Captain Britain #27

History

By the time #27 appeared, Chris Claremont had long departed the title after issue #10 — accounts vary as to whether friction with editor Larry Lieber or the logistical difficulty of transatlantic communication was the primary cause — and Gary Friedrich, best known as a co-creator of Ghost Rider and a veteran of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos, had taken over as writer. Friedrich drew on his Nick Fury experience to pull S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Red Skull directly into the Captain Britain strip, firming up its integration with the wider Marvel Universe. Pencils for #27 were by John Buscema with inks by Fred Kida and letters by Irving Watanabe, with a cover by Ron Wilson; the issue was published as a 32-page black-and-white magazine-format weekly, a format Marvel UK had adopted from issue #24 onward to arrest declining sales.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published April 13, 1977 by Marvel UK as a weekly black-and-white magazine; story titled '…Will You Never Win?' Written by Gary Friedrich, penciled by John Buscema, inked by Fred Kida, lettered by Irving Watanabe, cover by Ron Wilson.
• First appearance of Lord Hawk (Professor Scott and his radio-controlled hawk), introduced in the issue's closing pages as the next villain threatening Captain Britain — the character whose seeding here would drive the immediately following story arc.
• Issue concludes the extended Red Skull storyline that ran roughly from #15 through #27: the Skull escapes atop Big Ben after Captain Britain drives him from his Thames-side lair, with S.T.R.I.K.E. agents destroying the computer that would have triggered a germ bomb over London.
• On board the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, Captain Britain, Captain America, Nick Fury, and Lance Hunter receive a congratulatory video call from U.S. President Jimmy Carter — an unusually topical real-world political cameo for a Marvel comic of the era, alongside recurring appearances by British Prime Minister James Callaghan throughout the arc.
• Commander Lance Hunter of S.T.R.I.K.E. (the British S.H.I.E.L.D. equivalent, introduced by Friedrich in #19) asks Captain Britain to become a formal S.T.R.I.K.E. agent; Braddock declines, though Hunter privately believes police pressure will eventually force the issue — a plot thread that shapes the series' subsequent direction.
• The issue contains a full origin recap as Braddock dozes in a taxi after the battle, retelling the Merlyn/Amulet of Right origin — a narrative device that doubled as a recap for any new readers joining after the high-profile Red Skull story concluded.
• The entire Friedrich-era run, including this issue, was collected by Panini UK in Captain Britain Vol. 2: Hero Reborn (2007) and later incorporated into the Marvel Captain Britain Omnibus (2021), making these originally UK-exclusive stories accessible to an international audience for the first time in collected form.
• The title had shifted from full color to black-and-white with issue #24 as a cost-cutting measure amid falling sales; #27 was thus published in that stripped-down format, just 13 issues before the series was cancelled with #39 and merged into Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain.

Cast · 14 characters

Full credits

Key issues in Captain Britain