Who is Captain Britain? The secret history of the MCU’s new superhero

Technically, she’s not called Captain Britain. When agent Peggy Carter becomes a Union Jack-clad, Captain America-style shield-wielding superhero right at the start of episode 1 of What if, she insists only on a new rank: “Captain Carter.”

Yet that’s exactly what you’d expect from a true Captain Britain, who would be unlikely to assume such a flashy mantle. British culture has long seen itself in opposition to the egoism of America. Its fictional heroes may be super-powered, but they also cloak themselves in modesty. Call them by their names (Harry Potter), their titles (The Doctor), or their secret number (007). But never let them presume to speak for an entire nation — least of all one containing four countries with their own complex identity.

This was something Marvel struggled to understand when it first introduced Captain Britain to a skeptical British public in 1976. After several floundering iterations, the character only came to life thanks to budding British comics genius Alan Moore. The future Watchmen and V for Vendetta author recruited this Cap into a surreal fight against fascism — and thanks to his own fight with Marvel, prevented us from seeing the story he crafted.

In short, Americans who’ve never heard of Captain Britain shouldn’t feel bad; neither have most British people. Even now, the character lives a weird kind of halfway existence in Marvel comics. There is no one true Captain Britain; the title gets passed around and is often held by female characters, making Peggy Carter’s assumption of the role less surprising than you might think. At the same time, most of Marvel’s multiple worlds contain a Captain Britain; they have banded together in a “Captain Britain Corps” to protect the multiverse.

Now, in its Phase 4, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is getting interested in the multiverse too — so it should come as no surprise that Captain Britain is finally getting his/her due. The What If showrunners have revealed that Captain Carter will crop up again, in this and future seasons. Meanwhile, rumors persist that a live-action Captain Britain will enter the MCU in 2022 via Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

Whether that’s true, or just another case of superfans misreading the runes, it’s high time MCU viewers familiarize themselves with the bizarre backstory of this splintered superhero.

Captain Britain 1.0

Cap vs. Cap in ‘Captain Britain’ issue 16 (1977).
Credit: marvel

Fresh from its stunning success on the U.S. comics scene in the 1960s, New York-based Marvel attempted a reverse British invasion in the 1970s. Captain Britain was the company’s attempt at a “homegrown” British superhero. His self-titled comic book was a kind of Trojan horse that also brought Fantastic Four and Nick Fury stories to a UK audience. To create Captain Britain himself, Stan Lee turned to X-Men writer Chris Claremont, an American who at least had the advantage of being born in London.

“In those Dark Ages, before anyone Over Here knew quite what was Over There, nobody was sure if there were [British] writers and artists who could handle Marvel-type characters,” Claremont explained years later, especially given that pages could not be easily faxed back and forth in 1976.

The culturally-appropriated character he created was a strange mix of British mysticism and American costumery. Brian Braddock, a research scientist, escapes a villainous invasion of a facility called Darkmoor, finds a circle of standing stones and encounters Merlyn — yeah, that Merlyn — who turns Braddock into a muscle-bound, lycra-clad superhero with a curious telescoping lance.

The Financial Times called the first issue a “farrago of illiterate nonsense.” Sales were poor. Claremont quit after issue 10. Even Braddock seemed dubious: “If only I were sure I wanted the job,” the character said after one of his earliest transformations into the superhero.

Marvel tried crossovers with Spider-Man (Braddock improbably became roommates with Peter Parker in New York) and Captain America (whose longtime opponent, the Red Skull, came to the UK). It didn’t work. Captain Britain ended at issue 39, just as its hypnotized hero attempted to kill the Queen during the biggest British event of 1977, her Silver Jubilee.

The character limped on in other comics, becoming sidekick to a character called The Black Knight in an “Otherworld” of Arthurian legend and magic. In 1981 Marvel UK tried a reboot with a new costume, given that the lion on Captain Britain’s chest looked to many Brits like a symbol printed on eggs to denote safety. (If you’re referencing England’s coat of arms, as every soccer fan knows, you need three lions on the shirt.)

Clad in the white leggings and kinky boots of Buckingham Palace guards, with British writer Dave Thorpe at the helm, Captain Britain still struggled to find his footing. Thorpe brought Braddock to an alternate universe with a dystopian UK, but he was ousted in 1982 for his political views — allegedly after he proposed a storyline where Captain Britain ended the troubles in Northern Ireland. Even his American editors could see the problem with a Union Jack-clad hero somehow winning over Irish Republicans at a time when their heroes were on hunger strike in British prisons.

Captain Britain 2.0

Alan Moore’s Captain Britain keeps it real while drinking tea with a UK family.
Credit: Marvel

Enter Thorpe’s replacement, then-unknown British comics writer Alan Moore. To explore his prescient fears of homegrown fascism, Moore used a minor character in Thorpe’s storyline, Jim Jaspers. He turned Jaspers into an extremist conservative politician who rose to power by amping up fear of mutants and superheroes.

So far, so Days of Future Past — except that Jaspers was a magical mutant himself, who could warp all of reality into one giant Mad Hatter’s tea party. After a lot of dark Lewis Carrol-style shenanigans, Jasper’s anti-superhero machine, called The Fury, hunts down and kills Braddock in a graveyard. Merlyn and his daughter Roma, now fleshed-out characters in a futuristic Otherworld, literally rebuild Captain Britain from scratch, peeking into his memories and conjuring up his soul.

Without ever knowing he’s been reconstructed, Braddock returns to regular reality — known to Marvel fans as Earth 616, a designation that first appears in the pages of Captain Britain. And there, chillingly, Jaspers’ fascist takeover happens all over again. Braddock defeats him with the help of a multiverse of similar superheroes — Captain UK, the old-timey Captain Albion (both women), the Orwellian Captain Airstrip One. This gang, later known as the Captain Britain Corps, reunites to pay their respects at Merlyn’s funeral.

Because creators had control over their Marvel UK content, Alan Moore’s wonderful work on the strip has only been seen in a handful of out-of-print editions. Moore left unhappy over unpaid invoices, but it probably didn’t help that Marvel was suing another comics company over Marvelman, an old-school, pre-Marvel character that Moore had revived (now known in the U.S., thanks to that lawsuit, as Miracleman).

Another brief attempt at a solo Captain Britain comic followed in 1985, with artist Alan Davis gradually assuming control of the writing. Braddock matched the shifting mood behind the scenes, at one point quitting the role of Captain Britain altogether; his psychic mutant sister Betsy Braddock, later an X-Men member known as Psylocke, briefly took over the role of Captain Britain for the first time (but not the last; she currently holds the title again, in Marvel’s confusing continuity). The Braddocks fight against, and then alongside, an anti-superhero police inspector called Dai Thomas. Their HQ is their late parents’ manor, then it’s a lighthouse.

Marvel wasn’t done trying to make Captain Britain happen, but it did seem to realize that he/she just didn’t work as a solo hero. From this point on, the American-style egotism was gone. Henceforth, Captain Britain would only appear as part of a team.

Excalibur and everything after

Dr. Faiza Hussain, also known as Excalibur, reclaims the Union Jack during a brief run as Captain Britain.
Credit: marvel

Judging by comic sales, the first truly successful outing for Captain Britain was in Excalibur, which lasted for an impressive 125 issues from 1988 to 1998. A superhero team formed in the UK after the supposed death of the X-Men, Excalibur included classic Marvel characters Nightcrawler, Phoenix, and Shadowcat (a.k.a. Kitty Pryde). Chris Claremont and Alan Davis united to create fun, uncomplicated romps through parallel worlds. The biggest threat to Braddock was the fact that his girlfriend Meggan, a shape-shifting werewolf, kept falling for X-Men (first Nightcrawler, then Colossus). Braddock and Meggan married in the final issue, so all’s well that ends well.

Except that it is, to use a repeating phrase from Captain Britain comics, Never The End. Braddock and Meggan ruled over Otherworld for a while, then were put in separate worlds as part of the events of House of M (the comic book that partly inspired the MCU’s first TV show, WandaVision), then were reunited when Captain Britain became part of another team, a shadowy government department called MI:13.

That series also introduced Faiza Hussain, a British Muslim doctor who works alongside Captain Britain and draws the ancient sword in the stone, Excalibur, taking that as her superhero name. In an alternate timeline where the multiverse has vanished and been replaced by something called Battleworld, Hussain takes the title of Captain Britain, even though nobody can remember what Britain is. “We all get to decide what it means,” Hussain says when a Union Jack is uncovered. Hear, hear.

A few out-of-context panels from this brief series, Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders, ignited a backlash from conservatives on Twitter who had no idea what was actually going on in the comics. Not that Marvel was avoiding taking a political stance, with Claremont insisting that Captain Britain would have voted against Brexit.

Meanwhile, rumors abounded that Brian Braddock would show up in the MCU. Simon Pegg denied that he was set to play the character. A film producer revealed that he was pitching a Captain Britain TV show to Marvel Entertainment, and MCU supremo confirmed that “we have discussed” bringing Captain Britain to the screen, but nothing seemed to have come of it prior to What If.

And that brings us up to the first tantalizing mention of the name “Braddock” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the time-traveling Avengers Endgame, S.H.I.E.L.D. co-founder Peggy Carter is seen in 1970 learning from one of her S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that “Braddock’s unit has been stopped by lightning strikes.”

Was that a mere easter egg for Marvel comics fans? A hint of a future appearance of the classic Captain Britain? Or a clever piece of misdirection leaving us unprepared for another alternate version of Peggy Carter herself to take on the mantle in all but name?

We may learn more in her future What If appearances, but don’t be surprised if you see more rumors leading up to the next Doctor Strange movie, where the Marvel multiverse will explode on the big screen for the first time. In the MCU, as in the long, strange story of Captain Britain, it is Never The End.