"SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT"
Writer/Co-Plotters/Penciler: Roger Stern & John Byrne
Inker: Joe Rubinstein | Letterer: Jim Novak | Colorist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Jim Salicrup | Chief: Jim Shooter
The Plot: Captain America is summoned to England by Lord Falsworth, the retired Word War II hero called Union Jack, to investigate a string of murders around Falsworth Manor. Falsworth is convinced that his brother, the Nazi vampire Baron Blood, is behind the killings, and Cap does some sleuthing to determine that Blood is indeed on the loose. That night, Blood sneaks into Falsworth Manor to kill Captain America.
Continuity Notes: Cap foils a robbery in the early pages of the issue before going on a date with Bernie Rosenthal as Steve Rogers. The couple sees "Oklahoma!" at Steve's insistence, despite Bernie's preferred choice of the risqué "Oh! Calcutta!", which Steve believes he is not yet ready for. Bernie then comments on Steve's generally old-fashioned tastes.
Bernie and Steve's first kiss is prevented when Avengers butler Jarvis calls from Avengers Mansion to inform Steve of the telegram which summons him to England. When Steve tells Bernie has to leave, she makes up a story about an old boyfriend to make him jealous. The resultant panels are two of the finest examples of Marvel angst you'll ever see.
As he flies to England, incognito aboard a passenger jet, Cap reminisces about life in World War II, when he fought the Axis alongside the Invaders.
Upon his arrival at Heathrow Airport, Cap uses his Avengers priority card to get through customs. Somehow I doubt that's all it would take nowadays.
At Falsworth Manor, Cap first croses paths with Jacqueline Falsworth-Chrichton, formerly known as Spitfire of the Invaders, and explains to her that he never caught up with his old teammates due to the gaps in his memory, which were only recently filled in by Stern and Byrne in
CAPTAIN AMERICA #247. Jackie also has a moment of angst when she realizes that she was once younger than Cap, but now she is decades older.
Captain America begins his investigation by speaking with the local coroner, who kicks the Avenger out of his office when the subject of vampires comes up. A detective explains to Cap that when the doctor first moved into town, there was a local vampire scare and the townspeople burned down his home, with his daughter inside, so the subject is understandably touchy for him. Why he chose to continue living among the people who formed an irrational mob and
killed his daughter goes unexplained.
By the way, does anyone else think the doctor (right) looks kind of like modern day John Byrne? I don't know what Byrne's father looked like, but if he perhaps used him as a model here, that could explain how Byrne was able to draw a self portrait of himself from thirty years in the future. Or maybe I'm totally mistaken.
It is noted that, as a member of the British nobility, Baron Blood was entombed in state within the Tower of London, even though he was also a vampire Nazi war criminal. Cap deduces that the entombed Blood is actually a decoy corpse -- a young woman, at that -- and medical examination reveals that the body has been in Blood's tomb for about twelve years.
Jackie's son, Kenneth, returns home from art school for a visit, and brings with him a chum named Joey Chapman. The elitist Jackie is none too pleased to see her son socializing with a commoner like Joey.
My Thoughts: This two-parter is my favorite of the Stern/Byrne issues. Previous stories in their run made much mention of Cap's time in World War II, but this is the first time they revisit that past in any format other than a simple flashback. Fighting a vampire on the foggy moors is not a scenario one envisions for Captain America, but I think that's what makes it work here. Cap is out of his element. In America he's a living symbol, but in England he's just another superhero. He's treated with respect by the detectives and other civilians he encounters here, but not with the sort of awe and reverence Stern typically shows when he's on his home turf.
Besides that, Cap spends much of the issue doing detective work, asking the local coroner about the recently discovered bodies, and exploring Blood's tomb in the Tower of London. Really, the entire story reads like Captain America has been transplanted into a Batman plot, but thanks to the Invaders connection and their typically perfect handling of the character, Stern and Byrne pull it off. I suppose it doesn't hurt that Byrne spent part of his childhood in England, so he's able to inject what I assume/hope is some authenticism into the scenery.
At any rate, whether this is or is not an accurate example of a village north of London circa 1980, Stern and Byrne certainly make me believe, through narration and artwork, that I'm someplace
real. And the verisimilitude is what's truly important for such stories.
ReplyDelete// The elitist Jackie is none too pleased to see her son socializing with a commoner like Joey. //
I know that Ken talks about marrying Jenny (next issue at least if not in this one) but it reads to me that Ken and Joey are intimated as being more than “art-school friends” — or rather that “art-school friends” is code for them being together in the fashion that dared not speak its name.
The flashback montage is nice. It’s still crazy to me both that these issues were published barely a year after The Invaders ended and that I missed them at the time because I loved that series.
Also, Byrne’s good at drawing borderline emaciated yet muscular figures — I think of Wild Child back in Alpha Flight — but they really creep me out, which I suppose is appropriate. (Baron Blood wasn’t this skeletal in The Invaders.)
I never thought about Ken and Joey that way, probably exactly because of the business with Ken and Jenny in the next issue -- and also because when I first encountered Joey Chapman in the 1998 UNION JACK mini-series, it was established that he'd had a romance with Pete Wisdom's sister, Romany, at some point -- but you're right that there do seem to be some hints pointing that direction here.
DeleteFunny you made that comment the same week my INVADERS post introducing the Mighty Destroyer went up, because the Destroyer and Jacqueline's brother, Brian "Union Jack II" Falsworth were also introduced as "school chums", and were revealed many years later to have actually been lovers.
To your point about Baron Blood not being emaciated in INVADERS -- it's almost the opposite! He's quite robust there, as I recall!
And to your other point regarding how brief the period of time was between INVADERS ending and these issues being published -- that's something I noticed myself as I got near the end of the INVADERS series, and I wrote about it in one of my posts, which is due to go up this summer. But here's what I said/will say:
I have to admit, it never really dawned on me how soon [CAPTAIN AMERICA 253 and 254] came along after INVADERS ended! That series' final issue was cover-dated September of 1979, and this two-parter is from January and February of 1981. A mere fifteen months separated the conclusion of INVADERS and Stern's and Byrne's epilogue to the series!
(I suspect in part that's simply due to the fact that INVADERS feels like a Silver Age throwback to me. The artwork, the scripting style, even some of the plotting -- it's all incongruous with the Bronze Age that was in full swing alongside it. So even though I know when INVADERS was published, it feels like it was published about a decade earlier.)
Wow. I didn’t know they were that close together. Probably because (a) the early Invaders stuff both feels, like you say, and is farther back in time, and (b) I picked up the back half of the series far more haphazardly off the racks, only filling in through back issues much later.
ReplyDeleteThis is a better portrayal of Britain in US media than many earlier ones but yeah there are some signs that stand out. Just where on earth is Joey supposed to be from with that accent? (Google tells me he's the son of a Manchester dock worker. He must be related to the Moon family in Frasier. *) In the next issue his accent turns Australian. Most of the British accents here are reasonable but there is a bit too much "Cor!" and "Bloody".
ReplyDeleteWhy are the local police reporting to Jacqueline just because she expressed an interest in the killings? This feels a bit too much like the stereotype of the Squire of the Manor still being a meaningful figure in post war Britain which hung around even in British fiction long after it ceased to be relevant. (We have our own urban/rural divide with writers from one perpetuating outdated stereotypes of the other.)
Otherwise this is quite a good opener for a story from what is about the best Captain America run in the decade between Engelhart and Gruenwald. A pity it was so short.
(* Frasier was popular over here but we found Daphne's accent absolutely hilarious. The Manchester Evening News declared it "Quite simply the fakest Mancunian accent of all time". And her brothers aren't even trying.)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait -- is Daphne Moon not Jane Leeves' normal accent?? I guess I've never seen her speak out of character!!
DeleteAgreed on the quality of this run. It's really a shame it didn't last longer.
This is bizarre... that above comment (and this one) are coming through as "Anonymous". But this is me, Matt -- the owner of the blog! I'm signed in and my comments on other posts are coming through as me, but whenever I go to this particular page, it thinks I'm not logged in.
DeleteAnyway... my above question remains!!
Blogger seems to have changed its default settings to cause that. But anyway...
DeleteJane Leeves is from east London and has a southern England "Received Pronunciation" accent. Over here the accent she used in Frasier is probably second only to Dick Van Dyke's in Mary Poppins for being so notoriously bad and an example of US media just not understanding British accents. (And yes our media has had plenty of New Yorkers speaking perfect Texan and the like.) Reports vary as to whether it's because it's not her natural accent or because producers felt the accurate accent she was using at early rehearsals would be incomprehensible to American viewers.
Things get even worse with her brothers who have a weird collection of Received Pronunciation (traditionally the southern English upper class accent popularised by the BBC in its early years), "Mockney" (a middle class person trying to do a Cockney accent traditional to working class east Londoners), Brummie (the Birmingham accent) with a Scottish tinge and I don't know what.