Customer Reviews

Captain Britain Omnibus

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

2009 was a bit of a mixed year for fans of Captain Britain. On the one hand, the "Captain Britain and MI13" ongoing series, fan-acclaimed but very low-selling, came to an end. On the other, this omnibus collection, featuring a mix of classic stories long out of print and classic stories that had never been traded at all, was released. Indeed, initial demand outstripped Amazon's stockpile. I will miss Paul Cornell's series dearly, but I am thrilled to get a chance to see all of these stories in such a quality format.

The Amazon site labels this the "Captain Britain by Alan Moore and Alan Davis Omnibus", which is a trifle misleading if one is not familiar with the content. Davis's name being used like that is accurate; he was involved, either as writer, artist, or both, in all but 44 of the collection's 601 pages of story. Moore, however, while the author of the most famous segment of this period (the bulk of the "Jaspers' Warp" epic), is only responsible for about a third of the collection. Anyone buying this expecting 600 pages of Alan Moore stories should know that this is not the case. That said, 200 pages of Moore is very much worth buying, and the remainder, by Davis and other creators, is also excellent (they are herein discussed, so some spoilers).

Unlike most of Marvel's Omnibuses, which focus on the work of a unified creative force (an author, generally, occasionally also a single artist; the "Wolverine Omnibus" is the other most recent notable exception), this one covers an entire era in the history of the Captain Britain mythos. What might be called the second volume, beginning publication in 1981 a few years after the first ended, and ending before the launch of the "Excalibur" team book featuring some of the characters in 1987. This era began with writer David Thorpe and artist Davis, launching Cap into a new era with a revitalized supporting cast and a new costume (one that he would keep until 2008). Thorpe was let go, according to Davis, because he used the initial parts of "Jaspers' Warp" as a platform for political subtext, which Marvel UK wanted nothing to do with. His replacement was, ironically, Alan Moore, now one of comics' most well-known writers for including adult themes, but who here restrained himself mostly to what Davis calls "high-concept weirdness". Moore finishes Thorpe's story (past collections, though, have included only Moore's part; here readers get the whole thing for the first time). Moore's departure eventually brought Jamie Delano on to co-write with Davis, though Davis says that Delano's taste for a non-superhero style made it a difficult collaboration. Filling out the collection are two Chris Claremont-written, Davis-illustrated X-Men stories that integrated Captain Britain's sister Psylocke into the team, and two Mike Carlin-written issues of "Captain America", where the title character teams up with Captain Britain. These issues are the only ones in the collection not drawn by Davis, which makes them stand out a bit. However, Paul Neary does have a connection to the property: he was working at Marvel and helped get the revival going.

Moore's stories are the big draw here, and indeed he delivers some of his best straight superhero work. He gives Captain Britain a vibrant supporting cast, with characters such as Merlyn coming across as particularly interesting. I would argue that Captain Britain himself may suffer a bit under this, as Moore never really makes him the most interesting person in the room. One gets the sense he finds people like Merlyn more interesting. Personally, the highlight of Moore's work was the final issue, Merlyn's funeral, which has all the best Moore touches. At the end of "Jaspers' Warp", Brian has defeated neither of the two main villains; his AU counterpart, Linda, is really the big hero in the end. Brian is served better in the subsequent Davis/Delano period, which put him in a variety of scenarios to illustrate his personality, while not losing sight of the other characters. For those who are familiar wtih Davis primarily as a light comedy artist, his potent handling of many grim and disturbing scenes will be a welcome display of breadth. Consider a jumble of images depicting Jamie Braddock's various misdeeds, among them two panels depicting a young female Red Cross worker being singled out to survive the slaughter of her co-workers and be sold as a slave in Tangier. The rendering of her face is powerful. Chris Claremont's Psylocke stories mark a fairly pronounced shift in the character's depictions (as acknowledged in-story), but build on her various ordeals in previous stories and set her on a path to eclipse her brother in popularity as a member of comics' biggest franchise.

Overall, a highly recommended collection of comics rather scarce on either side of the Atlantic.

This omnibus was not as complete as I hoped it would be, but at over 700 pages long I would be crazy to complain about it. If you were interested in Captain Britain's history after reading Excalibur, trying to collect it in singles was a bit of an epic. There was a graphic novel, Captain Britain TPB (Before Excalibur...), that contained the Mighty World of Marvel (UK) #14-16 and Captain Britain (UK) #1-14, but those comics kept referencing some intriguing-sounding thing called the Jaspers Warp. In 1995, Marvel released that storyline, which runs through Marvel Super-Heroes (UK) #377-388, The Daredevils (UK) #1-11, and the Mighty World of Marvel (UK) #7-13, in seven single issues of X-Men Archives featuring Captain Britain, but if you missed those you were again out of luck.

The Captain Britain omnibus collects all the issues listed above and throws in New Mutants Annual #2, Uncanny X-Men Annual #11, Captain America #305-306, and some nice extras as well. This is the omnibus I have been waiting years for.

The omnibus does not include earlier stories of Captain Britain, such as those from Captain Britain Weekly (UK) (the first ten issues of which were written by Chris Claremont), Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain (UK), and the "Otherworld Saga" which ran in the Hulk (UK) Comic. For completion's sake, it would be great to see a second omnibus of this material.

With its high price, this collection is probably not aimed for the casual Alan Moore fan who may be interested in reading his only extended Marvel work. Fortunately, it does seem to be aimed for people like me--the diehard Alan Davis Captain Britain fan. Almost everything pre-Excalibur is here, including a comprehensive bonus section containing sketches, backup stories, text pieces, posters, and more. For a $100 book, the coloring is still a little rough in places, but some careful remastering has been done as well. Frankly, I'm astonished that Marvel actually put this collection out, and for the most part, they did a really good job.

This is a marvelous run of Captain Britain comics from the eighties. I've had the paperback that collected the early run of this series for years and was excited to hear it being collected in omnibus format with more stories. I wasn't disappointed until the end. More on that in a minute. I've enjoyed Paul Neary's clean art style for years. It reminds me of the best of the John Byrne years. Not so much in style as just how clean but dynamic it is. The stories are very well written and the earlier chapters are very short in comparison to the regular 22 page stories but they pack a lot into such short chapters.

Now the not so good... You know how after a really good meal you will sometimes have a really, really good dessert? Well, the end of this book is like the pineapple upside down cake of that great meal. I don't know what happened to Chris Claremont but at one time he was a very good writer. The early X-men years, of course, spring to mind. I think success went to his head because the X stories featuring Captain Britain that he wrote are hold-your-nose awful. Stop at chapter 47 because the rest is pure garbage. Not worth your time.

But as you saw I still give the book 5 stars.

I love Alan Davis, Alan Moore and Jamie Delano. All three are responsible for some of the best work the medium has ever seen. That said, the stories and characters contained herein are amazing flights of imagination on the part of their creators but it feels a little... malformed. It's a collection of random ideas that, while certainly original, don't add up to a strong story. Thankfully, Alan Davis' art carries the book and manages to inspire in spite of the shortcomings of these two writing titans early work.

Although it is entertaining to see Alan Moore play with some of his Marvel Man themes before that great epic.