ComicBook.com: First debuting in Captain Britain #1 in 1976, Brian Braddock and his twin sister Betsy have grown to be beloved characters over the decades with deep ties to plenty of major Marvel teams, including the X-Men, the Avengers, and even a literal league of their own, the Captain Britain Corps. To celebrate this major milestone moment for the characters, an all-new special, Captain Britain 50th Anniversary Special #1, hits shelves on October 14th, featuring stories by Dan Abnett, Chris Claremont, and Alan Davis celebrating the past, present, and future of the heroes, and ComicBook had a chance to chat with Davis, looking back on his place in Captain Britain history — and a little tease of his new story in the upcoming special.
One of the things that is interesting about any major comics milestone is looking back at where things were at any given point in the character’s timeline. For Davis, Captain Britain’s story is a big part of his own story as a creator, as Davis wasn’t a full-time comics creator at the time. Davis explained that when he started, the work was just for fun — and uncertain.
“When I started working on Captain Britain, it was just for fun,” Davis said. “I had a full-time job and Marvel UK could only afford to produce five or six pages a month so it never felt like Captain Britain would survive for too long. Paul Neary was the mastermind behind the relaunch and he chose myself and Dave Thorpe because of our enthusiasm — and the fact that we would work for cheap.”
Being a good bargain aside, however, Davis did say that he feels lucky that he got to be such an important part of Captain Britain’s history with his work on the character’s major redesign in 1981.
“I feel lucky to have been in the right place at the right time to be offered the chance to work on and redesign Captain Britain,” Davis said, though he also noted that he isn’t one to guess where the future goes, having been surprised by the character’s continued longevity.
“As for the future, who knows,” he added. “I figured Captain Britain would have fizzled out over forty years ago.”
Of course, Captain Britain isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The upcoming anniversary special is offering up three stories for Brian and Betsy. Davis’s story has been described as showing readers what happens when you try to rein in a Braddock, and Davis offered up a bit of insight as to what fans can expect from Brian Braddock.
“Brian Braddock is an old-fashioned patriot.” he said. “He respects tradition and the values of his forbears but he hates the bureaucrats who use their positions within the ‘System’ for personal gain. Brain doesn’t challenge the system head on but he does score points whenever the opportunity presents itself.”
The three stories will offer up that past, present, future approach to celebrating the iconic characters. Chris Claremont and Paul Davidson bring “Braddock Business” to the book, while Davis’s story is “Chains of Command.” Rounding out the trio is “Another Day, An Otherworld” by Dan Abnett and Kelsey Ramsay. You can check out pages from each story for yourself above. The book itself will go on sale October 14th.
“For so long, my life has been out of control. Chaos and serendipity, wrapped in insanity. I have suffered, I have lost. Not just my life, but my very soul, my self. But no more. Now I know who I am.” – Elizabeth ‘Betsy’ Braddock, daughter of Otherworld, mutant, telepath, telekinetic, defender of the realm and, above all, X-Man.
8 comments:
LET'S GOOOOOO! Claremont retconning Betsy and Sage first meeting AGAIN is hilarious
Ok now I see what you mean about the art @Randybear lol.
I'm just happy her hair is a really nice purple at least :D Still hyped just wish we had literally any other artist for Betsy's story but trying to stay positive lol
I wish the Art for Betsy story was cleaner!
Alan Davis's run with Captain Britain was outstanding, so his story alone will already make this book worth it! Hopefully Dan Abnett's story featuring Betsy will be good as well.
You know, this may be an unpopular opinion, but I still think that the idea of turning Betsy into Captain Britain wasn't bad per se - sure, she shouldn't be CB forever, but Marvel could state that she'd keep the mantle for some years while Brian recovered from severe injuries or something like that. It's just sad that Excalibur was conducted so badly... sometimes I imagine things I would have done differently from TH if I was a writer at Marvel at that time (for instance, I'd make the stories more lighthearted, have Betsy wear the armor only in Otherworld - in Earth she'd still wear the Disassembled uniform, only recolored with the UK flag colors -, remove Jubilee, Rictor and Apocalypse from the roster and replace them with Nightcrawler, Dazzler, Frenzy and Rachel in her second uniform from X-Men Gold, and have them fighting bad guys from Otherworld that invaded Earth and bad guys from Earth that invaded Otherworld to keep both worlds in peace with each other).
Saying that is insane considering here we are years later and we have seen Betsy fall away from the XMen and isolated from major story lines and essentially shelved and you’re saying it was good for Betsy? This is why sometimes I wonder who really is a fan of this character cause we have literally seen the results of her being CB and you’re saying it was a good thing??
Please read again what I wrote. I never said what happened to her was good; I said that THE IDEA, PER SE, wasn't bad. However, it was executed in the worst way possible, due to the people behind Excalibur forgetting that Betsy and her team were still supposed to be part of the X-Men and mutantkind and making the book feel completely detached from the Krakoan society.
That said, it wouldn't be impossible to have Betsy becoming a temporary CB while still showing her integrated with the X-Men. Remember, the same Krakoan era had Kitty Pryde dressing as a pirate and traveling around the world to rescue mutants - and that run still managed to make her relatable and present good story arcs. THAT's what I'm saying: the problem with Excalibur and its sequels wasn't with Betsy becoming Captain Britan PER SE, it was the terrible characterizations of the characters (not only Betsy, as it also had Gambit being constantly whiny and Rogue being completely irrelevant), poor stories and the decision to make the run feel extremely detached from the Krakoan society.
I like the throwback of her hairstyle and color during her first appearances. The art in the last couple panels, I don’t love…
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