Would this not also apply to Spider-Man, who was a spin-off from Amazing Fantasy?

Captain Britain #14 (Jan '77)

Script: Gary Friedrich
Art: Herb Trimpe/Fred Kida

"The Malevolent Menace of Mastermind!"



This issue launches straight into the action, as Captain Britain rushes into "the hidden laboratory at Braddock Manor" (eh? Hang on, if it's hidden, how did the cleaning lady get into it?) to tackle the "mechanical monstrosity" that was controlling the late Dr. Synne...ony to find himself confronted by a bald giant who introduces himself as Mastermind, and commands him to "Stop!--or die before you reach the bottom of the stairs!" The Captain isn't impressed, but Mastermind halts him in his tracks by revealing that he knows his secret identity, then fires an energy blast at him while he's off guard. The Captain, diving out of the way, demonstrates the powers of observation that have made him a scientific prodigy by thinking "that blast from his wrist weapon just about nailed me"...despite the fact that the weapon in question is clearly strapped to Mastermind's forefinger, and nowhere near his wrist. A lengthy fight ensues, until the Captain deflects one of Mastermind's energy blasts back at him...and it goes straight through him! At this, however, Mastermind offers a truce, and an explanation-though he warns that "you may discover that what you hear is even more painful than death!" (but probably not more painful than Friedrich's dialogue)

The two having laid down their weapons, Mastermind directs CB's attention to a wall mounted video screen, on which he see's an image of himself canoodling with one Valerie Campbell in a pub on the night his parents died. Where Mastermind got this footage, and indeed why and how there would be a video camera randomly recording the patrons in a village pub in 1976, is not made clear, but in any case, as Brian moves in for the kill with Val, the image shifts to the door of the lab at Braddock Manor (also evidently under video surveillance) where Dr. James Braddock and his wife have come to check the computer "until Brian arrives" (the point which Mastermind is belabouring, of course, is that these events would not have played out this way if Brian had been at home helping his dad rather than in The Lion's Rock trying to get his leg over). Discovering a "power shortage", which unknown to him has been caused by the computer itself to lure him "towards his doom", Braddock tries to fix it-but just as he asks his wife to hand him a wrench, the computer unleashes a fatal charge of electricity! Zapped, we are told that "as life ebbed from their bodies, they cried out for the son who was not there to furnish aid, or phone for a physician" (so, quite a slow acting fatal electric charge, then). Mastermind sternly declares that "by your absence, you murdered your parents--as surely as if you had thrown the switch!." Which is kind of an interesting interpretation of events. The guilt trip works, though: distracted by all this drama, CB doesn't even notice Mastermind pick up his finger mounted wrist weapon again...and when the giant gloats that "once again, you have allowed me to gain the upper hand", our self hating hero rather improbably invites him to "kill me! I no longer deserve to live!"

Self pity is so unbecoming of a hero, Brian. What would your parents say?

Just to be pedantic: the late Brett Ewins was not an American comics artist. He did some work for the US market, but he was from London.

Captain Britain #13 (Jan '77)

Script: Gary Friedrich
Art: Herb Trimpe/Fred Kida

"From the Ashes!"



The Captain's final battle with the diabolical Dr. Synne begins with him escaping a fiery doom pretty much by accident: determined to die "like a warrior" with a weapon in his hand (God, this guy's a little ray of sunshine) he grabs his fallen quarterstaff and inadvertently presses the middle button on its shaft which it has apparently never occurred to him to investigate before, only to find himself surrounded by a protective force field! Handy, that. But handier still is the arrival of "longtime charwoman Emma Collins" over at Braddock Manor; yes, the devilish computer controlling the villain is in the late Dr. Braddock's basement lab, and even as Captain Britain engages Synne in battle again, the seemingly rather simple Emma, who has decided to give her dead boss's previously off-limits lab a good clean (curiously rationalizing that this is what he would have wanted in death despite having forbidden her entry when he was alive) rather conveniently turns off the electricity in order to avoid getting an electric shock when she mops the floor(!)

Deprived of his power source and pushing himself too far in his attack on CB, Synne immediately has a fatal heart attack. As he dies (I did say the Captain's enemies rarely seemed to survive their first stories, didn't I?), his illusion casting powers fail, and Brian recognizes him as his late father's former assistant! Free of the computer's control, Synne chokes out some suitably ominous last words, warning the Captain that "you must--destroy the--computer! Before it--destroys the world!"

Sending the dazed villagers, now free of Synne's influence, back to their homes, a distraught CB ("I can't believe my father would have created anything evil!") heads back to his family home...where, having finished cleaning the lab, Emma has just reconnected the computer's power! Aware of the Captain's approach, the sinister machine activates "defence plan M"...

Could it be that we are about to finally learn why Brian Braddock is an orphan? Why yes, I think it could!

I display them, some loose, some in their original packaging. But no, I don't play with them. Not anymore. Though I have had some of my collection since I was a kid, so I obviously did then (Action Man, Star Wars figures, Mego figures, Denys Fisher Doctor Who figures...)

I'm quite surprised it took so long for someone to post a Super Friends cover!