FREE INSIDE CAPTAIN BRITAIN MASK!

If you’re a regular dweller within this particular dusty, dark, corner of the comic blogosphere, you’ll no doubt have seen other celebratory posts this weekend about Britain’s very own superhero.

Captain Britain No. 1 was released the week ending October 13 1976. I was 11 years old, and the power of TV advertising (plus the lure of a free Captain Britain mask) worked its magic. I plunked down my 10p and prepared myself to be thrilled by the full colour exploits of the hero we’d all been demanding (apparently).

Well, not quite. Despite a personal message from Stan Lee informing us that nearly a full year was spent ‘creating the characters, developing the themes, and producing the greatest possible stories and illustrations!’ it wasn’t particularly evident within the seven slim  pages written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Herb Trimpe (inked by Fred Kida).

Brian Braddock was a pipe smoking physicist working at the Darkmoor Research Centre, a top secret nuclear complex, when it was attacked by Joshua Stragg…THE REAVER! Fleeing the scene on a motor bike, Brian was startled by the flashing lights of a passing hovercraft causing him to drive off a cliff. Still somehow alive, but battered and broken, Brian is given an ultimatum by a couple of floating heads. Choose either the sword or the amulet…life or death…and…

CONTINUED NEXT WEEK! THOU SHALT NOT MISS IT!

Well, we already knew what he choose, because the comic opened with two pages of Brian Braddock, as Captain Britain (wearing the amulet), fighting THE REAVER (brandishing a sword). Obviously it was decided that the Special Origin Issue! should open with some senses-shattering action, but it killed the cliff-hanger ending dead.

I wasn’t very impressed, and the lie was put to the claim that a year was spent producing the greatest possible stories and illustrations, by the two superior reprints included in the issue. A John Buscema drawn Fantastic Four, and a Jim Steranko Nick Fury Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Beat that Cap!

Still, I gave Captain Britain a chance and bought his comic for a few more weeks, but I was never that interested. It took a few more years, and the talents of Alan Moore and Alan Davis, to make me finally like Britain’s own superhero – and for that alone it is worth wishing Captain Britain a very happy 36^th birthday!

Buy Captain Britain No.1 at My Comic Shop

The Incredible Hulk #150

Cover date: April 1972

Writer: Archie Goodwin

Artist: Herb Trimpe

Inker: John Severin

After defeating The Inheritor last issue, the Hulk lurks in the underground complex of Project Greenskin as General Ross and his soldiers seek him out. Using T-Gas shells they attempt to subdue him, but the Green Goliath outwits them by grabbing a mask and...

HULK SMASH!

With a mighty leap, the Hulk escapes the complex, coming to rest on a mesa - where he spends the night brooding about his lost love Jarella.

A new day brings a fresh attack from General Ross and his Hulkbusters, but it is cut short by an order to cease all operations due to a congressional hearing. Project Greenskin is under investigation for its funding; money which, according to Congressman Roger Dutton, could be better spent on housing, poverty programs and the environment. He may have a point.

Meanwhile, Glen Talbot and Betty Ross are searching for the Hulk/Bruce Banner. As they locate him, he leaps away in pursuit of a bike gang terrorising a green-haired girl in a car (could this be the Hulk’s lost love Jarella?). Scattering the gang, the Hulk is surprised to see that the rest of the gang has been incapacitated by the girl.

It’s Lorna Dane of the X-Men. As she escapes across the desert she’s attacked by another member of the gang, but is rescued by Alex Summers. It is Alex she is seeking, as Prof. X sent her to find him to persuade him to return to the X-Men. Cue a flashback to a fight between Havok and Iceman over Lorna, which resulted in Havok thinking he’d mortally wounded his rival and deciding to leave.

Alex is having none of it - feeling that his powers are too out of control - but he doesn’t have much time to protest. The Hulk arrives and it’s time to put on the costume.

The Hulk grabs Lorna and makes like King Kong, climbing to the top of a mesa. It is then he realises that Lorna is not his lost love Jarella, and that he has been fooled by her green hair.

Havok challenges Hulk to release Lorna, and as they fight, Hulk rips off the side of the mesa with Lorna perched on top. Havok realises that to save Lorna he must master his powers.

He bombards the Hulk’s mind with a tightly focussed beam of cosmic energy while coercing him into lowering the rock to the ground. This causes the Hulk to change back into Bruce Banner. Havok lowers Lorna to the ground with his powers and they walk off into the sunset (to return to the X-Men) totally oblivious to the half-naked Bruce Banner lying beneath a precariously perched slab of mesa.

Fortunately, Betty Ross and Glen Talbot soon arrive; but as Betty cradles Bruce he whispers into her ear,

“Jarella...my love...!”

Archie Goodwin ‘s script is efficient at capturing the Hulk’s eternal search for acceptance while in constant conflict with the forces gathered against him, and Alex Summer’s character arc is well done.

The only small niggle was Lorna Dane’s use of her power leaving her in a weakened state, and generally acting the damsel-in-distress.

The art is superb, John Severin’s finishes adding a fantastic texture and depth to Herb Trimpe’s pencils.

Buy The Incredible Hulk #150 at My Comic Shop

The Incredible Hulk #149

Cover date: March 1972

Writer: Archie Goodwin

Artist: Herb Trimpe

Inker: John Severin

The Hulk is under sedation at Project Greenskin following last issue, giving Betty an excuse to mope (as she does), and while wandering outside the base, wishes upon a ‘falling star’ for things to be different for Bruce and her. The ‘falling star’, however, is a spaceship crashing to Earth, from which emerges The Inheritor.

Unfortunately, the cover doesn’t show how completely ridiculous this Inheritor guy actually looks....

After dispatching a couple of poachers (because he hates humans, and he is the rightful inheritor of Earth, hence his sobriquet) , The Inheritor comes across a truck transporting that ol’ radioactive material that was always being driven across America during the Seventies, and as The Inheritor bathes in the radioactive material he remembers....

Meanwhile, after escaping his restraints and trying to escape the bunker, Hulk is downed by some tranquiliser gas and reverts to Bruce Banner. He is then convinced to help out with finding a cure for his condition, and has a bit of a think about his feelings for both Betty and Jarella (who went home to her atom last issue).

Anyway, The Inheritor has made his way to Project Greenskin in search of some more radioactive stuff, and tears up the joint resulting in Bruce being pinned beneath some heavy machinery. Cue the Hulk!

Some fighting ensues, The Inheritor gets his radiation fix, and he remembers exactly how he came to be. It seems the High Evolutionary mutated a low order of life into one of his New-Men, but after this New-Man expressed his lack of subservience to humans, the High Evolutionary had him banished from Earth, no doubt chalking it up to a bad day at work.
Have you guessed yet which low order of life The Inheritor was before the High Evolutionary switched on his genetic accelerator?

The Hulk and The Inheritor end up falling into the underground base through the retractable roof, and The Inheritor is hit by the radiation siphoning experiment Bruce was working on when he was so rudely interrupted earlier.

Yep, he devolves into a.....cockroach, which the Hulk flicks away while looking for The Inheritor.
I actually quite enjoyed this, despite the ending being broadcast very early on; and the art of Trimpe and Severin is top class, except when drawing The Inheritor that is.

Buy The Incredible Hulk #149 at My Comic Shop

The Incredible Hulk #148

Cover date: February 1972

Writer: Archie Goodwin (plot assist Chris Claremont)

Artist: Herb Trimpe

Inker: John Severin

Sometimes, the cover blurbs on Marvel comics of the Seventies are pure poetry and ‘THE GIRL IN THE EMERALD ATOM!’ certainly fits that bill.

The story opens in the desert at Project: Greenskin, with General Ross, his daughter Betty, Major Talbot and Peter Corbeau, doctor of physics, Nobel Prize winner and builder of Starcore One (note the plot assist from Chris Claremont?) as they discuss Corbeau’s plan to cure Bruce Banner.

Basically, the Hulk is captured and reverted-permanently, supposedly - by bombarding Banner with solar energy relayed back by Starcore One. Whatever works to get the plot underway, I assume.....

Anyway, at the same time this is going on, Jarella (Hulk’s sweetheart within an atom) is fighting off assailants, and making a decision to find her beloved Banner; a feat she manages by the use of magic, and is closely followed by an assassin.

Long story short, Jarella’s (and her assassin) arrival on Earth causes some problems - solar flares from the sun that threaten all life-setting up the issue’s dilemma (as well as Bruce Banner’s emotional conflict between Betty and Jarella), resulting in Bruce once more becoming the Hulk, and Jarella’s return to her own atom sized dimension.

Archie Goodwin was one of the best writers in comics during this period, but despite some good dialogue and characterisation, the story here is slight. Herb Trimpe was the consummate Bronze Age Hulk artist, and John Severin’s inks add a suitably textured nuance to his pencils.

Buy The Incredible Hulk #148 at My Comic Shop