CAPTAIN BRITAIN: THE HIGHWAYMAN, THE MANIPULATOR AND THE BLACK BARON

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here on Balladeer’s Blog looks at the further adventures of Marvel’s Captain Britain when he was still published ONLY in the U.K.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN Vol 1 #37 (June 22nd, 1977)

Title: … And the Highwayman Came Riding, Riding

Villain: The Highwayman

Synopsis: Having returned to Earth after his adventures in the Otherworld, Captain Britain turns back into Brian Braddock. The next day he goes to the hospital to visit his girlfriend Courtney Ross. She was injured during Captain Britain’s battle with Lord Hawk a few issues back.

Brian, a graduate student in physics at Thames University, heads to see how Courtney is doing alongside his uni friend Jacko Tanner. On their way they come across a Silver Jubilee event for Queen Elizabeth II.

The event is crashed by a new supervillain called the Highwayman, who rides a high-tech motorcycle which uses laser cannons and other weaponry. The villain also wears a monocle that shoots energy blasts and wields a battle chain.

The Highwayman easily overcomes S.T.R.I.K.E. (the British version of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and its leader Lance Fortune in addition to all other security people. Meanwhile, Brian slips away to become Captain Britain, then starts battling the Highwayman himself with his new weapon the Star Sceptre.

CAPTAIN BRITAIN Vol 1 #38 (June 29th, 1977)

Title: When Hero Becomes Villain

Villains: The Highwayman and the Manipulator

Synopsis: After a destructive clash with the Highwayman, Captain Britain is, unfortunately, defeated and abducted by the villain. Brian’s siblings, Jamie and Betsy (the future Psylocke of the X-Men) know his secret identity and worry about his safety.

The Highwayman takes our hero to the hidden lair of his employer – a new supervillain called the Manipulator. The Manipulator is the deposed dictator of the fictional African nation of Umbazi and he plans to reconquer the country. To that end he has devised high-tech rings which can make the wearers do his bidding, thus compiling a covert organization in the U.K. government and Royal Navy.

With one of the Manipulator’s control rings slipped onto Captain Britain’s finger, he obeys the villain’s commands. The next day our enthralled hero is sent to attack Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. 

CAPTAIN BRITAIN Vol 1 #39 (July 6th, 1977)

Title: A Throne Threatened

Villains: The Manipulator and the Highwayman

Synopsis: The mind-controlled Captain Britain battles the security forces at the latest public appearance by Queen Elizabeth to try getting at her and Prince Philip.

The Manipulator, anticipating that Captain Britain’s resistance of the control ring might hinder his attack, had also dispatched the Highwayman, who comes along to attack Brian.

The villain pretends to be saving the queen from Captain Britain and takes advantage of his close proximity to replace one of Elizabeth II’s rings with a disguised control ring of the Manipulator (at right). Cap, meanwhile, breaks free of the control ring’s influence.  

Before long, the Manipulator has the queen work with his other high-placed thralls to lead the Royal Navy in an amphibious assault on Umbazi, seeking to restore the villain’s dictatorship. NOTE: I know there is nothing practical or plausible about this whole plan, but it’s only a comic book. Just go with it.

SUPER SPIDER-MAN & CAPTAIN BRITAIN #231 (July 13th, 1977)

NOTE: With the separate Captain Britain series canceled with #39, his series was absorbed into this title that was likewise published only in the U.K.

Title: Sea Fury

Villains: The Manipulator and the Highwayman

Synopsis: Brian Braddock has switched back to his civilian identity in order to be inconspicuous in the crowds reacting to Queen Elizabeth II’s bizarre announcement to the Royal Navy officers on her ship AND to the British government that they are going to restore Basil Crushstone (the Manipulator) to power.

At length Captain Britain takes on Highwayman on board the ship transporting the queen. For the cliffhanger, he and Chief Inspector Dai Thomas (from Chris Claremont’s Blade stories) are left to die below decks in a poison gas deathtrap.  

SSM & CAPTAIN BRITAIN #232 (July 20th, 1977)

Title: Death Duel

Villains: The Manipulator and the Highwayman

Synopsis: Captain Britain saves himself and Dai Thomas from the deathtrap, following which they go back up to the main deck. The Manipulator has his enthralled sailors and marines attack Cap next.

Captain Britain fights them, holding back until he manages to destroy the device which powers the villain’s control rings. With the thralls freed, the Highwayman attacks C.B. who finally manages to defeat him for the police. Manipulator tries to flee in a jet but it was sabotaged by Dai Thomas and crashes into the sea. 

SSM & CAPTAIN BRITAIN #233 (July 27th, 1977)

Title: The Monster from the Murk

Villain: The Lurker from Loch Ness 

Synopsis: We pick up an unknown number of weeks or months after the end of the previous issue.

A version of the Loch Ness Monster is being trained by unknown villains to kill Captain Britain by repeatedly destroying android versions of him.

Soon, Brian Braddock, his girlfriend Courtney Ross and other uni friends of his arrive to do a project in association with various Loch Ness businesses.

Brian’s scientific prowess has enabled him to design and oversee construction of a new type of bathysphere that Thames University wants to use to prove or disprove Nessie’s existence once and for all. Brian is drugged and waylaid overnight by an agent of the aliens who are behind the Monster in the Murk.

The next morning, Brian’s romantic rival Jacko Tanner tells Courtney and the rest that it looks like the missing Braddock chickened out of the expedition. When the trained Monster attacks the bathysphere with Courtney and the others on board, Brian becomes Cap, saves the bathysphere and then fights the creature.

During that battle in the waters of the Loch, robot soldiers of the aliens aid the Murk Monster, thus defeating Captain Britain and taking him prisoner.

SSM & CAPTAIN BRITAIN #234 (August 3rd, 1977)

Title: When the Star-Creature Strikes

Villains: Aliens from an unnamed planet 

Synopsis: Our hero comes to inside the Loch Ness Monster, which, like in that Doctor Who Zygons story is really an alien submarine.

None of the aliens are named but they were new to the Marvel Universe.

During a Villain Rant the extraterrestrials tell Captain Britain that hundreds of years ago they hid in Loch Ness inside this craft designed to look like a subaquatic creature.

While hiding, they were pursuing their long-range plan to drain all energy resources from the Earth and our sun, leaving behind a frozen world on which nothing can live. Cap defeats the aliens and their robots, then destroys their Monster-shaped vessel, thus saving the world.

SSM & CAPTAIN BRITAIN #235 (August 10th, 1977)

Title: Nightmare Castle

Villain: The Black Baron

Synopsis: This tale picks up a few months later. In London, someone or something has been committing mass murders on the nights of the full moon. 

Captain Britain has taken to flying around London on patrol when the moon is full. This particular night he saves a woman from a part-werewolf, part-vampire creature but the monster escapes. 

The next day at Thames University, Brian Braddock’s girlfriend Courtney introduces him to Roderick Kemp, an actual Baron who has been charming her. She tells Brian she is spending the weekend with him at his castle in Darkmoor. 

Brian takes this bizarrely well, without even a thought balloon expressing jealousy. He does, however, research the Kemp family at the university library and learns their dark deeds – deeds that earned their ancestor the label the Black Baron.

Braddock becomes Captain Britain and flies off to Darkmoor Castle, where the edifice’s mystical defenses bring its stone winged gargoyles to life. Breathing flames, they attack Cap in aerial combat. Meanwhile, inside, the Black Baron creeps up on the sleeping Courtney.

SSM & CAPTAIN BRITAIN #236 (August 17th, 1977)

Title: The Wrath of the Black Baron

Villain: The Black Baron

Synopsis: Our villain puts Courtney into an enchanted sleep. The flock of stone, fire-breathing gargoyles use their numbers to defeat Captain Britain and turn him over to the Black Baron. 

The Baron strips the unconscious Brian of his Star Sceptre and imprisons him in the dungeons of Darkmoor Castle. He interrogates Cap and learns that a book at the Thames University library contains the dark history of his castle and his own actions. (Yes, he’s really the same Black Baron who lived in the 1600s.)

A day passes, and that night the villain goes to Thames University during a rock concert so he can slip away to destroy the book that holds his secrets. Back at Darkmoor Castle, Cap remotely controls his Star Sceptre to free himself.

At the uni, the Black Baron destroys the book, then assumes his monstrous form to attack the rock concert, even killing one of the band members. This unleashes panic.

SSM & CAPTAIN BRITAIN # 237 (August 24th, 1977) 

Title: When Terror Reigns

Villain: The Black Baron

Synopsis: While the Black Baron runs amok at Thames University and soon on the streets of London, back at Darkmoor Castle Captain Britain fails to find Courtney, so he threatens the villain’s butler to find out where the Black Baron went. 

In London, the police have been waging a running fight with the villain all the way to the zoo, where the Baron sets free all the deadliest animals. Captain Britain arrives to battle the supervillain while the cops deal with the escaped animals. 

The battle between the two combatants leads all the way to Tower Bridge, where both Cap and the Black Baron eventually get knocked into the water. Assuming the villain drowned (?), our hero flies off for the castle to find Courtney, unaware that the bat-wolf-formed monster is following him through the air.

SSM & CAPTAIN BRITAIN #238 (August 31st, 1977)

Title: Doom at Darkmoor

Villain: The Black Baron

Synopsis: Realizing Captain Britain’s destination, the Black Baron gets to Darkmoor Castle ahead of him. He seizes Courtney and conjures up Satan himself. The villain begs his dark lord to bind Courtney and himself in marriage, so that Cap loses no matter what. 

Outside, Captain Britain decides to avoid the stone gargoyles this time by slipping into the castle’s crypt in order to use the secret passageway that leads to the main part of the manor. He read about it in the book from a few issues ago. 

This secret passageway does let him slip past the gargoyles, but he winds up attacked by the skeletal remains of all the Black Baron’s ancestors buried in the crypt. Cap fights his way through them and arrives in time to stop the wedding of the terrified Courtney to the Baron.   

A massive battle erupts between our hero and the infuriated Black Baron. Ultimately, Captain Britain breaks a silver goblet, leaving the stem detached and pointy. He then stabs the villain through the heart with it and the Baron seemingly dies.

To ensure that there is no way for the Black Baron to ever return, Cap flies himself and Courtney to the room where the Baron’s pact with Satan was signed in blood centuries ago. Our hero burns the parchment, which triggers a string of fires that burn every wooden portion of the castle.

Captain Britain and Courtney escape and watch the fire from a distance, seeing Satan’s angry, defeated face appear briefly in the conflagration. Courtney remains unaware that Cap is really her boyfriend Brian Braddock.

FOR MY LOOK AT THE FIRST SEVERAL CAPTAIN BRITAIN STORIES CLICK HERE.

FOR CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND CAPTAIN AMERICA FIGHTING THE RED SKULL CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT CAPTAIN BRITAIN FIGHTING MENACES IN THE OTHERWORLD CLICK HERE.