Captain Britain Omnibus

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Alan Davis brings not just great art, but rich characters and a human touch, while Alan Moore brings an epic story that hits even harder than Miracleman. He blends four different strands of British fantasy - Arthuriana in his origin, portal fantasy with journeys to Otherworld, Lewis Carroll whimsy with his bizarre and reality-bent or -bending cast, and Doctor Who style science-fantasy in his aspect as a multiversal voyager.

He does a cracking team up with Captain America and Nick Fury against the Red Skull which lasts several issues. Eventually it declines into an X-men 'riff' on intolerance as the logic of Moore's world is explored to its natural limits. the series weakens substantially but that does not make it bad just a little less interesting and more episodic.

This is Captain Britain in New York coming into conflict, then teaming-up (as is the way) with Spider-Man, against the villain Arcade (in his debut appearance), who would go on to bother the X-men many times over the years. The most straightforward of these is Captain Britain's creator, Chris Claremont, who landed the gig because he'd been born here (Herb Trimpe, the artist, supposedly got the job on the strength of one holiday in Cornwall).

The synthesis of Carroll, Who, King Arthur and Alan Garner works here in a way it never quite has since, with the rapidly-evolving Alan Davis the perfect guy to make the strange mixture sing on the page. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Claremont's early collaborations with Davis, an X-Men and a New Mutants annual, finish this vast book. I would have much preferred to have this innocent Psylocke remain with the New Mutants, rather than turning into the super-cool Ninja X-Man Psylocke [7+/10].Claremont's fertile attempt to Anglicise Captain America and trigger a British allegiance to the Marvel Universe was only a very small part of his formidable output but we should note that, out of it, he created a 'plausible' narrative for Psylocke that enhanced his X-men Universe.

Grant Morrison subverted this with a prose horror story about Captain Gran Bretan (1986) where the magic is malign.I love the introduction of the Captain Britain Corps, Otherworld, the Fury, Megan and so much more that added to the mythos. Jamie Delano tries to make keep things interesting, even using threads left by Moore's run, but ultimately comes up with 14 issues of just okay comics. Despite my proselytising, this omnibus does have another 800 or so pages of content, which run the gamut from acceptable to good, to even great on very rare occasions.