Captain Britain #7
Week Ending Nov 24, 1976
Cover Price: 10 pence
Characters: Captain Britain / Brian Braddock, Hurricane,
Content Note: hurricanes, plane crash (sort of) into ocean, death trap involving a jet
To recap: Captain Britain is chained to the intake of a jet and when Hurricane powers up the jet he’ll get sucked in and shredded.
Considering we’re only seven weeks in, I’d say the end is extremely unlikely…
The first panel does match the previous issue, so that’s good (it’s fairly normal for the cover artist and the interior artist to be different, fyi, if you haven’t been looking at the credits). Cap’s strategy is to get Hurricane to monologue. I mean, I guess we had to get his backstory somehow.
Flashback time!
You can tell this was written quite a while ago because I’m pretty sure that these days 10 million pounds would be basically nothing. The director cancels Hurricane’s project – “too much money, too few results” – not knowing that he’s already completed his experimental weather control craft (it’s looks like a cross between an airplane and a space probe). … I suspect he should have told the director as that might have gotten him more funding…
In any case, he flies in it to the Azores to destroy a hurricane. I’m impressed with its gas mileage, not gonna lie, cuz it’s not very big. They actually named which hurricane – it’s Hurricane Linda. Let’s see what Wikipedia can tell us. As this flashback is “two years ago” and the issue is from 1976, this would be 1974, and… There was no Hurricane Linda in the 1970s, although it was on the list for storm names in 1974 (they didn’t get to it). This is obviously the big divergence between the real world and Earth-616 (if you’re not a huge comics nerd, that’s the designation for the main Marvel comics universe.)
Goodness, and “it was one of the worst storms in modern history.” Oh honey. Oh, just… you have NO idea how bad it’d get.
He’s surprised at how bad the storm is – “I’m three hundred miles from the hurricane’s eye and already I’m picking up turbulance” and “I’d built the weather craft to take punishment, but never had I anticipated the holocaust that now engulfed me!” Which seems like a failure as a meteorologist. It’s not like this isn’t known information?
The craft gets repeatedly hit by lightning, overloads, and gets turned to scrap by the storm which hurls him into the hurricane. Miraculously he survives both that and the four thousand meter fall to the water, and clings to debris until he’s rescued two days later. He comes out of it convinced his craft was sabotaged. Because of course it was, buddy. Of course.
The accident made him bald but also buff as heck (and he still has the magnificent eyebrows) and the hurricane gave him its power… somehow.
So, y’know, very typical villain origin story, brought down by his own hubris and blaming everyone else for it.
Flashback over, Hurricane starts up the engine to kill Captain Britain. Cap manages to break one chain and then has the idea that the chains are set for Cap, not Brian. …they look exactly the same size, except in the handful of pertinent panels. His worry is that as Brian he won’t be able to withstand the suction, but he takes the chance.
I would say this seems risky, but I’m pretty sure dying is worse than exposing one’s secret identity in the vast majority of cases. And it works! I’m pretty sure this falls under ‘screw physics, do what’s cool’.
Brian immediately changes back to Captain Britain. He has a theory!
It’s an interesting theory (and of course true), but there are a whole bunch of assumptions there.
He jumps to the wing and then to the fuselage. Despite what the cover showed, the blocks any view of the air intake from the cockpit, which means Hurricane is going to be completely surprised as he busts through the roof.
We get banter. We get unneccesary narrative thoughts. We get some nice panels.
Again, some assumptions and guesses there – how does Cap know that the backpack is a cooling system or that Hurricane creates a ton of heat? Cap collapses and plays dead so that he can surprise Hurricane and pry off his backpack – proving his guess when the cold numbs his hands – and Hurricane overheats and passes out.
In a few minutes, airport security shows up to take care of the rest.
There is just so much here that would not be possible in this day and age, just regarding the airport. The National Guard or something would’ve been swarming that place after the first explosion. Cap would’ve gotten hauled in right away. Not to mention, I don’t think aircraft would be in apparently unlocked, easily accessible hangars anymore?
But that’s the end of his adventure!
Credits: writer: Chris Claremont, artists: Herb Trimpe & Fred Kida, letterer: I. Watanabe, colorist: Marie Severin, editor: Larry Lieber. Cover credits (via the GCD): pencils: Ron Wilson, letterer: Irving Watanabe
Enjoy this post? Support me on Patreon or Ko-fi
[…] Captain Britain #7 […]