I usually try to stay positive in my reviews of comics, knowing how difficult it was back in the day to make them. But I have to say the Captain Britian stories which lead off this second volume are really quite terrible. The writer is Jim Lawrence who seems to be sharing credit the Larry Lieber the editor. The artwork by Ron Wilson seems rushed and is quite uneven. The inking is at times absolutely crude. Pablo Marcos is responsible for some issues though I detected the work of Ricardo Villamonte on some pages. Marcos apparently was using a studio. This alternates with Fred Kida who produces inks of tepid quality. The best inking job is a solo one by Mike Esposito and too bad he wasn't tapped for more.
These stories are from Super Spider-Man and rarely does Captain Britain get a cover notice after the first few issues. In the course of the adventures, he battles the Loch Ness Monster (turns out to be a submarine), a vampire who can also turn into a werewolf, a mad scientist who shrinks people and then threatens them with mutant creaters, and a paid assassin named Slaymaster who seems motivated to murder for vague reasons. The supporting cast disappears after the first two episodes, and we have Captain Britian in costume almost all the time as Brian Braddock seems equally forgotten.
Much better quality is the debut of Captain Britain in these United States in the pages of Marvel Team-Up alongside the Amazing Spider-Man. The similarities between Peter Parker and Brian Braddock are noted as the two are roommates for a very short time. This is debut of Arcade's Murder World, in a dandy tale by Chris Claremont and John Byrne.
This tale was reprinted a few times. Above the cover touts the original look of Captain Britian, a look while was on the way out.
Captain Britain leaves Super Spider-Man and takes up residence in Hulk Comic. He doesn't have his own feature but rather shows up in the Black Knight series which ran as a back-up feature. More on this tomorrow.
Later Captain Britain gets his own slot, using highly edited versions of the early strips by Claremont and Trimpe.
For my part, I've always liked the look of this version of Captain Britain. Though he only really found success when he changed his look. More on that next week.
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