Issue(s): Excalibur #44
Cover Date: Nov 91
Title: "Witless for the prosecution"
Credits:
Alan Davis - Writer
Alan Davis - Penciler
Mark Farmer - Inker
Mark Powers - Assistant Editor
Terry Kavanagh - Editor

Review/plot:
Captain Britain is on trial by the Captain Britain Corps in Otherworld for making an unprovoked attack on Nightcrawler last issue. He's being defended by Captain UK, a character that worked with Captain Britain in the original UK Captain Britain books.

The prosecutor for the trial in Hauptmann England, the Captain Britain from the alternate reality where Nazis won World War II. And the answer to the question of why Captain Britain gets put on trial for attacking one guy out of jealousy while the Corps lets a Nazi Captain Britain run around is that each Captain Britain is judged based on the standards of his own reality.

A big point is made of the fact that Captain Britain is ignorant of all the Corps' rules and practices. And in the end, Captain Britain refuses to recognize the authority of the Corps or play their "silly game", so they attack him.

But that's actually not the main story for this issue, so we'll pause there. The main story in this issue is about Meggan, who has decided to seek out her parents after the fight between Captain Britain and Nightcrawler last issue left her with a kind of an identity crisis (which has been a long time coming anyway). Rachel Summers has taken Meggan to the Yorkshire Dales, which is where Meggan thinks her parents might have been from, but they aren't able to find anyone. To try to get more information, Rachel tries to use her telepathy to read Meggan's mind, but runs into a problem because unlike most people, and especially the mutant teammates she generally deals with, Meggan's mind is an open book, with no psychic shields. So Rachel winds up getting lost inside of Meggan's mind, getting plunged "into a sea of splintered memory", and she has to break out. Rachel compares Meggan's jumble of memories to her own disheveled mental state from the conditioning she experienced in the Days of Future Past. But they do get one bit of information out of the attempted mind meld. Meggan remembers the family that she used to stay with, the Scotts (from Meggan's first real world appearance). So they go to visit the Scotts in London. While there, Rachel is again struck by being around "normal" people, so "for the first time since acquiring the Phoenix Force", she wills it to be dormant so that she can interact with regular folks. The Scotts point Meggan towards a fortune teller who might know more about Meggan's family. The fortune teller tells Meggan that most of her tricks are a "scam", but she does remember having heard that Meggan's parents may have gone to France.

While Meggan is talking with the fortune teller, Rachel waits outside and notices something strange in an antique shop. She investigates and finds a floating dagger, and when she uses her telekinesis to stop it we see the outline of a creature.

But she's interrupted by the attack of another character.

This guy is called Micromax, and he is a superhero working for FI6. Micromax tries to arrest Phoenix for the theft of the dagger, but a federal agent confirms Rachel's story that another entity was really trying to steal the dagger; it was visible in the ultraviolet spectrum. So Micromax reluctantly lets Phoenix go. In a related event, Dai Thomas, with a clairvoyant named Emelia Witherspoon who working with Scotland Yard, comes to Nightcrawler for help with a series of thefts that they've been unable to solve. At this point the rest of Excalibur is gone (Kitty has convinced Alistaire Stuart to take her on a trip to an archaeological dig in Ireland that he was originally going to invite Rachel to), and Nightcrawler has a broken leg from his fight with Captain Britain last issue. But Dai asks why Technet can't help. Nightcrawler rejects the idea as "too ridiculous"...

...but as we'll see next issue, "too ridiculous" has never been an impediment for this book.

While the focus is on Meggan searching for her family, this is a bridge issue focusing on the individual members of Excalibur's separate subplots (including more alternate dimension teases of Kylun and Sa'tneen). So it doesn't feel like anything major is going on (except maybe for the Captain Britain plot, which will blow up into the next main storyline) but it's fun to see the various characters getting focus under Alan Davis.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: - 3 - first Micromax

Chronological Placement Considerations: Over a week passes between this issue and the next one on Earth (Nightcrawler says that it's been more than a week since he last had a communication from Rachel after she and Meggan left for France). But the Captain Britain part of the story next issue continues directly from the end of his subplot in this issue (unless he's been fighting for over a week between issues). So time seems to be passing on Earth differently than in Otherworld, which wouldn't be surprising. I'm therefore allowing space between this issue and the next one to reflect the time passage on Earth.

References:

• The prosecutor for Captain Britain's trial is Hauptmann England, who was first seen in Excalibur #9-11.
  
• One of the judges is Justicer Bull, from Excalibur #23 (and in the first scan in this entry, next to her are Captain England and Captain Empire, both from the UK Captain Britain books, referred to here as the Captain Britain Trade paperback three times in this issue).
  
• Additional points in the case against Captain Britain include "subordinat[ing] himself to become a mere member in a group of costumed adventurers" (Excalibur Special Edition), and, with Excalibur, causing disruptions to numerous realities during the Cross-Time Caper, from Excalibur #12 to Excalibur #24 (and stealing Crusader X's costume in issue #13).
  
• Beating up Slaymaster in Captain Britain #3 is deemed acceptable, since it was in retaliation for Slaymaster's blinding of Psylocke.
  
• The similarity between Meggan's clutter of memories and Rachel's may explain why they share a strange rapport, as shown in Excalibur #15 and Excalibur #19.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

You called Hauptmann Englande "Captain Hauptmann" when he first showed up. Do you have the "Captain, oh, Captain" song stuck in your head?

Whoops, thanks.

Miss Witherspoon seems to be modelled after Margaret Rutherford, who played eccentric women in a number of British movies (including a version of Miss Marple not very much like Agatha Christie's).