What If... Essential Captain Britain volume 1?

This time the look at hypothetical Essential volumes take a somewhat different series and format...

Essential Captain Britain volume 1 would contain the character's original stories from Captain Britain Weekly #1 to #39 and then the stories from Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain Weekly #231 to #253, including the reprint of Marvel Team-Up #65 and #66 in the last six issues with additional splash pages added when the two US issues were each split in three for the weekly format. These issues have had a mixture of reprints over the years in both the UK and US, starting with the 1978 Captain Britain annual but in the UK at least the best modern source are the trade paperbacks from Panini (who now hold the Marvel reprint licence in the UK), specifically volume 1 Birth of a Legend (which had two different covers), volume 2 A Hero Reborn and volume 3 The Lion and the Spider. Alternatively the issues were published in the US in two oversized hardcovers entitled Birth of a Legend and Siege of Camelot. The writing on the Weekly comic is first by Chris Claremont and then Gary Friedrich who carries onto the merged Super Spider-Man with help along the way on plots by Larry Lieber, Jim Lawrence and Bob Budiansky. Jim Lawrence then finishes off the Super Spider-Man issues and Claremont returns on Marvel Team-Up. The art on the UK stories is by Herb Trimpe, John Buscema, Ron Wilson, Jim Lawrence, Bob Budiansky and Pablo Marcos with John Byrne on the Marvel Team-Up stories.

For those less familiar with the British comics industry of old (and in to some extent this is still the same today), it differed from the US in a number of ways including retaining a younger focus for longer and used the weekly anthology format far more. "Free" gifts would sometimes come attached as a way to boost circulation at a launch, smooth over a price rise or help at relaunch moments. (Nowadays most British comics aimed at younger readers seem to come packed with multiple "free" gifts every issue.) Full colour was rarer, with many comics having some pages in black and white or in a three tone format that added a single colour and it was far from unusual for a strip to switch between colour, black and white or three tone in a single issue. Series would often contain multiple strips, some originated for the title, some imported reprints and some reuses of old strips, plus additional features. When a series was nearing cancellation, it would often be "merged" into another series, which in practice meant adding the main strips and the cancelled comic's title though over time both would be diminished. A disappeared series could also experience something of an after-life in the form of holiday specials, usually carrying reprints or left-over inventory material, and annuals, which here are hardback books mainly aimed at the Christmas market (normally carrying the following year's date although there have been exceptions) and again carried a mixture of strips, features and quizzes.

Superheroes are thinner on the ground here and the British generally aren't into massive flag waving American style overt patriotism. So creating a British version of Captain America and making them last seems rather a tall order. However that's not quite the way the character went. It is hardly an original observation to note that whilst Captain Britain's name may be derived from Captain America, the character owes rather more to Spider-Man with a small dose of Thor thrown in for the origin. Thus we get the tale of a university science student with an alliterative name, family members whom he tries to keep out of trouble, a struggling relationship with a girl, a campus bully and an authority figure with a heavy opposition to all costumed heroes in general and this one in particular. Then there are the dead parents, although this isn't established at the outset, and an investigation into their fate leads to conflict with the Red Skull. The costume also downplays the overt patriotic elements with the Union Jack confined to the top of his mask and wrist bracelets, whilst the heraldic lion isn't such an automatic symbol that screams "Britain". Otherwise, the main colour is red. The main Captain America influence can be found in the powers and weapon, with Captain Britain initially only have super strength and agility plus a predominantly defensive weapon, although as time goes on and other writers take over the quarterstaff is first revealed to also generate energy shields and blasts and is subsequently replaced by the Star Sceptre , a more ornate piece that additionally brings the power of flight. And the origin shows an ordinary man gaining powers thanks to mythical magic, though the wizard who co-grants them isn't explicitly named as Merlin for some time to come. So certainly there's a lot of borrowing from other characters even if not mainly from the most obvious one. However few ideas are truly original and it's the mix and blend that matter. Here there's a lot of originality and potential clear from the start.

But despite generating several hundred pages of material, the original Captain Britain strip lasted barely fifteen months. It's clear that Marvel had high hopes for the character and series but also that sales success was elusive and this shows in a succession of reactions. First, there's the resort to a big name guest star in the form of Captain America for quite a protracted run. (Nick Fury also appears but his own adventures were reprinted elsewhere in the comic.) Then there's a change of format with an expansion in the number of pages and strips masking a contraction as the title strip shifted to black and white. And then there was the cancellation of the title with a trumpeted merger really being a cover for dumping the remaining material in another title so as to salvage some of the costs. All of these developments took place within nine months. And whilst the continuation in Super Spider-Man may have allowed for the resolution of the existing storyline, the last few originated stories seem so detached and thrown together that it seems the merged comic was just treading water until the Marvel Team-Up story was available to be simultaneously printed in the UK and US. Otherwise, it would have faced the embarrassment of cancelling the feature only to revive the character within a matter of weeks. As a result the last weeks feel very patchy as though leftover ideas were grabbed and thrown in without too much thought for overall narrative coherence - e.g. why Captain Britain, in costume, has come to an island as part of a group visit goes unexplained - or continuity - for instance Betsy goes from being a commercial pilot to a professional model without explanation, beginning the long-running practice of making sudden changes to her without a coherent explanation. As a whole, the strip suffers from being constantly in a state of panic. But it also suffers from a lack of authenticity, and this may be the reason why 1970s readers didn't take to it in sufficient numbers. (Equally, it may be the case that Marvel had unrealistic expectations for the series, hoping for rather higher sales than for its all-reprint titles. I don't know if the strip had any contemporary printings in other countries but it's doubtful there was much additional income available to support it.)

Chris Claremont may have been born in the UK and Herb Trimpe may have lived in Cornwall for a while (and the spellings may be British and the British characters at least don't sloppily use "England"/"English") but fundamentally this strip feels far too American, writing about a stereotype of Britain gleaned more from films, television and the odd guidebook than from reality. Brian Braddock's Britain of the 1970s is an idealised land of moors, country houses, villages of superstitious people willing to burn anyone suspicious as a witch, super spy agencies, functioning London docks, a monarch who can easily take the fleet off to war with no one objecting and more. The dialogue is often Hollywood~ised, whether it's the excessive use of swearing and Cockney or subtler things such as British characters saying "Prime Minister Callaghan"/"Mr Prime Minister" for a surprising guest star when those US styles aren't used here. (Captain America and Nick Fury also use them but they at least have the excuse of being abroad.) The political elements of the stories are rather generic with Callaghan and Parliament's treatment being pretty interchangeable with any national leader and legislature apart from the iconic showdown when a bomb is planted on the face of Big Ben's clock. The Queen's appearance is surprising for the amount of actual power she's credited with, being able to call out the navy to go and reinstate a dictator with a touch of Ian Smith about him in the fictional nation of Umbezi. And the general style of the series is that of a conventional Marvel US superhero series, without any particular home-grown twists or humour. As a result, the strip doesn't feel particularly British in spite of the name or location. It's little wonder it spent so much of its brief existence trying to find a way to survive.

It also doesn't help that at times the strip wanders all over the place, with ideas introduced and then rapidly changed. This is most notable in the way that Dr. Synne is changed from a magician to a man controlled by an advanced computer and then before the computer can be taken on and deactivated, it falls under the control of the Red Skull but becomes only a minor part of his overall plot. Braddock Manor gets blown up during the story and the computer is ultimately ignored. The sudden change of approach to the villains is reflective of a wider shift as Gary Friedrich takes over the writing from Chris Claremont and shifts the series even more in the direction of a generic superhero series. And just as the UK entered a year of patriotic celebration of the Queen's Silver Jubilee, the strip drifts into the American national myth of coming in and saving the British from the Nazis with the arrival of both Captain America and Nick Fury in order to battle the Red Skull.

There aren't many recurring foes in these tales though a number of the villains introduced here have since popped up in other Marvel stories. The origin villain is the rather forgettable Joshua Stragg the Reaver, seemingly a businessman trying to corner the market in nuclear energy through the use of a hi-tech assault force to attack research centres and kidnap scientists. In pursuit of Brian he picks up the sword his quarry has rejected and becomes a powerful knight who is soon dispatched. Subsequent foes include the Vixen's mob of hi-tech bank robbers, the Hurricane with wind powers, the dark dream generating magician turned old man powered by a computer Dr Synne, the aforementioned but unnamed super computer and its projection Mastermind, the scientist Lord Hawk with his robotic bird of prey, the Mind-Monster who inhabits another realm alongside Merlin, Nykonn the other-dimensional dark magician, the motorcycling thug the Highway Man, his employer the Manipulator who is actually the deposed white dictator of a southern African nation seeking restoration through mind controlling the Queen, the alien Lurker from Loch Ness with a ship that has come to resemble the Loch Ness Monster, the Black Baron who is both vampire and werewolf, Doctor Claw the mad scientist on a remote island, and the serial killer the Slaymaster who targets collectors and steals their most valuable objects. The Marvel Team-Up issues introduce the bizarre assassin Arcade with his funhouse of terror, as well as briefly establishing a Maggia interest only to kill them off in a subplot. But by far the longest running and most established villain to appear is the Red Skull with a scheme to either take over or destroy the UK by holding the Prime Minister hostage in order to get Parliament to surrender. As the contemporary Chancellor (and one of the strongest candidates to replace him) would say of this nonsensical approach, "Silly Billy!"

But the most recurrent problem for Captain Britain is Detective Chief Inspector Dai Thomas of the Metropolitan Police. As with most fictional police officers his jurisdiction runs wherever the story needs it, and he brings a recurrent threat to Captain Britain. Though used somewhat to fill the J. Jonah Jameson role, he is actually a very believable antagonist since an official police officer is naturally going to be hostile to superheroes running around as self-appointed vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. And his background is expounded upon to explain that he's even more hostile than other authority figures because on a trip to New York his wife was a bystander killed during a superhero battle. Nor is he selective in his discrimination, being just as hostile to Captain America. As a result, he comes across as a well rounded character with an understandable motivation for his hostility to the hero. The series initially offers a contrast in the role of good cop Detective Inspector Kate Fraser who proves much more sympathetic to Captain Britain, but she's forgotten amidst the change of writers. Both had previously had bit parts in Marvel US titles and serve to help subtly connect these adventures to the mainstream Marvel universe being published over in the US (indeed the main name used for it today was introduced in a later Captain Britain story). The rest of the authority side of the cast comes in the UK's answer to S.H.I.E.L.D. - Strike - Special Tactical Reserve for International Key Emergencies, yet another in the long line of agencies whose names seem to have been chosen more for creating a memorable acronyms than anything else. Both it and its director, Commander Lance Hunter, recur throughout the run with a strong indication that Captain Britain will eventually be conscripted to work for the agency.

The non-costumed side of Brian's life also brings a somewhat underused supporting case. Thames University seems a rather generic institution, not based on anywhere specific but rather an institution that can support as diverse a range of plots as possible. Amongst Brian's fellow students are Courtney Ross, the inevitable romantic interest, and Jacko Tanner, the campus bully and rival for Courtney's affections. When Courtney is a bystander injured in a battle Captain Britain is rather too open about his concern for her. Later on Arcade deduces enough to kidnap Courtney and use her as bait in her funhouse, suggesting Brian is rather too loose with his identity. His siblings, Betsy and Jamie, also discover it quite quickly. Betsy here demonstrates hints of her psychic powers that she will later use heavily in X-Men but otherwise is something of a blank slate available as a recurring damsel in distress despite being a working women in either aviation or modelling depending upon the writer. Jamie is more consistent as a racing car driver who tries to help his brother more than he should, to the point that Brian eventually resorts to tying his sibling up to keep him from danger. Brian is given guilt to carry that his parents were electrocuted by the supercomputer in the mansion basement whilst he was out with a girl, but it's hard to rationally accept anything as his fault. There's no reason why he would have been with them below stairs, nor could he have spotted the danger in time. And where were Betsy and Jamie at the time and why don't they carry any guilt? It's another part of the attempt to copy the elements of Spider-Man but failing to make them convincing.

Apart from the final six issues, these stories were all originally written for a weekly format of just seven pages at a time (though a couple of issues go to eight pages and pass off the final page in black and white as "A Captain Britain do-it-yourself colour page!"). It's quite a constraining format without that much space to develop characters and subplots but at the same time it's easier to run lengthy stories as the action continues week from week. Wisely the story lengths are variable rather than trying to line up to three issues at a time that could then be collected in the US format; however some storylines run on for more weeks than there's plot for and sometimes it takes two issues before revelations promised in the next issue caption are delivered upon. The art is generally strong as well though the artists take time to remember these were originally published on a larger page than a US title and so have more room to work with. The final six issues constitute the reprint of Captain Britain's first US appearance in Marvel Team-Up. Being reproduced so quickly in the UK allowed for extra splash pages to be produced for individual chapters. These manage to slot in quite nicely (although they were only done in black and white so can look odd when combined with the colour pages from the US) without disrupting the story flow at all.

But despite the writers and artists adapting to the format well, overall it's hard to disguise just how weak the original Captain Britain stories are. The basic problem seems to be a belief that sticking a superhero in the UK and slapping around some names and Union Jacks would deliver strong results when instead it delivers a rather inauthentic piece. US fiction in many different mediums has been popular in the UK but it rarely tries to pretend it's a great local thing. As a result the series struggled then and now as not sufficiently convincing but the wrong conclusions were drawn leading to a state of flux and panic throughout the strip's lifetime until it was just treading water before a key US appearance. These adventures are very disappointing to read even today.

Should they have had an Essential edition? It's hard to say. One thing where an Essential edition would have helped is in standardising everything in black and white. The "Captain Britain do-it-yourself colour pages!" do stand out in the trade paperbacks (although colour versions were done for the 1978 annual that have been reused since) and the Marvel Team-Up issues were never meant to be read as a hybrid of original US colour material and additional UK black and white material so again an Essential could remove the jar. More pertinently the main strip went black and white from issue #24 onwards, midway through the Red Skull storyline so having it all in black and white would help. But although the format itself would offer advantages, the material quality raises real questions. Were these the only Captain Britain stories then they are frankly so poor they could be easily forgotten, leaving the Essentials to focus exclusively on Marvel's US output. But some of the later Captain Britain stories were landmarks that might be worthy of a volume 2 - which by definition would need a volume 1 to come first. The stories have had reprints on both sides of the Atlantic so there is clearly a market for them but they're not something that really needs to be collected in every library style format.

Essential Doctor Strange volume 1

We come now to the other great creation of Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, Doctor Strange. (Unfortunately there's never been a great deal of consistency over whether it's "Doctor" or "Dr." so I'm taking my cue from the volume's cover.)

Essential Doctor Strange volume 1 contains the Doctor Strange strips from Strange Tales #110, #111 & #114-168 - i.e. the full run before he received his own title for the first time. As previously discussed, Strange Tales was one of Marvel's anthology series and the good doctor shared the title first with the Human Torch’s solo tales and then with Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. The artwork on this volume is by Ditko all the way until issue #146 then Bill Everett, Marie Severin, Dan Adkins and George Tuska. The writing is initially by Lee with Ditko co-plotting, officially credited as such from issue #135 onwards, then the remaining strips are scripted or fully written by the likes of Roy Thomas, Denny O’Neil, Raymond Marais and Jim Lawrence. It's worth noting that Ditko's last four issues are not scripted by Lee.

In so far as there is a paper trail, the written evidence suggests that the idea for Doctor Strange was first thought up by Steve Ditko and only then fleshed out in collaboration with Stan Lee. There hasn't been as much debate over the character's creation as there has been with other characters, and I suspect Marvel hasn't given the issue as much time as Spider-Man's. (For example in the introduction to one collection they reproduced a contemporary letter from Lee to a fan in which Lee stated the magician was Ditko's idea. This reproduction probably did not go through endless corporate discussion.) It's interesting to note that Lee's (or Marvel corporate's?) stated definition of who the "creator" is excludes him on this occasion. Perhaps this is a sign of how it's the visuals rather than the script which gives the strip its greatest lure. A far cry from the hard edged urban grittiness of Spider-Man, Ditko's work on Doctor Strange is truly a voyage into the fantastic.

Unfortunately black and white can have its disadvantages and they are prominent here. Doctor Strange was one of the most psychedelic of strips put out by Marvel in the 1960s but some of that effect came from the colours and when viewed in black and white it seems more subdued. Never the less the exotic is still there, seen most graphically with the design of Eternity, whose body almost entirely consists of a starscape, perhaps the ultimate in psychedelia. On its original run the strip acquired a cult following amongst university students who wondered just what Steve Ditko was on. I doubt they ever guessed it was the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Nor do I think they spotted Ditko's attitude to hippies and student protesters, as expressed in his final issue of Amazing Spider-Man.

In all the speculation and discussion about Ditko's departure from Marvel, his work on Doctor Strange often gets overlooked. Perhaps it's because the magician has never achieved the levels of popularity that the wallcrawler has (although he's quite popular amongst creators). Perhaps it's because the departure came immediately after grand developments instead of just before them, and thus there's no creative decision to speculate on. Perhaps it's because Stan Lee was already off the strip, and it's harder to focus on his replacements. (Roy Thomas and Denny O'Neill may have both gone on to do great things, but in 1966 they were each starting out and not yet in great positions of authority. And when Ditko went, Lee immediately returned for the initial issues.) But whatever the reason, the result is that a key part of the puzzle is ignored. The strip climaxes with issue #146, entitled "The End -- At Last!", concluding the seventeen issue "Eternity saga" (although the "Dormammu saga" would be a more accurate description) and wrapping up many threads. It's a suitable ending for a long journey.

But every journey has a beginning, even if it's full of slips and omissions. Unfortunately the earliest Doctor Strange tales leave two matters out, both of which can affect subsequent stories. No origin is given for the good doctor until his fourth appearance in issue #115, in spite of several earlier stories involving the Ancient One and/or Baron Mordo. This omission is all the more surprising given that nearly every other Silver Age Marvel hero began with their origin being retold - was Doctor Strange originally intended to be a one-off feature? However whilst the origin omission is soon rectified, the other is left dangling and we never get a very clear sense of the full extent of Doctor Strange's powers, with the result that at times his escape from or triumph over his foes can seem all too easy. Without knowing his full limits, we are limited to statements that foes such as Dormammu and Umar are far more powerful than him, but it's not always clear why he can easily triumph over some foes yet others take far more skill.

As is often the case, this volume introduces quite a number of foes who would plague Doctor Strange again over the years. Given the importance of the artist, I'm going to split the list of débuts in two. In the Ditko issues we get the first appearances of, variously, Nightmare, Baron Mordo, Aggamon, the House of Shadows, Zota, Dormammu, Demonicus, Tiboro, Kaecilius and Shazana. There are also the Possessors, the strip's version of the alien race invading Earth that just about all Silver Age Marvel heroes faced. There is at least an attempt to make them relevant to Doctor Strange's series by having them come from another dimension and giving them the power to possess people. Visitors form other series are rare, but Loki from Thor's strip in Journey Into Mystery does show up. Just as standard are the various allies and other supporting cast members who début, and Ditko's issues introduce us to the Ancient One, Wong, Victoria Bentley, Clea (although she's not named for twenty issues), Hamir (the Ancient One's servant), Orini and the Aged Genghis. And standing above everything is the mysterious Eternity. The post-Ditko issues introduce yet more villains who would appear again, including Kaluu, Umar and Yandroth. There's also the one-off foe Nebulos, who I'm surprised nobody has yet brought back. Not that he's a particularly memorable foe but so many others have returned. Otherwise the only other significant débuts are two more powerful beings that defy easy description, Zom and the Living Tribunal.

These are reasonably impressive lists but they disguise the over-use of Baron Mordo in these issues, with Nightmare also popping up quite a bit before Dormammu becomes established as the other great foe. After Dormammu is seemingly destroyed, it's not long before a replacement is found in the form of his sister Umar. What lists also hide is the relatively weak use of the supporting cast. The Ancient One turns up a number of times to provide guidance and extra power, but otherwise most of the characters appear only occasionally and are weakly developed. Clea is initially presented as a potential romantic interest, but she and Doctor Strange are repeatedly kept apart, until the point where the Ancient One effectively banishes her for her own protection. Towards the end of the volume Victoria Bentley is dusted off to play the role of damsel in distress, but despite having some magic powers she's given little to do beyond being captured and rescued. There are also few attempts to give Doctor Strange many day to day problems, even though on more than one occasion we hear of problems with both money and the stability of his house, but in a later issue the money problems are literally magicked away when Doctor Strange produces the money necessary. Nor do we ever meet anyone from Strange's former life as an arrogant surgeon, or even get much exploration of how his character has changed beyond the origin story. This strip is a far cry from the soap operas being developed elsewhere at Marvel at the time, and is much more a fantasy piece with the art front and centre.

That's not to say the writing is inherently bad, and indeed the dialogue is often good, particularly the many spells Doctor Strange comes up with. But it really is the art that stands out. On the basis of these stories alone there is only one definitive Doctor Strange artist - Steve Ditko. None of his replacements succeeds in offering a boldly different style to get successive generations of fans debating, the way that Spider-Man fans do over Ditko and John Romita. And also in contrast to Spider-Man, there is a real sense of conclusion with Ditko's final issue. Many of the plotlines are resolved in the space of ten pages, the villain meets his comeuppance, the girl is freed and the hero walks away to rest. This is a very clear conclusion to the story and strongly suggests Ditko had reached the end of all he wished to do with the character. Whether this was indeed the case or not, I'm not sure, as there are reports that he had prepared two further issues when he left Marvel. But nevertheless it does provide a strong sense of closure.

(Yet from a modern perspective it's surprising to see the way Eternity is treated, with many believing him destroyed in battle with Dormammu, and for that matter the same surprise comes later with the Living Tribunal when each is here treated merely as a very powerful, mysterious being and not as one of the most powerful entities of all in the multiverse. It would take many years before Marvel took steps to arrange its many powerful cosmic beings into a coherent hierarchy, with the Living Tribunal invariably the single most powerful being shown, and Eternity the embodiment of the universe. Here they're just very powerful entities but without a hint as to their place in the greater scheme of things.)

After Ditko's departure the strip meanders somewhat, trying to maintain the sense of grandeur and excitement but a succession of writers and repetitive ideas mean that it doesn't quite succeed. What we get is a succession of mini-epics that are generally good in their own right (bar the last one with Yandroth that tries to combine science and the realm of dreams, not to very great success) but just don't compare at all well to the earlier majesty. Still they keep some pace going and do add a bit to Doctor Strange's world.

As can be seen, this is very much a volume of two halves and it seems clear from comparisons with the issues they didn't collaborate on that Steve Ditko rather than Stan Lee was the key driving force in the first few years. As a result the strip is driven more by the visuals over the writing than is usually the case. The writing may have its occasional repetition and omission, but combined with the art there's a great deal of imagination that produces a truly spectacular experience. Black and white may remove some of the psychedelic nature of the strip but the various spells and realms remain extraordinary, and a far cry from the rest of the comics world of its generation. Ditko's successors may not be as good, but they all try to follow the same path. The only possible additional strip I would have included is Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2 (otherwise available in Essential Spider-Man volume 2), which teamed up the wallcrawler with Doctor Strange with the latter really dominating proceedings in another tale drawn by Ditko. But when this volume was first released it was already the single longest Essential at the time (and only about a dozen since have been any longer), and back then it wasn't standard to include guest appearances as well. Otherwise this volume is a near perfect collection with the complete Ditko run the true jewel and the remaining issues a bonus.