British Captain Britain Fans celebrate 50 Years with a special not-for-profit comic
Comic creator and Marvel UK fanIzzY World reveals the story behind a special 50th Anniversary recreation of a key event in the history of Captain Britain by Robin Barnard – his first encounter with Spider-man in Marvel Team-Up #65 published back in 1977, now available to read online…
Ten years ago we at the fan group, Avengers UK, published one of our most ambitious projects: The Captain Britain 40th Anniversary Special. At nearly one hundred pages, it took the whole Avengers UK Bullpen of creators – along with some new ones – to produce it. We covered every aspect of his journey through his character’s life and publication history through pin-ups, features, comic strips…even a free cut out mask!
Why did we do it? Mainly because we love the character: it’s why our Avengers UK Facebook Page and all our own free not-for-profit comic books exist, but there was another reason: Marvel wasn’t doing a celebration of the character. Well, that’s not strictly true, they did publish a new Omnibus of his main comics – but back in 2014, it wasn’t anything that seemed to really have any effort.
So, a decade later, we at Avengers UK ask ourselves: shall we create another Anniversary Special for the character’s 50th? Surely that’s a bigger milestone? Well, it would be, but there was one main barrier: Brian Braddock no longer holds the mantle of Captain Britain – his twin sister Betsy now has that honour. Whatever your point of view about that, our celebration has always been about Brian’s journey – there are plenty of Facebook pages that focus on Betsy, who by and large is now a more famous character thanks to her membership of the X-Men.
In the last ten years there has been little to celebrate both creatively and biographically about Brian. He was forced to give up the mantle of Captain Britain, and through the trauma of that he took up the Sword of Might over the Amulet of Right and, a couple of costume changes later, became known as Captain Avalon – now guardian of that realm in Otherworld. Meanwhile, Betsy held on to the Captain Britain mantle.
Captain Avalon’s costume design seems to represent… not a lot. It’s red, white and gold armour, but nothing unique or special. The only really nice thing for Brian is that he is a father to Maggie, a daughter he had with his wife Meggan, shortly before he lost the Captain Britain mantle.
So we really didn’t have a lot to build on what we had already covered, and there was a major aspect involved for the Avengers UK creators too: for many of the core team, “Life” has got in the way and we just haven’t been as productive as we were a decade ago. We still have many projects that are in the pipeline – we just need to get through other things to get them out there.
So when our AUK followers were asking “what are you doing for the 50th Anniversary?” we shrugged our shoulders and said “Not a lot”. Well, that’s not strictly true – we have something we are beginning to work on a project but nothing we can reveal more about at the moment, but we had not got anything planned as such.
So it was a wonderful surprise when AUK’s very own Robin Barnard approached me in August 2026 and asked if we were interested in publishing a Captain Britain comic he had been working on for the 50th Anniversary in October. It was such a nice surprise that it caught me off-guard. At a time when I wasn’t particularly feeling great (about the lack of productivity by myself, and the reasons above regarding Brian Braddock’s journey) it was like a light shining from the dark clouds. It also was a stark reminder of what kind, generous and creative people we have involved in this page.
So I gratefully accepted his gift, and it truly is that in every sense of the word, for you to see –lebration of Captain Britain
What you see is a hand drawn reproduction of the first US appearance of the character from Marvel Team Up # 65, plus the UK exclusive splash pages. Whilst the cover is an amended version of the late George Perez and Joe Sinnott’s original work, all the interior art is by Robin – taken from John Byrne and Dave Hunt’s original work.
But don’t underestimate Robin’s contribution to this. The sheer amount of dedication and skill to recreate it is incredible, and Robin explains this process in the issue, but I was gifted a panel of his art from the 40th Anniversary Special where Robin recreated Captain Britain Monthly’s issue 1 story, and it is a beautiful piece of work. It’s larger than is published and the linework is something I am in awe of.
We later saw the news that Marvel was producing a 50th Anniversary Captain Britain one-shot – which took the pressure off us and would have been awkward if we rolled out our version with the same name.
So without further ado, enjoy the celebration! We wanted to get this special out a couple of weeks away from Captain Britain’s actual anniversary date and give it a chance to shine…
“I have been very lucky to be a small part of the Avengers UK team and honoured to be allowed to contribute to some of their many great comics,” says Robin Barnard himself, who provides more background on just why he drew this recreation here on Facebook. “They are such a great group of creative people and I hope they all like this!”
• Avengers UK Captain Britain 50th Anniversary Celebration
• Check out the just-for-fun Avengers UK Facebook page,featuring an inventive team’s range of Captain Britain/Marvel UK fan fiction comics, and much more.
• Avengers UK Presents: Captain Britain
• Avengers UK Presents: Captain Britain 40th Anniversary Special
Captain Britain © Marvel Comics
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who MagazineandOverkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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