Captain Britain And mi13 Annual #1

ooooooooooooh this sounds interesting

The first annual, cant wait for when the second comes out....

....Oh wait...

Didn't know about this. What a welcome surprise. Don't think Meggan is technically "an X-Man", though.

@TNC-That's not funny.  At all.

This sounds interesting.  Metal gauntlet?  Who in the Marvel U has a metal gauntlet???  Exciting.

@drake: Hey I'm just as upset that this is cancelled. Even my attempts at bad humor isnt making me feel better.

It's not fair damnit! I want more Cap. Brit!

At least Cornell gets to bring Megan back before this is cancelled....

I read in the first trade for this series that Paul Cornell wanted to do a Defenders ongoing. They should give that to him now.

He should continue it in the same vein as MI 13 with supernatural investigation stuff but include slightly more popular heroes. Here is my Defenders dream team:

Dr. Strange, Nightcrawler, Son of Satan, Moon Knight, Juggernaut, Cloak & Dagger

and maybe a character from MI 13. Don't know who survives . . .

This would kick ass.

@ScorpionMasada Ohh... Juggernaut on the Defenders is a good idea. I love Juggy. The only good thing to come out of the Chuck Austen was having Juggernaut on team. His nailing She-Hulk on the other hand.... Well... and brining back Havok was probably the best thing Austen did. Despite later having Iceman rebuild his body from Havok's urine. (Yes, it happened.)

@flapjaxx Technically anyone on the Excalibur team back in the 80s-90s was retroactively made an X-Man for all future events. This is further complicated by neither Captain Britain or Meggan being mutants.

@TNC That joke is about as funny as the humor in a Kirkman book. ;-)

Looking forward to this. Should be a good read. Surprised no one's brought up "Porn Face." 

God, I will miss this title. I've never cared about Captain Britain until this series started. Why couldn't they cancel one of the Avenger books instead?

@remington: Because the Avengers books sell.

@Conor Sadly...

PraxJarvin, that is some slighty disturbing character background knowledge you have. I haven't heard anything about that stuff except for She-Hulk being made fun of in Slott's run about her having sex with Juggernaunt. Was that Chuck Austin on Excaliber or some X-Men book?

I just like the idea of a bunch of outcast characters with some supernatural connection being all on a team of supernatural investigators. Juggernaunt seems like a good choice cuz he brings the powerhouse big old dude balance to the team.

I'd also want the Scarlett Witch on the team so Dr. Strange could maybe mentor her.

Sorry I'm folks. I'm just nerding out on a hypothetical Defenders team. Forgive me.

I'm enjoying the Avengers books, with the verdict still out on Mighty Avengers, so I'm not going to take shots at 'em.

Obviously the name Avengers sells some books. Take a look at Avengers Initiative. That has obscure as hell characters and still sells pretty well.

Part of the reason why a Defenders ongoing probably should be called Avengers Something or Something Avengers.

I kind of view this is a bonus issue, which is nice... except for that some hack tracer ruined the cover.

@Scorpion Chuck Austen wrote Uncanny X-Men from... About #410 to about 450. He wrote the last two issues under the "New X-Men" name. He's regarded as the worst X-Men writer be cause he introduced a lot of bad, bad stuff. His opening arc, Hope, was regarded as pretty good because it "cured" Angel of the Blue Skin, brought back Havok and made Juggernaut a good guy. This later ideas were... curious. Including a plot line where Lorna Dane went crazy and forced Havok to marry her against her will. And, making Nightcrawler the actual son of the Devil. This arc involved Iceman having his body melted while in Ice Form and him needing to rebuild his body by freezing water. Havok said he had a "full botttle of water" before the mission. Next panel, Iceman is full  bodied again. It was never explained how he 1) survived it, 2) how he replace his vital organs.

As well, Juggernaut and two other X-Men villains were conscripted to the Malibu universe to form a team with some Malibu baddied called the Exiles in the mid-90s. It wasn't great stuff, but it was an attempt to redeem some of the characters. Much of the series was forgotten, until Austen's run.

I love your idea for the Defenders. And I thought it was a good approach to the team. Especially the "New Defenders" line up in the 80s with Beast, Iceman, Angel, Moon Dragon and the like. 

Surley Meggan's an X-Woman?

Ataboy Templar! Stupid Greg Land! Getting hired by Marvel on a (ridiculously) regular basis. He should quit out of shame. I definately blame him for everything! I love this book, apart from the title, terrible, terrible title that I think may have contributed to its downfall. And Greg Land doing the cover for this annual.

The defenders would be a good book for Cornell but there was a mini after civil war which set up a new defenders where it was she-hulk, kurze (some atlantean I never heard of), a new nighthawk and daimon Helstrom. I wouldn't mind seeing that apart from daimon Hellstrom is in New Avengers atm and she-hulk is being messed about by Loeb in Hulk.

 Personally I think seeing She-Hulk and her skrull friend, Dr Strange, and the Black Knight and Faiza Hussain in any team would be awesome for me. I love all 5 of those characters and would suit the randomness of the Defenders. 

I really dug on that Defenders book from . . . I think it was Joe Casey.

I'd have no problem with that line up in the hands of a good writer.

PraxJarvin, the only X-Men I've read is a good portion of Clairemont's stuff in the 80's, New X-Men with Grant Morrison and Astonishing X-Men with Whedon.

I kind of came back to comics with the New X-Men.

I sampled Brubaker's Uncanny and Mike Carey's X-Men. Although I consider them both great writers, I felt their stuff was too uneven to continue to read.

That Chuck Austen stuff sounds awesomely bad.

MI13 Avengers?  England Avengers?  Why didn't we think of this before?!?!  Just rename it!  Someone has to have better ideas than mine.....

Avengers United Kingdom

or just Avengers United or Avengers U.K.

@magnum240 - galldurnit man you beat me to the punch!!

Thats brilliant! just call MI 13 an avengers book and it will sell fine.

@PraxJarvin: Thats not Porn Face. Smouldering,pouty,slightly sideways glances are a persons usual reaction to being gobbled alive by giant Cthulu-type monsters.

@Fugmo - Just a coincidence, since it was traced from a picture of a model or celebrity he found online.

For the record, Meggan is a mutant (One of the only Marvel UK characters to be established as a mutant from her first full appearance) but not an X-Man. She has never been part of an X-Specific team. Excalibur was a superhero book from its inception, but later kind of shoehorned into the X-brand.

I personally would not consider that to be reason enough to call her an X-Man. She's a Marvel Universe mutant - much like Firestar or Justice. They're mutants, but not part of the whole 'Embracing Xavier's Dream' thing.

As for the Gauntlet? My bet's Doom. Further emphasizing that this book is part of Dark Reign, despite not wearing the banner. Doing a far better job than most of those ACTUALLY wearing the banner, too.

Man Meggan looks really stacked on that cover.

Why is it fun to watch the X-Men play basketball but a bit tedious to watch MI13 play cricket? On the other hand, part 1 of this book was very good.

@Prax: Yeah, I know about the blurry line about whether Excalibur was really an X-book or not. It certainly was by '93, because they involved it in the "Fatal Attractions" crossover (very superficially, almost as a footnote at the end), but before that it was kind of its own thing. It wasn't involved in "X-Cutioner's Song". BOB HARRAS WASN'T THE EDITOR UNTIL ISSUE 68--that's pretty much the clincher that it wasn't an X-book until then.

Meggan and the rest of Excalibur were featured on the X-Men trading cards in '92, though...

Not disagreeing, really, because yeah I get the impression about how everyone's retroactively made an X-Man...even if at the time the members of X-Force and X-Factor would have differentiated themselves a bit.

But, hey, they can call her an X-Man on the solicit if it helps sell the book.

Oh, by the way, how many of you guys would have paid $4 an issue all along if it meant the series wouldn't've gotten canceled? *raises hand*

@theswordisdrawn Actually, Firestar (and I hate writing this) I believe is an honorary X-Man as a nod to her origins on the Cartoon. That said, I think Meggan is often considered an X-Woman because she so very rarely appears outside of Excalibur or X-crossovers. And thanks for filling me in on Meggan being a Mutant. I always assumed she was a fairy.

@flapjaxx Actually Excalibur took part in the Inferno crossover, so yeah....(I'm aware the crossover wasn't substantive, but it did happen!) It was part of the X-Title block earlier than you may think, and at least as early as 85/6 for Inferno. As well, towards the middle it became bogged in X-Continuity too.

Great issue. A 4/5 from me. I felt for Meggan (Gloriana, now I guess?) and thought it did a good job. Also, kudos to Cornell for handling Marvel's murky concept of hell so well and acknowledging the different version springing up in incredible Hercules. The art on the second part was really bad, and that was from Adrian Alphona who is normally really good.

And I would pay $4 for this book to continue. 

@coltrane68 I think it is becuase not many americans actually know nowt about the sport.

 I actually preffered that part better than the first.  But that was my main draw into the series, the "non-US"-ness of it all.  I like getting things from a different perspective, and if it's English I am definitely there!  Anyone have any British themed books I can turn to at the conclusion of this title?

This issue was ok.  Nothing special for me.  I enjoyed the 2nd part more, but still nothing that tickled my fancy.

im with tacorrenti. Any British/Euro centric books out there as a replacement for this when it goes would be great if anyone knows of one.

No one picked this as POW>  Wow, what an awful way to die.  Glad I avoided it.  Sounds like the fanboy cries of "No one's reading this, it's excellent."  Then you read it and find it mediocre.

@kickass I gave this a 4/5. But to be honest, it's nowhere near as good as Batman or World of New Krypton. However, the single issues have been great and have constantly been among the top books for me each month from Marvel. Don't allow one annual to color your reading of the series proper.

i was completly lost during the cricket game

This was good character stuff and it's immediately obvious just how much Cornell loves the character. Especially enjoyed the second part with the Alphona art.  Even Collins was better than he has been, really liked the first page with Meggan changing her look to reflect the TV shows she watched. I kind of get the sense, with the way it leads into the next issue proper, that it could well be Meggan that comes back and saves them all, and there's nowt wrong with that at all.

How did Meggan end up in hell anyways? Is she dead? My understanding is that Brian doesn't remember either, and it seemed like Meggan didn't either. I'd be alittle feisty if I didn't remember why or how I got to be one of the miserable dead.

@kickass-This is an annual, which doesn't necessarily represent the overall quality of the actual series proper.