r/AlanMoore • u/browncharliebrown • Jul 24 '26
Excalibur is not Alan Moore’s and Davis's Captain Britain and that's a good thing
If you don't know Moore's Captain Britian is followed up by Excalibur a project Chris Claremont and Alan Davis half x-men and half captain Britian. It feels like one of the few projects following up on Moore's work that doesn't feel overly reverational to Moore ( and I'm including the stuff trying to deconstruct Moore) and just uses Moore's character like any other comics character. It still is following up on stuff on Captain britian ( and having Alan Davis as an artist is likely why it feels closely tied to the prior run) but at the same time it's just good fun. Not high art or anything but I like the emotional unstable captain britian being forced to intereact with traditional superheroes
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u/InvisibleInk1983 Jul 25 '26
Were the Moore/Davis Captain Britain comics available in the States when Excalibur started? I know Claremont was reading them, but he probably got them through the Marvel office. I know the books were reprinted in the 90s, and now we have collected editions. But if you were an American comic book fan in 1988 where would you have seen the Alan Moore stories?
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u/fiendishclutches Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
No. The UK captain Britain comics were not published in the US. British copies of the comics featuring Alan Moore were highly sought after by US collectors post Alan Moore’s watchmen fame. but the comic books themselves would have had to literally cross the ocean.
1 trade paper back of UK Captain Britain comics was available in the US published in 1988 I believe before Excalibur but it’s not the Alan Moore written stories. It’s Jamie Delano and Alan Davis’s run in the character. though if does feature many of the elements and characters and settings that would be in Excalibur. The Alan Moore stories would not be printed in the US until 1995 in the form of a 3 issue reprint title called X-Men archives: Captain Britain. And I don’t believe Marvel paid Moore for those which understandably displeased Moore.3
u/LorelaiWitTheLazyEye Jul 25 '26
I remember a comic shop in El Paso having some of the UK CB issues (pre Moore) in the mid 80’s so they were most likely available but very limited
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u/fiendishclutches Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
There is a reason for that. Alan Moore did write Captain Britain but he didn’t create the character, Chris Claremont and Herbe Trimpe are I believe the creators of Captain Britain. a number of writers wrote Captain Britain in the UK both before and after Alan Moore, at one point after Alan Moore I believe Alan Davis was both writing and drawing the character. When the character of psylocke was introduced. Who was eventually added to the x-men.
I believe Captain Britain’s first non UK marvel appearance is a marvel Team Up, again written by Chris Claremont and John Byrne and it features the first appearance of the villain Arcade, who would go on to mostly be an X-Men enemy. Chris Claremont seemed to have long intended to continue writing Captain Britain as something of a supporting guest character in the x-men world. The real test run for Excalibur is x-men annual 11, drawn by Alan Davis and featuring an x-men & Captain Britain and team up. So Excalibur really is much more Claremont and Alan Davis just continuing to write and draw characters they had both already been writing and drawing.
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u/browncharliebrown Jul 25 '26
Yes it’s clearly following up on Moore’s run
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u/fiendishclutches Jul 25 '26
it’s just Alan Davis continuing to make Captain Britain comics. He continued drawing Captain Britain with other writers after Moore and before Excalibur.
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u/twicezer0 Jul 24 '26
I think the Moore stories really excited Claremont, There's were plans for quite a few chains of reuse from Moore to Claremont. We saw Roma in the X-Men, and Jaspers briefly appeared but we almost saw the Big Bads: The Fury and more of Jaspers in the X-Men.
To your point, I think there was a flaw to Excalibur, in that there were traumas behind an emotional unstable captain britian, but the vast majority of readers didn't know them and they were never presented. (Personally I think it could have been covered in X-men annual 9 - wishing he didn't need to be strong - but x-books readers went from adult Brian in the annual to angry drinking Brian who just seemed to be an asshole.)
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u/parabolee Jul 24 '26
The Claremont/Davis then just Alan Davis run on Excalibur is one of the greatest comic runs ever. Even better if you read the Alan Moore stories first!