier” will want to hear about everything going on. I like Sage a lot, but she and Shaw (who doesn’t even speak) really serve no purpose in this story and don’t add anything to it apart from a wink at the camera.
That being said, I did actually really enjoy this story, and the real highlight of it is how Claremont treats Betsy. Claremont’s work on the X-Men is iconic, but I do sometimes wonder how he feels about the directions some of his characters have taken after his work on them. We see crumbs every now and then, like how well he wrote Emma Frost during his return to Uncanny X-Men in the 2000s whilst she was running the school alongside Scott, but how does he feel about the recent changes to Betsy and her taking on the Captain Britain mantle? While she held it before under Claremont’s pen, that was for a single issue that ended with her blinded. This story feels like a blessing to me, as Betsy holds Brian’s sceptre with him and both are transformed into Captain Britain, fighting alongside each other to defeat classic Captain Britain villain Doctor Synne. Sure, she gets beaten pretty easily, and the whole thing resolves with everyone involved except Tessa seemingly forgetting everything, but it still feels like a clear endorsement of Betsy holding the mantle from her original creator. I was surprised to see how much of Paul Davidson’s work I’d actually read before, he adapts to the classic Marvel UK style so well which is complemented by Carlos Lopez colours so well, it leaves the story feeling both classic and modern.
Next is THE definitive Captain Britain artist, Alan Davis, returning to write and draw a story about the absurd nature of the actual structure of the Captain Britain Corps, and how it pretty much all revolves around Brian Braddock, as the most Alan Davis-designed Corps member you’ve ever seen shows up to scold him for breaking the chain of command. The story serves largely as a trip down memory lane as the Captains Britain revisit key moments in Brian’s career, culminating in a good ol’ fight with the Fury, powerful enough to turn this glimpse through time into a real fight and giving Brian a chance to show this other Captain Britain just why he’s the favourite of Roma, Merlin, and Opal Luna Saturnyne. It’s a fairly brief story with not a lot I can say about it, but I’m never going to complain about getting Alan Davis to draw those key moments again and get one more fight with the Fury, giving him yet another chance to prove just how good he is.
The last story by Dan Abnett and Kelsey Ramsay focuses on the modern day Captain Britain, Betsy Braddock. She’s engaged in a traditional festival in Otherworld, Beltane, where she plays the role of the Green Knight engaged in battle with a simulacrum of her brother’s original costume, who is playing the role of the Red King of Winter. They fight, she wins, and Summer begins anew, but thanks to the constant schemes of Saturnyne seeking to disrupt that battle and change the outcome, things play out a little more violently than expected.
It’s hard not to view this story as somewhat of a metaphor for the events of Tini Howard’s time with Betsy Braddock, Saturnyne’s scheming to keep Brian as Captain Britain while Betsy takes what hers. Even as Betsy argues against the many cycles of Otherworld, that they leave it open to exploitation, the closing words are that “the Captains Britain of the Corps are there to put things right” as Betsy goes off, fiercely stubborn, prepared to change the world yet again. So it’s hard not to be hurt a little as you get to that last page and see what’s next for Betsy, a role as just another X-Man, stripped of the uniform and name she fought so hard for and reduced to standard training gear and a generic, soon to be forgotten name “Butterfly”.
Ramsay’s sketchy, dynamic style fits the story perfectly, especially the exciting action scenes, while still capturing the minor expression changes of characters and showing a glimpse of some great design work too, and it’s hard not to imagine a world where she and Dan Abnett lead Captain Britain onto great new adventures instead of Marvel struggling to move her backwards yet again. I will say the lack of Rachel even appearing in the background of this issue was a disappointment, especially with Betsy acting as an embodiment of Summer and the fact they seem to be separated in Maximum X-Men too.
Despite a few issues and an uncertain future, it’s hard to think of a better way to celebrate Captain Britain than these stories and this group of creators celebrating both the past and a potential future for the character. The stories may be brief, but they capture the characters and their stories beautifully, and it’s a wonderful celebration of a character and mantle Marvel too often forgets.
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