That time that Chris Claremont turned Margaret Thatcher into Captain Britain.

A while back I posted up a cover from Captain Britain which featured former Labour Prime Minister  James Callaghan held captive by the Red Skull. It's no secret that I have a strange fascination with real world figures turning up in Marvel comics, especially politicians. It's not entirely uncommon for the President of the United States to occasionally appear in a Marvel book. But the Prime Minister of Great Britain is much rarer. Jim Callaghan cropped up the 70s, and Gordon Brown appeared in the 2000s via Captain Britain & MI13, and those tend to be the ones people remember.

There is however, a slightly more bizarre Prime Ministerial appearance from Chris Claremont's Excalibur, which I have to admit even I had forgotten about until I was thumbing through back issues last month, in search of a specific image for elsewhere. Excalibur was, admittedly  a bit of an odd book in many ways. Started by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis in 1988 many people remember that creative run lasting forever. In truth, of course Davis actually left the book with #24 - The final proper issue of The Cross-Time Caper, which had featured most of Excalibur hopping from Universe to Universe meeting alternate versions of themselves and of other Marvel characters and groups. Chris Claremont stayed on for a few more issues, with fill in artists, after which the book went through a slightly inconsistent period of guest creators, before Alan Davis finally returned with #42 (as writer and artist) to steer the book back in a more consistent direction.

Excalibur #32 was the beginning of Chris Claremont's last arc on the series. The issue began with what appeared to be an attempted Nazi invasion of London. So far (worryingly) not so unusual for Excalibur...

But when Excalibur turned up to fight them, well, it became pretty clear this was not the Excalibur we knew. Why? Because the Kitty Pryde, Rachel Summers and Meggan who turned up... were all guys. :)

Nightcrawler remained a guy, but as you can see the Captain Britain of this version of Excalibur is very clearly a woman. But who? Another other universe analogue of Brian Braddock? Not quite.

In this version of Excalibur all the members are very much young teenage boys, who apparently need to be read bedtime stories by the matriarchal Captain, who serves them hot cocoa, and must wait until they're all asleep before managing to have some time alone.

At which point she takes off her mask, and...

It is revealed that the whole thing appears to have been a dream, experienced by a woman while she was sitting in her therapist's chair.

But it just so happens that the woman in question turns out to be none other than British Prime Minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher.

I kid you not. The actual Prime Minister of the day. The art (which was by Ron Wagner in this issue) does not lie.

Baroness Thatcher, as she was by the end of her life, passed away earlier this week. I'd scanned these pages weeks ago, but hadn't gotten around to posting them. It's a really quite bizarre appearance, this one. While this scene doesn't really have any direct bearing on the story itself,  Thatcher as Captain Britain even appeared on the front cover of this issue.

The twist in the tale here, though, is that Mrs Thatcher's therapist reveals himself to be none other than Mesmero - the somewhat evil mutant master of hypnotism. Which has a rather worrying implication, of course. It seems that in the Marvel universe Margaret Thatcher may have a puppet of Mesmero...

There's something to think about, maybe. :)

Are there any other Prime Minister Marvel appearances you can think of? John Major revealed to be an android, constructed from the blueprints of The Vision? Tony Blair revealed to be a mutant with the ability of an eye-blinding smile?

If you know of any, drop us a line... ;)

Missed Marvel UK creators at Cons this year? This may help.

Two things that I have regretted this year, whilst moving house and working ridiculous hours, is that I haven't been able to get out to as many Cons as I'd initially planned. Especially this year, when I knew that in at least two instances there was going to be appearances made by certain Marvel UK creators whom I have not yet had a chance to meet. Firstly, I'd seen fliers stating that Captain Britain creator Chris Claremont was going to be at Bristol Comics Expo. Now even in this day and age, that was a pretty big deal. How often does he come to the UK, these days? I had to make that. It was in May. I could do that...

Yeah. I failed to make Bristol...

I'd also been hearing really good things about Sci-Fi London. I'd been hearing names like Gary Erskine (Artist on Knights of Pendragon and Warheads), Dez Skinn (Former Head Editor of Marvel UK, in the 70s), John Freeman (Former Group Editor of Marvel UK, editor on Doctor Who Weekly, and writer on the Real Ghostbusters comic), Simon Furman (Creator of Death's Head and UK Transformers legend),  and Dan Abnett (Death's Head II and Knights of Pendragon). There was word of a proper Marvel UK Panel! How could I miss that?

Yeah. That was in May, too. Didn't make that either...

Luckily for me (And if you missed them, for you also) there is some consolation here. Alex Fitch presents a weekly radio show about comics, on London's Resonance 104.4 FM, by the name of Panel Borders. Not being a London resident I can't pick it up live, but Alex does also put out his shows as Podcasts. And in recent times there have actually been several of those which will probably be of quite a bit of interest to regular readers.

For one, Alex managed to get an interview with Chris Claremont at Bristol. You can find that one HERE.
It's quite an interesting interview. A little guarded from Claremont, but it does touch on his British roots, Captain Britain, and also his continuing want to work with Alan Davis. Well worth a listen. Many of you might have read interviews with Claremont before, but hearing him actually speaking, certainly for me, adds a different dimension to some of his past interview comments. Take a listen.

Alex also chaired the Marvel UK panel at Sci-Fi London! And therefore the whole panel has been recorded, split into two Podcasts, available HERE and HERE. It's a really good panel, which discusses Marvel UK right across the three decades of its existence. One very interesting dimension discussed here though, and which I don't tend to cover as much on this Blog, is Marvel UK's licensed titles from the 1980s. I don't tend to cover those as much, because their characters are not so transferable into the present, and aren't strictly speaking the property of Marvel UK. But it cannot be denied that titles like Transformers, Thundercats and even The Real Ghostbusters, were huge sellers. Certainly larger sellers than the vast majority of titles in the modern American market, that's for sure. I cannot recommend listening to this panel enough.

Other Podcasts available from the Archive, which you might be interested in from a Marvel UK standpoint, include, a great spotlight on Captain Britain, from last year, which includes interviews with both Paul Cornell and Alan Davis, interviews with David Lloyd (Artist on V for Vendetta, ad Night Raven),  Mark Buckingham (Mortigan Goth: Immortalis, Marvelman and Fables) and another interview with Paul Cornell and David Hine which technicaly is rooted in their work for DC, but is also worth a listen.

So, that's three days and four Blogs. I'm getting there guys, but please bear with me... :)