Captain Britain #5

Week Ending Nov 10, 1976
Cover Price: 10 pence

Characters: Captain Britain / Brian Braddock, Courtney Ross, Hurricane, Jacko Tanner, Chief Inspector Dai Thomas, Sandy York

First Appearance: Dr. Neil MacKenzie, Detective Inspector Kate Fraser

Content Note: disasters, falling buildings, digging people out of rubble (no pictures), radiation

We start with one of those nice talky comic covers. I really do like Hurricane’s costume, although the wrist wind blasters do end up looking like they’re shooting water. Wind is hard to draw.

We immediately get into secret identity danger as Brian’s physics professor, Dr. MacKenzie, checks on Captain Britain.

Here’s Courtney from the previous issue (…two pages later her dress is sleeveless)

Anyway, Brian / Captain Britain marvels that it sounds like Courtney cares for him. EVERYONE could tell that, you dork! Just because you have low self-esteem doesn’t mean she can’t see that you’re a buff, smart, physics student. But that thought is interrupted by another wall collapsing and Brian shoves Courtney out of the way (everyone else moves too).

And it’s not the only one damaged by Hurricane’s rampage. Emergency crews, and Cap, spend the day digging people out of the rubble. “Captain Britain does the work of a dozen men in a fashion uniquely his own” – he uses his quarterstaff as a lever by jumping on the other end. Whatever works.

We change scenes briefly to Hurricane.

Let’s see if I can figure out how much a billion pounds (the currency) would be now… Oh, nuts, and it might be a different billion… Although the writer is American, so we’re gonna assume it’s the same billion. Oh, and Britain had switched to the short scale billion way before this. Good. And it’d be about £9 billion today.

Meanwhile…

We also see Jacko (unnamed) who points out: “I should tell you mate – Courtney is one plucky lady. Though why she wastes her time on a wimp like Braddock, I’ll never know.” Thanks for the input? And cops from Scotland Yard show up. It is, of course, Dai Thomas, with his assistant Kate Fraser. The chief inspector immediately lays into Captain Britain and Dr. MacKenzie jumps to his defense. Brian takes the chance to slip off and only Kate notices, but she decides not to tell Dai.

Brian comes back as himself, in the school-mandated blue coveralls (see previous issue), calling the situation World War III. He explains his absence by claiming he got clipped by a rock and was unconscious. Despite, y’know, being completely uninjured and probably not even dusty.

Sandy York – one of Brian’s and Courtney’s friends and not in blue coveralls – took pictures with his non-trademark-infringing Polaroid. The camera definitely looks like a Polaroid, but the photos aren’t the right shape at all! I’m checking if there might have been another brand around, since Polaroid is an American company (but they did introduce the technology). Looks like Kodak did (and got sued over it)… Their photos were rectangular (but had the margin that held the chemicals), but none of the cameras look like the one around Sandy’s neck. I’m not finding a Polaroid model that matches either, but it definitely has the same look. (And I’ve spent way too long on this digression).

Brian instantly realizes that the glow surrounding Hurricane is from radiation, which means Hurricane’s armor must be nuclear powered. Which, uh, seems incredibly unsafe to me, but I’m not a physics student (I have an art degree).

So that evening, in Seraph Mews (noted only because I like the name), where Brian rents a flat from Dr. MacKenzie, partially to get access to the professor’s private lab, he makes use of that lab after the professor went to sleep. We get a bunch of nice science-y shots as Brian tests bits of a building Hurricane touched so he can determine what type of radiation it is and what frequency. I think frequency determines what type, doesn’t it? (Another digression incoming)

Looking at various Wikipedia articles – it mostly goes right over my head – the type of ionizing radiation, which includes nuclear, is determined by what particle it’s throwing off, it’s not just the frequency, I guess? In short, I have no idea if this is technobabble or not. Sorry.

As I discovered last issue, Hurricane is actually way way way more powerful than a nuclear bomb if he really does have the power of a hurricane.

So Brian decides it time to…

A writer could take that in a very dark direction if they were so inclined. (I don’t think Claremont is inclined, at least in this case, but we’ll find out)

He points out that finding Hurricane is going to be difficult because he’s following a trail that might be only a few molecules wide and airborne, while he can’t fly. (Spoilers: at some point, Captain Britain does get the ability to fly) But he does find Hurricane’s base right before dawn, where the villain is trying to decide what to destroy first (“Parliament? No, Big Ben’s already broken”)

And then Brian leaps in from a skylight or something and it’s cliffhanger time!

Oof, it feels like this issue was A Lot. Maybe it’s just me.

Credits: writer: Chris Claremont, artists: Herb Trimpe & Fred Kida, letterer: Karen Mantlo, colorist: Marie Severin, editor: Larry Lieber. Cover credits (via the GCD): pencils: Herb Trimpe, inks: Frank Giacola, letterer: Irving Watanabe

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