Customer Reviews

Captain Britain and MI:13, Vol. 1: Secret Invasion

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Out of the wreckage of Chris Claremont's "New Excalibur" comes Paul Cornell's "Captain Britain and MI-13", Marvel's latest stab at producing an Anglo-centric team book, and a far worthier one than its immediate predecessor, "New Excalibur", a team stacked with C-list American characters included by Claremont with an eye to telling his own pet stories (he was later shuffled off to "Exiles", where he proceeded to do exactly the same thing) rather than making use of the setting (Claremont's take on the British isles being heavy on stereotype). Cornell's arrival on the scene, first with his "Wisdom" MAX miniseries and now with "Captain Britain", brings an edgy and cool new feel to replace an atrophied writing style. This trade paperback collects issues 1-4 of the new series.

Most of the cast of "New Excalibur" is gone, with mainstays Captain Britain and Pete Wisdom the initial core of the cast. The Skrulls are invading Earth, and, while Brian Bendis' main event has eyes mainly for New York, Cornell brings us the battle for Britain. The Skrulls have a specific strategic goal in mind: the seizure of British magic, centred in the mystic realm of Avalon. After scattered initial engagements with the Skrull armies, a task force of British heroes led by Captain Britain (Brian Braddock) under the aegis of British special directorate MI-13: joining him on the mission are the aforementioned Wisdom, "Wisdom"-introduced castmember John the Skrull (a Skrull defector who looks and acts like John Lennon), and, from the pages of "Captain America" and "The Invaders", World War II British speedster Lady Jacqueline Falsworth-Crichton/Spitfire. A secondary plot follows the continued battle in London with American expatriate the Black Knight and newby Faiza Hussain, a doctor and superhero fangirl who gets blasted by a Skrull device but ends up getting superpowers instead of dying (lucky).

Cornell begins the series with several obvious goals, first and foremost being to rebuild the character of Captain Britain after years of being bland, indecisive, and comedic. This involves a rather literal resurrection, and the promise of a new and more confident character (indeed, as we are later told, his strength is tied to his confidence level). Cornell introduces an interesting character twist with Jackie, but this is mainly left as a hook for later stories. The Black Knight has, like Captain Britain, found himself in the middle of a continuity quagmire in recent years, this time concerning his trademark Ebony Blade, which, according to hack writer Reggie Hudlin, is currently in the possession of the Black Panther. Again, Cornell lays a bit of groundwork. The other piece of major character work involves, fittingly, the introduction of new character Faiza. She's cut from the Kitty Pryde mould, and is a perfectly charming character. Notably, she is Muslim character where this is handled as merely an aspect of her character rather than her central feature.

Cornell's writing is high quality, and highly imaginative, though occasionally his pacing seems a bit jerky. It's a quite optimistic and fresh-seeming take on the superhero genre, and it has an authentic British feel to it. On art, Leonard Kirk continues to be one of my favourite artists to recently have come to my attention. He perfectly suits the tone of Cornell's guide.

This, the North American collection, also includes two 1978 issues of "Marvel Team-Up" by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, where Captain Britain travels to New York and meets Spider-Man. They make a nice extra, and it's interesting to compare the differences between the character as he originally was and how he is depicted today.

This series is destined to be a cult favourite if it thrives at all, but one most certainly hopes for many more stories featuring Captain Britain and his allies.

I didn't start reading this with any understanding of the Avengers/Captain Britain mythology. I chose this because it said it collected the first issues for the storyline and so I would be starting at what read as a 'ground zero reboot' of a character set. However, to be honest, it did greatly hurt my appreciation of what was going on in the story since I found myself confused at a lot of offhand references.

Overall, we have an alien invasion by Skrulls (tepid name for an alien race) who are starting their evil work in England so they can steal magic (holy grail, excalibur, etc.) and use that magic to assail the rest of Earth. Several characters who I assume are part of previous plotlies are killed off. A main character, Peter Wisdom, calls upon a fairy named Tink, dressed like an 80s goth with black mohawk ponytail and sunglasses, to help him with the aliens (Peter Pan? Tinkerbell? Dunno). Magical creatures from Avalon are summoned (Green Knight, Lady of the Lake), killed off by the aliens, and then magically resurrected later. And somewhere inbetween a female muslim doctor is imbued with power and a guy called the black knight looking suspiciously generic American (disheveled, smart ass, stocky, short Stallone version of Judge Dredd is apparently synonymous for urban American). A Captain America is killed and then resurrected - though his character isn't even really touched upon at all. In the last few pages, everything is lost but the main character let out an evil from Avalon and the skrulls are wiped out. Anticlimactic and fast.

If the above sounds like a lot, it isn't. Although the story is easy to follow (even if you have no idea about the characters), it is very thin. The read took me about an hour in total. To make up the rest of the book, there is a Spiderman story from the 1970s. Unfortunately, the Spiderman story doesn't feel like an extra so much as filler after the lean Captain Britain storyline.

Perhaps this is best for fans who already knew the Captain Britain storyline. Not really for us neophytes.