1985-86: CAPTAIN BRITAIN

Thursday, 31 May 2012

1985-86: CAPTAIN BRITAIN

After spending the late seventies in post-cancellation purgatory and the early eighties dodging closure (and the accountant's axe) by jumping from one ailing Marvel monthly to another, it finally looked like CB had found a permanent home in December 1984 (with a January 85 cover date) and the launch of his own monthly.

Inevitably, it was not to be and fourteen months later he was officially homeless. For a while. But what a ride.

- Since the cancellation of his own weekly, CB had appeared in SUPER SPIDER-MAN AND CAPTAIN BRITAIN, HULK COMIC (as a supporting character in the Black Knight strip), two all-reprint specials, MARVEL SUPERHEROES (with a new costume and, for the first time, a British creative team), THE DAREDEVILS and (the revived) THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL.

- CB's monthly was an all-British affair, a mixture of new strips and reprints (initially Night Raven and Abslom Daak) from the Marvel UK archive. However, in-house dummy editions featured a different line-up: alongside the new main strip, M-UK had planned to reprint John Bryne's Alpha Flight (which eventually appeared in MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS) and the cross-company X-MEN/ TEEN TITANS team-up (which didn't make it across the Atlantic).

- At first glance, CB monthly offered a less value-for-money package compared with its contemporaries. It boasted an overall reduced page-count and no colour interiors. INDIANA JONES (with no origination costs), in comparison, had more pages and more colour.

- The only free gift was (M-UK favourite) a giant poster in issue 11. If it was intended to boost sales, it didn't work.

- Marvel blamed cancellation on poor sales in the UK. Export copies to North American comic book stores apparently sold well despite the magazine-sized dimensions and black & white interiors.

- After cancellation, and a brief period in limbo, CB moved across to Marvel USA and became a founding member of the UK-based mutant team EXCALIBUR (by ex-Cap creators Claremont and Davis). M-UK reclaimed him for a supporting role in KNIGHTS OF PENDRAGON but, perhaps surprisingly, didn't make him a key part of the early-ninties expansion into North America. After the wholesale annihilation of the US-line (axed during the industry recession which followed the unsustainable boom years), M-UK Editor-in-Chief Paul Neary hatched plans to relaunch CB as a US-format limited series but the plans, and Neary, were canned when Panini took over responsibility for the British subsidery.