Captain Britain, part 2

Greetings once again, citizens! Today I'm finishing up my review of the trade paperback simply called Captain Britain. Last time I talked about the good Captain, I had left out a couple of details because they didn’t affect the plot that was going on in the issues I discussed. Those details are, however, important to this week's review. If you haven't read part one yet, here it is.

First, there’s The Fury. After it killed Cap on Earth-238, The Fury had a nagging feeling that it had missed something. It manages to survive the destruction of that universe and travel to the main Marvel Universe, Earth-616. Doing so drains most of its energy, however, and it needs to spend some time recuperating and also needs to consume living matter (or something, it’s a little unclear).

Then we have Captain U.K, aka Linda McQuillan. Captain U.K was Earth-238’s counterpart to Captain Britain. She was spared from being another of The Fury’s victims by her husband, who sent her to a random other universe. She’s been in the 616 universe for a little while now, and the interludes we have of her have shown her dealing with issues like stress, anxiety, terror and what-not.

The story picks up with Captains Britain and U.K, the Special Executive, Betsy and Thomas Lennox all watching a speech by parliament member James Jaspers. If the name sounds familiar, that’s because we encountered his Earth-238 counterpart, known as Mad Jim Jaspers. This Jaspers is going on for a need to round up anyone who’s super-powered and put them in internment camps. This worries Betsy, Lennox, and Captain Britain. Captain U.K is visibly distraught, stepping away from everyone else. Captain Britain tries to comfort her, but she tells him that this was the beginning of the fiasco that led to The Fury’s creation, with the speech being identical to the one her universe’s Jasper delivered.

We see Jaspers at a party after the speech. The scene doesn’t serve much of a purpose, except to show a cameo of Sebastian Shaw and Henry Gyrich (villains from the X-men stable of books), and to demonstrate his disdain for not giving into his madness, and also white wine (he switches it to red with his reality warping ability). We then cut to a scene of Merlin and Magda, who are playing chess with pieces shaped like various characters who’ve been introduced in the story thus far. Most notably at the moment are the criminal Vixen, who is in control of S.T.R.I.K.E, and Jaspers. Jaspers tells Vixen to prepare herself because in a week, S.T.R.I.K.E will be given orders to eradicate all superheroes.

Back with our heroes, we have Wardog and Zeitgeist of the Special Executive debating what they should do now. Zeitgeist thinks they should go find a new job, since nobody is paying them for this one. Wardog however feels like they should stay and try to work out what to do about the Jaspers situation. Zeitgeist points out that it’s not their problem, but the team precog Cobweb says that it is their problem, and will affect them in a way she cannot foresee. Lennox is attempting to convince Betsy that they too should leave, but she gets some images of some disturbing stuff and feels they should stay to try and help. Captain Britain is talking with Captain U.K, but she flips out and runs off into the night in tears. The issue ends with Captain U.K in the woods, with The Fury looming behind her.

The next issue begins with three different sets of panels, all arranged on a line, as opposed to a more traditional panel layout, which caused me to misread them the first time. The first set is Captain Britain and Saturnyne talking, nothing all that exciting or noteworthy, except an implication from Saturnyne that she might ditch Cap again. The next set has Wardog and Zeitgeist continuing their argument from the last issue, and then Cobweb having some sort of seizure. The third set of panels is Merlin and Magda, still playing their chess game, Merlin saying he missed something, and then a piece representing The Fury appears on the board, in neither black nor white. Each set of panels also features a caption box stating “and Linda McQuillan is screaming.”

Turning the page reveals a two page spread of the Fury about to blast Linda, and three panels depicting the characters from each set on the previous pages showing their reaction to the scream, everyone is shocked except for Merlin, who looks utterly pissed. Linda immediately begins attempting to flee from the Fury, but to no avail. It seemingly blasts her, but Merlin does something to the chess piece representing Linda and protects her, but doing so seems to harm him. The Fury is about to blast Linda again when Captain Britain enters the fray. The Fury knew he was coming though, so Cap ends up just getting beaten on, after a moment of shocked recognition of the assailant. The members of Special Executive, excluding Zeitgeist, go to see what the disturbance is. Wardog gets his mechanical arm destroyed, and one of Legion is killed. I didn’t really say much about Legion last time, but that’s because I didn’t really know what to say about him. His deal is that he’s got a bunch of his future selves with him, which allows him to do several things at once, but if one of them dies then he’ll die once he catches up with the point in time that one is from. His duplicates come from two weeks into the future at most, so Legion is going to die soon.

I feel I should talk a bit more about the artwork. Something I didn’t notice in my initial read through of this was that while most of the pages use standard panel layouts, there are several instances of Alan Davis doing something a bit different. These pages with the Fury are an example of that, with the panels being more triangular and diagonal rather than squarish and horizontal/vertical. It adds a subtle, dynamic layer to the composition, which really lends to the action. This isn’t the only instance of Davis doing something different, but it jumped out at me a bit more than the previous ones. The next two pages also break the mold a bit, featuring four long vertical panels with things falling outside of them. The panels are a confusing mish-mash of visions that Cobweb is apparently experiencing, along with rambling thought balloons from her. This would really annoy me, but it really gives the reader a sense of the tumultuous jumble of things that are going through her head at this moment, so kudos to Moore and Davis.

The fight continues against The Fury, with little luck on the part of the heroes. Fascination has a little bit of luck, until it switches to the backup brain that it apparently has. Cap continues to get his ass kicked, and it seems like The Fury’s going to win, until Zeitgeist enters the fight, after some urging from Cobweb. The Fury isn’t able to detect Zeitgeist in anyway, and is also able to disrupt it to a degree. The others take this opportunity to hit The Fury with everything they’ve got which also causes a fissure to open up beneath it, and The Fury plummets into it. Cap and Fascination get a couple more hits in on it before the fissure begins to collapse and they have to fly out. Our heroes get a moment to breathe, but nobody thinks for a moment that The Fury is dead. The Special Executive takes their leave, Wardog saying that he can’t ask his team to face such danger for nothing, and the others are leaving the manor.

The next issue is somewhat hard for me to summarize like the others, with more or less page by page descriptions. So, I’ll be more brief with this one. It’s mostly exposition, but instead of having things explained to us, we pick up details from what the characters say and the images. The issue features a pair of people talking about rumors they’ve heard regarding Captain Britain.  Basically, things have devolved, with Jaspers getting his wish and camps being established to house super-powered individuals. Soldiers are on the lookout for any such people, asking random people to see their papers, searching vehicles at roadblocks and other sorts of fascist type things. One of them says she heard that Captain Britain was found in a food line, and took on an amount of soldiers that increased as the story went on. The other says she’s heard various things, ranging from Cap going down to London with an army of other supers, to him being tortured and ratting out his friends. This reminds me a bit of V for Vendetta, but that might just be the whole “dystopian Britain” thing. Or it could be because this was written about the same time that Alan Moore wrote V for Vendetta. Either way, it seems like there’s a lot of stories about Britain under fascist rule. I can’t really think of too many stories where America or any other country is in a similar situation, so what’s the deal? I’m genuinely curious if it’s like Britain’s equivalent to the apocalypse obsession that pervades American culture. Or maybe that’s something more widespread too, I’m not sure. I really need to make some friends from other countries.

Anyway, enough of my speculating on fiction trends, more reviewing thirty-year-old comics! The next issue opens with some soldiers investigating the grounds of what I assume is Braddock Manor. I say assume because we don’t get told exactly where they are, beyond “England,” but The Fury pops out of the darkness and kills them. I’d be more confident about the location, but on the next page we see a siren going off in London with no other explanation about where it came from. Regardless of location where that happened, Cap and the others are hiding out in London. They recap the situation, and Saturnyne tells Cap that she’s in it for real this time, partly because she no longer has the ability to just run off to another universe.

We then cut to Vixen paying a visit to Jaspers. She’s concerned that Jasper’s plans have gotten a little out of hand, and is worried about attracting attentions from other world powers or the Avengers, and has gone to talk to him. Unfortunately, Jaspers has fully embraced his madness and is letting his powers flow out into the world. His hat changes in every panel, and his office seems to be some sort of weird purple and black void, which I would normally chalk up to the artist being lazy, but it doesn’t mesh with everything else I’ve seen up to this point. Jaspers eliminates the goons Vixen brought with her, and turns Vixen herself into a pink cat. The issue ends with Cap suiting up and flying off with an expression of righteous anger on his face.

The next issue starts off with Magda urging Merlin that they should abandon their game of reality chess as she examines his damaged hands, but he insists they keep going.  We then get a really neat looking page with Betsy’s head just above the center. From her eye line up, things fade into a panel depicting a bunch of soldiers converging on their location. She then alerts everyone to what was evidently a precognitive vision, before something bangs on the door. Lennox opts to stay behind to try to hold them off while the others make their escape. However, Betsy is linked telepathically with Lennox, and when he gets shot, she falls over as well. Saturnyne urges Linda to help them, but she insists that she can’t before running off, Saturnyne following after.

Back to Merlin and Magda, they’re still playing chess, but Merlin is musing to himself about how he’s been shaping Captain Britain for this exact moment, and we see him arriving… here.

Yeah, clearly Jaspers isn’t bothering making things look right anymore, as all the other panels feature similar kinds of backgrounds, as well as the triangular, disjointed panels like we had before. I both like and dislike these panels. On the one hand, I really like the way that the art is reflecting the utter lunacy that is Jasper’s world. On the other, I’m very much a fan of more realistic and linear artwork, and stuff like this tends to give me a headache. Again, I’d be more annoyed if this wasn’t something necessitated by the story, but it’s still something of a nuisance.

We cut away from the madness to have a scene with Saturnyne chewing out Linda, calling her a coward and even striking her. Linda finally manages to do something more than cower and hits Saturnyne back. She seems apologetic about it, but Saturnyne is just pleased, in spite of the bruise on her cheek. We then go back to Cap entering Jasper’s office, and the issue ends with some really cool looking artwork.

 We begin the climax of the story arc with Saturnyne talking Linda out of her clothes.

…

Let me re-phrase that. We begin with Linda stripping off her street clothes revealing her Captain U.K outfit beneath, though some of the dialogue comes off as kinda…  well, here’s what the caption boxes say:

            

              “She took off her coat without too much trouble, and likewise the shirt. The trapped look in                 her eyes grew more intense…

              There was an argument about the jeans. She cried and wanted to keep them on.

              No dice.”

Anyway, after that scene with is much less sexual than one could be led to believe, we cut to Captain Britain confronting giant Jaspers. He tries to talk him out of warping reality like this, but he just blows Cap off and starts making Cap think he’s back on Earth-238 and then just waking up from a coma where all the Captain Britain stuff was just a dream. Jaspers then goes back to a normal-ish form while taunting Cap, and Cap promptly punches him in his stupid face. However, Jaspers keeps warping things and kicks Cap’s ass. We end the issue with Cap getting up, in spite of being savagely beaten, Jaspers going off somewhere else, and the final panel is an image of Cap through the eye of The Fury.

The next issue starts off with Cap once again getting smacked around by The Fury. Jaspers is off pouting somewhere, before creating a group that will later be called the Crazy Gang out of nothing. They’re not really important to the story, so I’m not going to get into them. The Fury then punches Cap into the area where Jaspers wandered off to. It looks like the thing is going to kill Cap again, when Jaspers decides to introduce himself. The Fury thinks to itself that it always really wanted to kill Jaspers, but it’s programming forbid it from doing so. It reasons, however, that this isn’t the Jaspers that its programming was talking about, so it can go ahead and kill him. And thus begins the most chaotic fight scene I’ve ever read. I really have no idea how to describe this, and would love to know what the transcript for this looked like. The fight spans the rest of this issue, save for one page, as well as the beginning of the next one. The short version is that The Fury reasons that the only way to beat Jaspers is to take them both out of reality. It does so, kills Jaspers, and then returns to our reality, but this drained almost all of The Fury’s energy.

Which leaves it vulnerable to Cap beating the everloving crap out of it, starting with punching a hole straight through its torso in a very “I AM A MAN!” way.

                        

He inflicts a lot of damage on it, tearing large chunks off of it, but the thing manages to get the upper hand for a moment, and is once again on the verge of killing him. Fortunately, Captain U.K jumps in and finishes what Captain Britain started, ripping the thing to pieces, and finally killing it. The two Captains then embrace, but while they share a tender moment, Saturnyne gets a bit of blood from Jaspers’ corpse.

It’s at this point that I have to circle back to the one page I omitted earlier that fell in the middle of the Jaspers/Fury fight. It shows Merlin and Magda, once again, but their chess game has apparently dissolved. Magda says that Merlin told her the multiverse depended on their game, and she has no idea what this means, asking Merlin. However, Merlin collapses with his eyes rolling back in his head. After The Fury is slain, Magda teleports the Captains and Saturnyne to Otherworld (the place where she and Merlin live), and we see her dressed in formal garb, with Merlin lying in a very fancy coffin.

The final issue is Merlin’s funeral. There’s not a whole lot to say, it’s mostly wrapping things up. Captain Britain gets an opportunity to meet other versions of himself from other worlds, and also talks to Magda, who was able to save Betsy’s life. Magda sends Saturnyne to see Mandragon, and threatens to clone Jaspers if he doesn’t step down, pardon her, and give her back her job. Magda tells Cap that she actually made the DNA from the blood inert, so he can’t be cloned, but neither Saturnyne nor Mandragon know that. Magda then sends the Captains back to Earth-616, where they share a kiss before departing.

Overall, I thought that this was a really solid story. The pacing is great after the very beginning, neither moving too slowly nor too fast. The characters all feel not only real, but likable in their own ways. Saturnyne is loathsome, but at the same time, I find myself wanting to see more of her plotting. Captain Britain is a lot of fun to read, especially when he has moments where he’s just overwhelmed by the insanity that is his life. I had hoped to see more of Betsy, partly because the friend who loaned me this is a big fan of her, but c’est la vie. Alan Davis’ artwork is great, able to do both highly realistic stuff, but also the utterly bizarre stuff from Jaspers’ mad mind.

However, there are some issues. The crazier parts are kinda hard to follow, and required me to read them twice to fully understand. What I feel is more of an issue though, is how Cap is portrayed. The comic is ultimately supposed to be about Captain Britain, and while it’s cool seeing secondary characters being badass, I feel that the central character should be the star. But it seems like Cap gets his ass kicked more often than he does any kicking. Hell, he dies in his own book! He doesn’t even beat Jaspers or The Fury. While I do think that it was great that Captain U.K took out the Fury, giving her story arc some closure, it would’ve been nice to see Captain Britain kill it after he got beaten down three times and killed by it.

In spite of that, I highly recommend this. I don’t know how easy it is to find, since the trade was printed back in 2002, but apparently the second Captain Britain volume is hard to get. But if you can find it, check it out.

Next week we’re back to Superior Spider-Man, but this isn’t the last we’ll see of Captain Britain. I’ve got a few trades of Excalibur that I’m planning for future reviews, but they’re a ways off yet.

Until next week, citizens!

P.S. If anybody reading this happens to be from another country, or is just more familiar with other cultures, feel free to answer my questions about dystopian/apocalyptic fiction.

Captain Britain part 1

(WARNING: The following post is pretty long. Couchman recommends that before beginning to read, you have yourself a comfortable seat as well as possibly a refreshing drink and a snack.)

Greetings once more, citizens! Today, I'm taking a step away from the adventures of Superior Spider-Man. Instead, I'm reviewing a lesser known hero written by one of the most well known comic writers, Alan Moore. Alan Moore, for those not familiar with the name, is a critically acclaimed graphic novel writer, responsible for such gems as Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and Batman: The Killing Joke. However, today's selection is from before he gained most of his renown.

Captain Britain (alias Brian Braddock) was created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe, and was originally envisioned as being the British version of Captain America. He was one of 3 children of an aristocratic family who, after the birth of him and his twin sister, didn't quite have enough money to hobnob anymore. Because of this, Brian never really socialized, since he felt he was too good for people of a lower class. He studied physics in college and worked at a nuclear facility after his parent's death. The facility was attacked one night, and Brian fled in order to find help. He did manage to find help, in the form of Merlin and his daughter, Roma. They offer him the chance to become a hero, and give him a choice between two artifacts; The Amulet of Right, and The Sword of Right. Brian didn't feel he was a warrior, nor that he was up to the task of being a hero, and chose the Amulet. And thus, Captain Britain was born!

This trade collects most of the Jasper's Warp storyline. I say most of because it actually omits the beginning of the arc, which was written by a different author. A good friend of mine loaned this to me, and I was pretty intrigued by it. I'd heard of Captain Britain, but my only real exposure to him before this was from the Marvel: Avenger's Alliance game (which I'm partially ashamed to admit I play). I had of course heard of Alan Moore, but I'd actually never read anything by him, not even Watchmen. His stuff sounds good, but most of his more well known work doesn't seem like my cup of tea. I thought that this would be a good way to get introduced to an interesting sounding character, and a writer whose works people keep telling me to read. 

Now, I’m not going to lie, I had a real hard time getting into this book. It starts of pretty confusing, for anyone who hasn’t read any of Captain Britain prior to this, and has so much happening so quickly, it becomes a tad overwhelming. The trade opens by establishing that Captain Britain is on a parallel Earth, thanks to shenanigans. This Earth (Earth 238) is devoid of superpowered people, due to a villain known as The Fury, a “cybiote.” I have never seen that word used before, but it seems to be analogous to cyborg.

Not that one!

Anyway, The Fury is dispatched to deal with Captain Britain and it begins kicking his ass. Cap attempts to fight back, but well, there’s a reason I said “attempt.” Saturnyne (who I’ll get to later) is unimpressed by The Fury, and tells her minions to kill it. When they have as much effect as Cap, she decides it’s a good time to go see how other universes are doing and flees, along with her minions. The Fury then proceeds to kill Dimples and Jackdaw. I’m not sure who Dimples was (and I don’t think he gets mentioned in the trade again), but Jackdaw was a good friend of Cap’s and he’s understandably enraged by the death. Cap once more attempts to attack The Fury, but only manages to succeed in getting his arm broken. Before The Fury is able to kill Cap, he is rescued by a man in a helicopter shaped like a teapot.

No, I’m not kidding.

The man is Mad Jim Jaspers, a reality-warping mutant who used to be a member of Parliament. It’s revealed that Mad Jim is the one who designed The Fury in order to rid the world of all other superpowered people, leaving him as the only one. Why does he do this? Good question, but before we can find out, Cap gets too freaked out by Mad Jim’s warping of reality, and runs out of the room, forgetting that the room is in fact a helicopter. He lands in a graveyard, showing the graves of various heroes, and finds an open one, the tombstone reading “Captain UK.” Cap begins to call to the heavens, wondering why Merlin sent him here. And then The Fury kills him. Yep, Captain Britain dies in the opening of his own trade. If this were just a single issue of a comic, I’d think that’s the end of it, but nope, I can tell there’s quite a bit more.

In contrast to the pace of the previous issue, this one is almost glacially slow. I’m not going to get too into the details of it, but the gist of what happens is that Merlin and his daughter, Roma, bring Captain Britain back to life while going over his backstory. There’s not a single bit of real action in this issue, and oh dear lord is it wordy. I’m not sure if this is something indicative of Moore’s writing, or just something he felt necessary for this part, but it’s something I’ve noticed with other British writers. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but it can make it somewhat difficult to dive into. I will say that while dense, it is well-worded, and I can even see the need for giving all this info. From what I can tell from my research, Captain Britain hadn’t been a huge character up to this point, and excluding the few issues leading up to this, he hadn’t really had his own series in a little while, so people might not know much about him, except that he’s probably patriotic, given his name and costume. But I digress…

Once Cap is alive again, Merlin dumps him off in Darkmoor, a place Cap is familiar with, and incredibly happy to be returned to. He apparently is able to get a change of clothes before getting a cab to take him to his family’s home, Braddock Manor. The Manor was apparently bombed last time Cap was there but seems to be all fixed up, to him at least. The cabbie sees the manor in ruins, but doesn’t comment on it, because Cap blinded him with a fat stack of cash. He goes inside and finds out that the manor was not in fact bombed, but was taken over by an evil computer that caused the death of his parents. He manages to reprogram the computer so that it no longer has a personality, but doesn’t destroy it because of how incredibly advanced it is. It’s able to project a hologram of the destroyed manor so that nobody would think there’s anything suspicious there. Just as Cap is settling down into a comfy chair with a stiff drink, the phone rings, much to Cap’s surprise.

It turns out that it’s Captain Britain’s twin sister, Elisabeth, later known as Psylocke. She tells him that she’s in deep trouble, and needs his help, arranging to meet with him in London. When they meet up, Betsy tells Cap that she’s developed her occasional flashes of precognition into a full gift, and is working with S.T.R.I.K.E, the UK version of S.H.I.E.L.D. However, S.T.R.I.K.E has been infiltrated by the minions of a villain known as Vixen, who has sent an assassin after the psychics S.T.R.I.K.E has on staff, since they’re the only ones who are aware of the infiltration. According to Betsy, there were 10 psychics at the beginning, but now they’re down to 5. And then 3, as the assassin kills 2 more while Betsy’s giving Cap the briefing. The others were nearby, and linked all linked together telepathically, so Betsy and Cap are able to get there quickly enough to save the other 2. Cap confronts the assassin, and discovers that it’s an old acquaintance who goes by the name of Slaymaster. Slaymaster is surprised by Cap’s force-field, but manages to find a weak point in it which he exploits. Slaymaster has used a (supposed) ninja technique that has given his left hand an incredibly sharp edge, and begins attempting to cut Cap into pieces. While Cap does have super strength and durability, Slaymaster is the better fighter, and manages to get Cap on the ropes. Cap is saved by Betsy and one of the other psychics, a telekinetic named Thomas Lennox, who predict Slaymaster’s movements, and then blind him, with the power of COMICS!

Cap then pummels Slaymaster into unconsciousness, just in time for the police to arrive. Unfortunately, another of Cap’s acquaintances is one of them, and he’s not too fond of superheroes. Cap flies off in order to avoid catching up with his ‘”friend” and tells Betsy to meet him back at the manor.

The next issue begins with a group of mercenaries, known as the Special Executive, infiltrating the manor. As the action happens, the caption boxes inform us of the plan as they went over it in their pre-mission meeting, which I thought was nifty. We get a bit of info about the people staying at the manor, which is now Captain Britain, Betsy, Lennox (who we learn is Betsy’s lover), and the third psychic from STRIKE, Alison Double. They incapacitate both Lennox and Betsy, but Alison seems to be sleeping quite deeply and they don’t bother. The mercenaries wake Cap up, informing him that he is their prisoner. He obviously doesn’t take well to this, but instead of just blindly attacking them, he opts to instead grab his suit and flee in order to don it, since it enhances his powers. He takes out one of them quickly before the leader of the mercenaries, Wardog, tries talking him down. He tells Cap that they require his testimony in order to secure their client’s freedom. Cap, asks why they didn’t say so in the first place, but then Wardog tells him their client is Saturnyne. Saturnyne, if you recall, left Captain Britain on the alternate Earth with The Fury, and he’s still quite pissed about that fact. He’s knocked out by one of the mercs, Fascination, and the issue ends with them taking him aboard their ship.

The next issue opens with Captain Britain aboard the Special Executive’s ship, engaged in a brawl with a bunch of little green men who all seem to speak with one voice. He fights for a bit but then just sort of deflates. I actually really love Cap’s reaction to all of this. He’s burned out on utter absurdity, and just doesn’t feel like dealing with it any more. I can’t blame him, I’ve been in situations like that even without getting kidnapped and travelling to parallel worlds. But the weariness and irritation that he shows really makes him seem more human. Wardog tells Cap that Saturnyne is to stand trial for what happened on Earth-238, and that he’s the only one who he can help her. The trial is being held on yet another alternate Earth, and the group is being chaperoned by two alternate Captain Britains, Captain England and Captain Albion. I really like the character designs for these two, they’ve got a unique sort of look, but they look similar enough to Captain Britain that you can tell that they’re based off of him.

Captain Britain is taken to visit Saturnyne before the trial. I should probably explain the deal behind Saturnyne. She held the title of Omniversal Majestrix, which made her in charge of overseeing the multiverse and ensuring order and stability. She had apparently been trying to nudge Earth-238 forward a bit because “it was holding back the development of all the other Earths.” Her position is part of the Dimensional Development Court, and she only had to answer to Merlin. The Court does have some say in things though, since they’re the ones who are putting her on trial for the clusterfuck that has become Earth-238.

Anyway, back to the plot, Captain Britain sees Saturnyne in her sell, bound and on her knees, and his anger diminishes. He’s still mad at her, since he blames her for Jackdaw’s death. He asks why he should help her, and she loses what composure she had. She tells him that he should just leave, that she was foolish to think he’d help her. She says her Avant Guard were barred from testifying, and breaks down into tears, once again shouting at him to leave, and accusing him of taking pleasure in seeing her like this. Cap tells her that he thought he would like it, but no. He tells her that he’ll testify on her behalf, saying that what happened on Earth-238 was not her fault. It’s a really touching moment, seeing Cap’s compassion overcoming his anger with her.

At the trial, we begin to learn that the Avant Guard being barred from testifying is just one of the ways that the deck has been stacked against Saturnyne. The judge of the whole thing is Mandragon, her successor if she loses her position, and I can’t decide if his name is incredibly stupid, or incredibly awesome. Mandragon immediately decides that the universe of Earth-238 is dangerous to the multiverse, and eliminates it. This also conveniently destroys any material evidence that could be used in Saturnyne’s defense, and closes out the issue.

The next issue gives us a view of the assembled audience watching the trial, and I once again have to give props to Alan Davis’s artwork. There are few if any humanoid beings in the audience, with the exception of one of the commentators. Yep, the trial has commentators, which makes me think that on this Earth, high-profile trials are like professional wrestling events. Captain Britain is pissed off about Mandragon destroying an entire universe and tries to object to it, but Captains England and Albion subdue him. Mandragon then says that because of Captain Britain’s conduct, he will not be permitted to speak on Saturnyne’s defense. Saturnyne is immediately sentenced to be broken down into her constituent particles. Captain Britain takes exception with this and begins beating the crap out of the other Captains. It’s at this point that the Special Executive decides to get involved, along with a bunch of giant green robots on behalf of Mandragon. The fight lasts the rest of this issue, and almost the entire next one. There’s not much to say about it really, except that we get another amusing line from Captain Britain while he’s fighting Captain England. 

Cap, Saturnyne, and the Special Executive manage to escape though Mandragon doesn’t seem to care too much, since he got what he wanted and can just nuke whatever universe she ends up in anyway if he feels like it. The group decides to hide out in Braddock Manor, because… I’m going to guess it’s because Cap could use a strong drink, and he likes what he’s got at his place. They arrive at the manor, and Cap is about to go on an angry tirade about all the bullshit that’s been going on, but the doorbell rings. He answers the door and finds Captain UK there, the Earth-238 version of himself who happens to be a woman. She’s been popping up a bit in the previous issues, but I’ll get into that in part 2 of the review. This closes out the first half of the book, and serves as a good stopping point for this part of the review.

Overall, I’m really enjoying it so far. Alan Davis’s artwork is great, especially on Captain Britain himself. Maybe it’s just because I’m an art nerd, but it’s so nice seeing a comic done by a guy who clearly studies the human figure and understands how the millions of pieces of it actually move and look. Everything else is really solid as well, but I really take pleasure in seeing musculature done well enough to actual work in an anatomy book. The colors do an excellent job of setting mood and tone, using deep shadows for more dramatic moments, but they’re not so over-done as to make the reader question what the hell they’re looking at. The writing is also damned good. As I said, getting into it was difficult, but I’m willing to chalk that up to Alan Moore having to take over for Dave Thorpe, whose writing was considered too hard to follow. After the beginning, everything flows nicely, with good pacing and solid dialogue. The dialogue is actually one of my favorite parts, especially Captain Britain’s. Between well written dialogue on him, and excellent artwork, it really makes him shine, which makes sense since it’s his own book and all. Though it’s somewhat surprising how often the star of a work is less interesting than some of the supporting characters.

I’ll be reviewing the second half of the book in 2 weeks. Next week though, I’ll be looking at something other than a comic. And something that’s not Marvel, since I want to look at more than just their properties. What will I be looking at? Check back next week to find out! Same Couch time, same Couch domain!