CAPTAIN BRITAIN I: Page 4 of 11

BIOGRAPHY - Page 4

Brian had barely time to enjoy his new “headquarters,“ however, as impossibly the next moment he got a phone call from his twin sister, Betsy. Having developed precognitive and telepathic powers since they last saw each other, Betsy had sensed her brother’s return and desperately needed his help, as she and her fellow telepaths, late of S.T.R.I.K.E.’s PSI-Division, were being hunted and assassinated by the Vixen. The crimelord had infiltrated S.T.R.I.K.E., and she needed the PSI-Division eliminated before they could reveal her treachery to other authorities. Brian and Betsy agreed to meet in a fast-food restaurant and at first didn’t recognize each other, as both had changed so much - Brian having grown taller and more muscular and Betsy now sporting purple hair. Betsy explained their situation for him and Brian faced the killer, who was attacking Betsy’s fellow psychics. It turned out to be Slaymaster, who had survived his encounter with the sharks and was now equipped with deadly weaponry from S.T.R.I.K.E. and more lethal than ever. But, with the help of the psychics, Captain Britain managed to best him and leave him for the police. He invited Betsy and her surviving friends to take up residence in Braddock Manor. [Daredevils #3-4]

A short time later, Captain Britain was kidnapped by an eccentric band of other-dimensional mercenaries calling themselves the Special Executive working for Saturnyne, who, after her failure on Earth-238, was deposed and facing a possible death penalty. Captain Britain was the only witness who could speak on her behalf. Brian was furious at the prospect of helping a woman he had come to despise after the way she had left him and Jackdaw at the Fury’s mercy. However, after seeing how humiliated she was by her own people, he didn’t find it in his heart to gloat and promised to speak up as her witness.

However, the trial of Saturnyne was rigged against her, as her own ambitious successor, Mandragon, sat in judgment of her. Mandragon “mercy-killed” the entire universe of Earth-238 before the Jaspers-Warp endangered other realities. Captain Britain, banned from speaking on a pretext, soon turned violent and eventually he, Saturnyne and the Special Executive fled back home to Earth-616. [Daredevils #5-7]

At Braddock Manor, they were soon joined by a frightened Linda McQuillan, who claimed to be Captain UK, sole surviving superhero of Earth-238. She showed them a newspaper article about the politician Sir James Jaspers demanding stronger actions against heroes. She explained that this was exactly the way the extermination of heroes had started on her Earth, even with the exactly same speech they then heard broadcast on the TV. Overcome by her emotions, Captain UK left, only to be attacked by the Fury, which had survived the destruction of its home reality and followed Captain Britain across universes. Captain Britain was horrified at the thought of his nemesis surviving the death of a universe. He and the Special Executive fought it and eventually managed to contain the Fury within the caverns of Braddock Manor, but not without the Special Executive sustaining heavy losses, as a result of which they pulled out, leaving Cap and his small circle of allies to face Jaspers on their own. [Daredevils #9-11]

They left for London. In the meantime, the manipulative Jaspers had gotten the Vixen-infiltrated S.T.R.I.K.E. under his command and achieved the position of Prime Minister. He warped reality with his powers, turning Great Britain into a bleak country, where everybody suspected of having powers or being abnormal was shunted off to concentration camps. Captain Britain and his friends were in hiding, not even knowing how long they’d been living that way, as the laws of causality were slowly breaking down, already hinting at the reality breakdown to come. Cap finally decided he had to do something, no matter how hopeless the odds, and without telling the others left to confront James Jaspers. Jaspers, however, had fully come into his powers and made Cap live through several illusions. Cap broke out of them but found that he couldn’t physically harm Jaspers, who instead hurt him and then simply left him behind heavily injured. [Mighty World of Marvel (2nd series) #7-10]

Brian still meant to fight against Jaspers but was at that moment attacked by the Fury, which had grown, having absorbed the computer beneath Braddock Manor. Cap didn’t stand a chance but the Fury’s attacks brought both of them to Jaspers’ attention. The Fury had always been frustrated that its own world’s Jaspers was the only super-being it wasn’t allowed to kill. Reasoning that this was a different Jaspers, it instead attacked him. Twisting reality and themselves, the two inhuman beings changed into all manners of shapes to kill each other, until the Fury teleported Jaspers into unspace between realities, where there was no reality for him to manipulate. Jaspers was momentarily disarmed, and the Fury took the opportunity to fry his brain.

Before the returned Fury could recuperate, the still exhausted Captain Britain attacked the weakened Fury, hoping to destroy it once and for all before it recovered. Despite the brutality of the attack, the Fury gained the upper hand and would have killed Captain Britain, if not for Captain UK. Using her own brand of tough love, Saturnyne had gotten the traumatized woman to confront her fears. Full of rage, she attacked the Fury and literally tore it apart. [Mighty World of Marvel (2nd series) #11-12]

Moments later the three of them were teleported to Otherworld by Roma and learned that Merlyn had seemingly perished during the game he had instigated to save reality from Jaspers. After the ceremony Captain Britain met the other Captain Britain Corps members for the first time (an assembly from which Merlyn had kept him isolated) and was informed by Roma that his world would recover and most people would forget the Jaspers Warp. [Mighty World of Marvel (2nd series) #13]

Some months later, during a night in London, Cap reacted to a strange were-creature attacking a vagrant. He followed the creature into a warehouse and ran into two teenagers, who explained that they were Meggan’s friends and that she only went mad during the full moon. Misinterpreting the scene as the Captain threatening her friends, Meggan attacked again. During the fight, some scaffolding fell on the teenage boy, Mickey Scott, killing him. Ashamed of himself, Captain Britain threw himself into super-hero work, with little regard for his own well-being. Finally, he worked up the courage to visit the Scotts and apologize. Surprisingly, Mickey’s mother Joan proved very understanding. Talking with the Scotts, Cap thought of his duties and came to realize how much he had been missed being among the common people during the years he had been in other dimensions. They were joined by Meggan, who had come also to apologize and Cap invited her to come with her to Braddock Manor, offering to aid her in her search for her family.

They were joined there by Betsy and her friend, Alison, from S.T.R.I.K.E. Changing the hologram of Braddock Manor, Cap made pretenses of having the mansion rebuilt, intending to officially start his life as Brian Braddock again. He publicly claimed he had been away on a world tour. Strangely, however, he kept on being attacked by armored beings that came out of nowhere and went back again. He had no idea which of his many enemies was stalking him now. [Mighty World of Marvel (2nd series) #14-15]

Learning that the Crazy Gang (created by Jaspers in the final stages of the Jaspers Warp) still existed in his reality, and were even looking for a criminal genius leader in the personal ads, Brian angrily looked them up. Unfortunately, he ended up in a trap set by Slaymaster, who then sold him to the Vixen. Slaymaster himself was keen on Braddock’s amplifier costume, which gave him powers. However, he quickly learned that the shackled Cap psychically controlled the uniform, as Cap forced Slaymaster wearing the uniform to set him free. [Captain Britain (2nd series) #2-3]

Having gotten out of the Vixen’s clutches, Cap faced and killed a monstrosity similar to the Fury, actually a poor luckless vagrant named Sid, whom the Fury had infected when it came into this reality. [Captain Britain (2nd series) #4]