In this series we spotlight comic book stories that are likely best left forgotten. Here is an archive of past installments.

Today, we take a look at a weird plotline from the second volume of Captain Britain's UK series...

As I wrote about in a recent history of Psylocke that I did for the main CBR site, Captain Britain had an odd publication history over in Marvel UK. His initial series fizzled out, but he was able to keep going in back-up stories in various Marvel UK anthology titles (which was the standard in the UK, especially because weekly comics are big there and therefore anthologies are really the only way to do high-standard weekly comic books). Even these back-ups didn't do all that well, until Alan Davis got involved. Working first with Dave Thorpe, Davis re-designed Captain Britain's costume, giving him the famous look that he still more or less uses today, and then Davis was joined by a certain Alan Moore, and then things got REALLY good.

One of the notable things that Moore and Davis did (as the series continued to move from title to title, with their most famous issues probably taking place in the special monthly anthology Daredevils) was bring back Captain Britain's twin sister, Betsy, only now make her a telepath AND a spy, working for the British version of SHIELD!









Oh, Slaymaster, you'll never become an annoying character.

Betsy then became a recurring supporting cast member, although rarely did she actually do much in the way of fighting. She was often more of a reactive personality...



Like that, or using her powers for exposition, like the classic "Jim Jaspers turns the world against superheroes" storyline (Moore and Davis' take on Civil War was amazing)...



So eventually, after Alan Moore moved on, the title finally got its own comic book series, Captain Britain volume two. This was the last series before the character eventually moved over to American comic books for Excalibur. Jamie Delano came on board as the scripter, but I tend to suspect that Alan Davis by this point was heavily involved with the plotting of the comic (not that he wasn't before with Thorpe and Moore, as he obviously was, but I mean in those situations he was sort of on par with the other guy while here he was the senior man).

Betsy sort of fell out of the book at one point during Britain's stint in The Mighty World of Marvel (she was dealing with the loss of her boyfriend during the Jaspers conflict), but Davis and Delano brought her back right away in the ongoing series, as she meets her brother's new love interest, Meggan...





In issue #5, Captain Britain faces off against Kapitan Briton, an evil version of himself from a different universe. Kapitan Briton has even goten into Braddock Manor...





In the end, it looks like Brian won...



By the way, as a quick aside, how weird is the way Davis draws Betsy's chin? It makes Jay Leno's chin look puny in comparison!

Anyow, Betsy is now chilling at home, happy that her brother took care of the invader. And that's when things get REALLY weird. Go to the next page to see what happens...

So Brian is consoling Betsy but then things changed. They got icky.





That's disturbing as heck. I think that there's a certain balancing act with stuff like this, and the question is whether the disturbing nature of the scene is worth it for what it provides to the character. I don't think that the scene is offensive at all. Hence it not being in "Things That Turned Out Bad," which is where I put stuff that I think edges into offensive territory. Here, though, I think that showing pseudo-incestual sexual assault is just so weird that I don't think it is important enough for it to really work for the sequence, the intent of which is to make Betsy force herself to use the full extent of her powers and really cut loose on a bad guy.

In the next issue, each page is set up interestingly, where the top 3/4 of the page details Captain Britain (who obviously LOST the fight, and has been taken to where the evil twin was meant to be remanded), where he has to fight his way back to Earth, while the bottom 1/4 of the page details the assault and Betsy freaking out and killing the bad guy...















It's a well told sequence, and the other aftermath of the fight is that it makes Betsy more willing to let the government take over Braddock Manor for the sake of protecting them in the future, so I am not against a lot of the intent of the scene, but I just think that you go a step too far by having the visual appearance of your lead character sexually assaulting his sister. I don't think the probative value outweighs the disturbingness of it all. Pseudo-incestual sexual assault is a very large card to play, there's unlikely to be too many occasions where it makes sense to play it.

By the way, Betsy then took over briefly AS Captain Britain - and promptly got her eyes sliced out by the always entertaining and will never grow annoying when repeatedly brought back in the pages of Exiles Slaymaster. Not a fun time for Betsy in this title.

If you have a suggestion for another comic book plot that is probably best forgotten, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com or at my new CBR e-mail, brianc@cbr.com