Captain Britain #2

History

The series emerged after the Captain Britain strip had migrated through several anthology titles following Alan Moore's departure at the end of the 'Jaspers' Warp' storyline in mid-1984; Alan Davis briefly held the writing reins himself before being joined by Jamie Delano, an up-and-coming writer whom Moore personally recommended. When the strip was promoted back to its own dedicated monthly in January 1985, editor Ian Rimmer oversaw the launch; unlike the original 1976 Captain Britain weekly, this new series was exported to the United States, reflecting a growing international interest in the resurgent British comics industry. Delano's scripts gave the book a grounded, bureaucratic menace — embodied by the R.C.X. — that counterbalanced Davis's increasingly confident superhero art, though Davis would later recall that Delano's interests lay elsewhere, as Davis himself was also being pulled toward lucrative American work on Batman and the Outsiders.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Story title: 'Law and Disorder,' written by Jamie Delano and drawn (pencils and inks) by Alan Davis, cover dated February 1985.
• First full appearance of the R.C.X. (Resources Control Executive) — the covert British government agency succeeding S.T.R.I.K.E. — including the first appearances of its principal field agents, Agent Gabriel (real name Matthew) and Agent Michael, both created by Delano and Davis.
• The R.C.X. was first mentioned (off-panel) in Captain Britain Vol. 2 #1 (January 1985) but makes its first on-panel, in-story appearance here in issue #2.
• The issue features the Earth-616 Crazy Gang — the Alice in Wonderland-themed group comprising the Jester, Knave, Red Queen, Tweedledope, and the Executioner — in an early story arc in which they capture Captain Britain; the Earth-616 versions of the gang had first appeared in Mighty World of Marvel (1984) before carrying over into this series.
• Chief Inspector Dai Thomas, the police antagonist with a grudge against superhumans who had deduced Brian Braddock's secret identity, appears as part of the ongoing subplot about civilian institutional hostility toward metahumans.
• Betsy Braddock (Brian's twin sister, later Psylocke and eventually Captain Britain in her own right) appears in the series at this stage as a supporting character; she would not take the Captain Britain mantle until issue #12 of this same volume.
• The entire 14-issue run of Captain Britain Vol. 2 (January 1985 – February 1986) has been collected in multiple trade paperback and omnibus editions, including the Captain Britain by Alan Moore and Alan Davis Omnibus and the Captain Britain by Alan Davis and Jamie Delano TPB.
• After the series was cancelled in February 1986, the R.C.X., the Crazy Gang, and other concepts introduced in this run were incorporated into Marvel Comics' Excalibur, where the Crazy Gang made their American debut in Excalibur #4 (January 1989).

Cast · 11 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Captain Britain