Captain Britain And Mi 13 #6

If ever there were any question over whether this book could deliver, after splitting Secret Invasion, #6 of Captain Britain and MI13 most definitely brushes that question away. Fans of Cornell's Wisdom series will pleased to see a return for Captain Midlands as the team go up against the first of the supernatural threats which Wisdom released in the first arc. And much like in Wisdom this is a new threat born from old continuity, as Cornell introduces us to Plokta, a mysterious floating entity, who purports to be the maker of 'The Mindless Ones' those creepy cycloptic automatons created by none other than Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Fortunately that is the only nod to Golden Age storytelling, though. The dialogue feels natural, and this is a superhero book with a bit of a brain on it. The locals here don't actually want to be saved, because Plokta can offer them 'whatever their heart desires'. And when you're near him you'll want it too. Cornell shows us that these guys may be Heroes, but that doesn't mean they're above the promise of such things. And that leads to the perfect cliffhanger which will have Cap and Excalibur fans cheering in their seat.

Leonard Kirk's pencils are back, and they're really good. He draws a great Captain Midlands, a great Blade, and the Blade/Spitfire fight sequences breaking up the main story are particularly well handled. And he's really done his homework on rendering the landscape of British Council Tower Blocks and appropriately dressed Police officers. A small detail some might argue, but it really helps build a feeling of place which has been absent from many recent British-based Marvel stories over the years. It's a shame that in some places the 'eerie mystic glow' washes those out a little, but for the majority both Kirk and Cornell are really in tune here, and the result is a pretty near perfect first act to the real direction of the book.

Anybody considering dropping this one from their pull list might want to think again.