Issue(s): Excalibur #15
Cover Date: Nov 89
Title: "Technet: Impossible Missions!"
Credits:
Chris Claremont - Writer
Alan Davis - Penciler
Paul Neary - Inker
Mike Rockwitz - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanaugh - Editor

Review/plot:
This Cross-Time Caper issue treats Excalibur's dimension hopping as incidental, although it does give us some great panels like these...

...and instead focuses on Technet's fulfillment of the mission that they were hired for by Nigel Frobisher, to rescue Captain Britain's brother from imprisonment by Doctor Crocodile. If we read the original Captain Britain story, we know that Jamie is a captive with the full knowledge and acceptance of Captain Britain, but Technet don't know that (and probably wouldn't care anyway since it's just a job to them). The mercenaries fight their way through Doc Croc's forces...

...and manage to free Jamie despite Croc's warnings. It turns out that Jamie is quite mad and also a reality-warper, something that wasn't clear from the original CB story. There was some messing with reality in that story, but it seemed to all be due to Doc Croc's psychedelic gas. Jamie seemed like a sane if morally evil slaver and environmental despoiler at the time.

In fact, Jamie is now a lot more like Mad Jim Jaspers.

Especially after Scatterbrain transforms him from being totally mad to slightly less bonkers.

He winds up destroying most of Technet.

In the end, though, Nigel Frobisher (who has taken on Courtney Ross's look, a continuation of the revelation from a couple issues back when Technet revealed that he has a desire to be her) manages to "hire" Jamie...

...and convinces him to put Technet back together. Doc Croc, however, is left as a tiny cybernetic crocodile.

This issue is something of a break from the Cross-Time Caper, but the hectic madness of Technet combined with the obscure Doctor Crocodile and the actual madness of Jamie Braddock doesn't give us a lot to hold on. In a large part, this book is more about cute, cool, and crazy moments than actual story, and that's especially true of this issue.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Excalibur's final jump this issue leaves them crashed somewhere and unconscious, but we'll pick up on that mid-story with next issue so i'll leave it to a separate entry.

References:

Doctor Crocodile and Jamie Braddock were previously seen in Captain Britain #10.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

I think that Gatecrasher might have had second thoughts if she knew what Jamie was- otherwise, why did Nigel lie to her?
Several people had problems when Jamie was depicted as killing relief workers in Africa. Although there were attacks on relief workers, attempts to prevent aid from reaching its targets, etc, in Africa in the '80s and early '90s, they were by people associated with the local factions, not European criminals (who were busy robbing people in Europe). The letters page claimed in response to this criticism that Jamie was acting as a mercenary for the local factions, something that's not in evidence in any of the stories.
Regarding the inconsistency in Jamie's characterization, he was introduced as a relatively normal guy, as you'll see soon when you review the earlier Captain Britain stories. Jamie Delano decided to have him turn out to be the villain to reverse the cliche of the evil African threatening the innocent white dude. Which is fine, except that there's a reason why those kinds of stories usually invent a never-before-seen friend of the hero instead of using an existing character- if you use an existing character you have to explain why they went bad, which Delano never did.