Was bored for a while at work today; started wiki-ing stuff, including Brian's bio, leading to Excalibur/TJ/Wisdom etc. As a result, some things dawned on me that are now making me seriously question it as a series worth reading.
Largely it revolves around dangling plot lines and jumpy stories. Bascially the whole series is "we did this, this happened, we did the next thing":
1) Psylocke returns from the dead much to Brian's joy, which was never touched upon after she died the first time. She dies again while teaming up with Brian (but really joins the Exiles), and he just assumes she's dead and starts the next adventure.
2) The Merlin who gave Brian his powers has been claimed to be the Arthurian Merlin - but during the Arthurian story with Dane, he doesnt even converse with the wizard, let alone anything else. The arc ends, nothing more is said.
3) TJ inexplicably has a stroke, spends an issue semi-recovering, and the whole team tells her she's part of the family/team. The arc ends, she's left in bed while they just get on with things without even a brief panel of her being visited or something. No one calls Kurt.
4) Juggernaut learns the truth of his origins and is given an ultimatum. He refuses to be what Cytorrak wants him to be, the team goes home and moves on; Cain retains his power despite Cytorrak being able to remove it just like that for disobeying.
5) Roma promises she will rectify the mistake her father made with Albion - the old man aint around anymore but she's not even told anyone about the guy? Brian was ruler of Otherworld for crying out loud - bring the man up to speed when his arse hits the throne next time will ya!
6) Meggan's gone, Brian barely mourns; he moves on and doesnt bother making getting back to Otherworld any kind of priority.
7) Brian gives Lionheart her power, but appears to have lost any of his kingly powers so can't remove them to prevent her being a threat.
And my personal pet peeve:
8) There is still absolutely no clarification on Brian being a mutant, what powers are inherrent or purely suit or amplified by suit. No development or clarification of his powers other than rather lame and overused strength, speed, flight, durability (or is that forcefield, or a forcefield in addition to natural resilience, or a suit forcefield, or a mental forcefield? Who ever bloody knows!). Thats the best Merlin could come up with? A flying Juggernaut?
I love having an English team. I love the whole premise behind Captain Britain, with its mythology ties and corps side story. The time travel arc could have been so massively well done and really opened up the background of the team and Otherworld's role in the Arthurian legend, but instead it was a fun little jaunt to fight dragons, have a feast and go home...
As I said, love the idea of Captain Britain, but the Captain himself really needs explaining once and for all. Instead of arcs for stories making up new stuff about thoroughly well rounded characters, how about taking the wishy washy ones and defining them? We dont need to know it was Charles who was sposed to be Juggernaut; it does nothing for Charles himself, and clearly it changes nothing about Cain's role in the grand scheme of things.
