Captain Britain and MI: 13 #3 review

The Guns of Avalon part three

So where were we last issue? Right, the Skrulls have stolen magic while a strange voice is telling Pete Wisdom to do things. The British Army is gathering on Westminster Bridge (with Black Knight and Faiza) ready to fight. We jump over to Pete Wisdom who's pulled out of a fight by Spitfire while he considers caving in to the voices. Spitfire rushes back for Skrull John Lennon who fails to draw Excalibur. Back at Westminster, the Skrulls begin their push while Pete Wisdom finally caves and releases the voices from their prison. Holy shit, it's the Octessence! Cytorrak! Fuck yeah! Also Merlin. Merlin puts Wisdom to sleep and does some crazy magic shit beginning the resurrection of...well, you know. And just in time since the heroes and the Army were about getting their asses handed to them.

This is another tight and tense effort put out by Cornell and crew. The tension is super thick. If there's no fighting it's cause everyone is just about to fight and when they do they just throw themselves into it. Since this is Secret Invasion, what I'm also really enjoying is how much more dire the Skrull threat is than in the main Secret Invasion series. It's a given that the Skrulls are going to be beaten, but Bendis is using it as a way drive his agenda forward, clean up contuity, return a character here and there. Cornell keeps it much more straight forward. World's ending, let's not fuck up...WIN! Now I don't quite know the Skrulls main motivations, I'm not reading New or Mighty Avengers, but I love how Cornell (and Pak in Hercules) is...well, at least padding their motivations. In Hercules, it's the religious motivations, in Captain Britain it's the mystical motivations.

As for the characters, for me it's really coming down to Spitfire (very driven and a little impatient) and Faiza (very naive). I really wanna see how these two interact when they're put together.

Speaking of Faiza, something about her hit me in this issue, why her and Black Knight kinda stick out a little more then the rest. Dialogue wise, these two are completely different from everyone else. Cornell is writing a very anglo-centric comic. Very Hail To England type stuff. Which is great, I'm loving it. Everyone is very stoic, stiff upper lip types. Black Knight is American, so that's his excuse, but Faiza...I see a great deal of potential with the character, so seeing her grow out of this ditzy, starstruck phase will be nice (though I'm not saying it's not cute).

I really, really, really want to stick with this series as long as I can. Marvel, not the best publisher, but they have a few titles that really manage to suprise the hell out of me.

Mr. Cornell, Mr. Kirk...top notch work, guys, keep it up!