During the Silver Age, Marvel’s United Kingdom imprint largely published content in black and white weekly reprint formats. But in 1976, the publisher debuted the first original property created by Marvel specifically for the British Isles.

Captain Britain was created by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe, then he was developed further by Alan Moore and Alan Davis. His first appearance was in Titans #50 (September 1976), and a month later, he began starring in his own series, Captain Britain #1 (October 1976).

Before he was a superhero, Brian Braddock was a shy and studious young man. Following his parents’ death in a supposed laboratory accident, Brian accepted a fellowship at the Darkmoor nuclear research center. When the facility was attacked by the criminal Reaver, Braddock escaped on his motorcycle to find help only to suffer a near-fatal crash. Merlin the Magician and the Goddess of the Northern Skies appeared to him and offered him a choice between the Amulet of Right or the Sword of Might. Brian chose the amulet and was instantly infused with mystical energy.

He now possessed superhuman strength, speed endurance, agility, durability, reflexes, and senses. Brian also gained the power to create force fields, energy beams, and he could fly. Brian took on the job of protecting Great Britain, similar to how Steve Rogers protected the US as Captain America.

Captain Britain launched as a weekly comic book and ran for 39 issues, ending in July 1977. At the end of his run, Captain Britain didn’t just disappear but was merged with the weekly Spider-Man reprint title Super Spider-Man, becoming Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain for a period.

The character went on to appear in The Incredible Hulk Weekly, Marvel Super-Heroes, and a new Captain Britain monthly series. He also showed up in New York in Marvel Team-Up #65-66 (January-February 1978), before taking a more prominent position in the Marvel Universe in the X-Men family title Excalibur. In this latter series, Brian formed the team alongside Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Phoenix III, and Meggan to serve as Great Britain’s premier super team. Brian later went through many different transformations, including presenting a darker more mature version in Knights of Pendragon.