Captain Britain #28 (April '77)

Script: Gary Friedrich/Larry Lieber
Art: John Buscema/Tom Palmer

"Night of the Hawk!"



Our story begins with a slumbering Brian Braddock conveniently dreaming an expository flashback scene in which he builds a remote controlled robot hawk for kindly old Professor Scott, testing it out as Captain Britain (so this is a recent development) before handing it over. Unfortunately, Scott (who is referred to in the text as Robert, though several years later a volume of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe will inexplicably decide his first name is Willard) is, unbeknown to Brian, as mad as an extremely mad thing indeed, and as our scene shifts we find him busily using his now weaponized robo-hawk to destroy a factory while proclaiming that "our misguided nation has fouled its air, polluted its water and sold its soul!" The self styled Lord Hawk is on a mission to purify the land by the systematic destruction of everythinng that pollutes it, and we find out via Brian and his continuing flashback problem (he's awake now, but still conveniently daydreaming his way through Hawk's origin story) that the event which set him on this course was the death of the last of his beloved hunting hawks, apparently poisoned by pollution. Scott's grief over his bird's passing prompted Brian to create Robo-bird for him, which seems a spectacularly stupid move to have made given that the Professor was widely regarded as a nutcase and even Brian reflects of the bird that "I'm glad you'll belong to a kind and trustworthy old gentleman! In the wrong hands, you could be a menace!" Well why build the bloody thing, then? And come to think of it, how did a physics student build an advanced flying robot, anyway?

Eventually, Brian stops daydreaming and arranges via a phone call to visit the Professor, who entreats him to "come early"...before thinking to himself "for the sooner you arrive--the sooner you will die!!" There's gratitude for you...anyway, Hawk then picks up the daydream narrative, explaining to us how the arrival of Brian's gift caused him to hatch his plan to get revenge on the society that killed his pets, and how he hired an unemployed munitions worker to weaponize his bird, before shooting the man dead when it became apparent that he thought they were going to use it for personal profit in a criminal partnership.

Back in London, Captain Britain stumbles upon some thugs trying to mug Brian Braddock's cleaner, Mrs Anderson, and saves her, only for her to mistake him for another robber on the fairly sensible grounds that he's wearing a mask. A disillusioned Brian then runs into the long absent Courtney Ross, but any development of his neglected social life is forestalled by his seeing a report about Lord Hawk's attack on the factory in The Times (which is, of course, the newspaper of choice for students, and not in any way the only British newspaper Gary Friedrich had actually heard of) and realizing what a complete twonk he's been. Brian abandons a baffled Courtney and runs off to track down Lord Hawk, which should be easy enough as the villain is even now waiting in ambush for him, having reasoned that "even though the son of my late friend has treated me most kindly, when he learns to what purpose I have turned his "gift", he will become a bitter and deadly foe!"
No good deed ever goes unpunished, Brian...

Oh, and we're also told that the entire interminable Red Skull storyline occurred over just three days for Brian. Now that's just not fair!

Well, there was The Raven, the guy Superman jailed, who had the spores and puts Superman on trial, during the episode.  He came closest.  There was also the crooks who were manipulating Prof. Baffles, the guy with the disappearing formula, that left a smell of almonds.  But, that was about it.  Everyone else was an overzealous crusader.

It wasn't Hanna-Barbera's fault, though.  The network clamped down big time after the watchdogs got all over them about the Adv. of Batman (the original Filmation Batman) and the level of violence there; plus, the other adventure shows, like Space Ghost and Jonny Quest.  The network caved and put in rules about violence and educational content.  The environmental and social themes of the episodes allowed the Super Friends to deliver educational dialogue and talk about working through government to create change.  When they brought the show back in '77, they loosened up a bit and brought in a couple of comic villains and some average baddies.  They went whole hog with Challenge and the Legion of Doom.  That got them in a bit of trouble, as the constant escapes of the LOD got their dander up and they had to put in a few where they are caught, at the end.

I bought the Super Friends dvds, as they came out (mostly out of nostalgia) and the original season actually holds up pretty well, from a dramatic standpoint; especially compared to some of the later episodes.  It still seems excessively preachy; but, the episodes are well written.  It's also cool to see the Toth influence all through it, since he did the model designs.  It's like an entire run of a Toth Justice League.  He did do some of the character models, later for the LOD, so he did get to use some of the villains.

You know, if that was drawn about a quarter inch lower, diagonally, that fight would take on a whole new Freudian vision.

I'm sure you're right about The Times, on the writer's radar; but, I doubt any editor was going to let them have CB reading The Sun and cupping his hands in front of his chest, saying "Wheeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwww..........get a load of them Bristols!" It's a book published by a large corporation; so, CB isn't going to be reading The Guardian.

They should have paid attention to Jim Hacker...

They tended to forget what the quarterstaff could do more often than not. Maybe Brian just had a terrible memory when under stress.

That pretty much seemed to be the Chitauri's plan in the Avengers movie!

And yep, every cover is gone. No more can be shown without paying extortionate rates to Photobucket. So that's this thread done. Cheers, Photo****it.