Batman #227 Facsimile Edition, Captain Britain's 50th, and Some Cover Homages
Posted on 18 Oct 2026
Posted on 18 Oct 2026
I first really encountered Captain Britain when the Alan Moore / Alan Davis trade paperback came out almost 25 years ago. I had heard of the character but I had never been terribly interested in getting any comics where he was a prominent character. When I saw Alan Moore's name on the trade ( which I believe had to be removed at Moore's request in subsequent printings ) I knew that I should give it a shot. I really, really enjoyed that trade and the entire mythos that had developed around Captain Britain. It made me want to see out some other volumes of work by other creative teams. Although I don't think that most matched the Moore / Davis pairing, they were all good stories.
It took me a while to find out that Captain Britain's sister Betsy was Psylocke from X-Force. Yeah, fans knew this, but I didn't. That was a fairly recent revelation, believe it or not. I grabbed an Excalibur trade this past year which includes more of the Captain Britain mythos in the stories, which I really enjoyed.
But, I digress...
This 50th anniversary issue has three stories and a brief timeline of the character in text form at the end. The first story is written by Chris Claremont and it was enjoyable. I suspect that it has more meaning to the folks that have the issues that border the continuity that it's supposed to fit in.
The second story was written and drawn by Alan Davis. It was the most enjoyable of the three. An agent claiming to be Captain Britain's superior appears to chastise the good Captain and to study his memories. In doing so, he unleashes a doppleganger of a very dangerous foe.
The final story was written by Dan Abnett. In this story Betsy has the mantle of Captain Britain instead of her brother Brian. She performs in a contest of battle with another being wearing the old Captain Britain outfit in Otherworld. This was an enjoyable romp, but it seemed to be something that might set the stage for future stories.
I picked up Batman #227's facimile edition. It was a good Batman tale, really reminiscent of that era of Batman comics except that the main story in this particular issue had a horror / supernatural theme. Alfred's niece was kidnapped by cultists who were going to sacrifice her to bring forth a demon.
They took Batman's butler's favorite niece. Big mistake.
The Batman story was nicely done, written by Denny O'Neil and drawn by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. The second part of the issue had Robin as the central superhero in a story written by Mike Friedrich and drawn by Irv Novick and Mike Esposito. The story left me wanting something as it kind of trailed off in a cliffhanger. I suppose I'm going to have to add the next issue or two to some lists of comics I need to hunt down.
The big surprise for me in the issue was the very end where DC's artists were celebrated for having won awards. They framed the announcement with pictures of the artists as though it was a newspaper headline. The top of the page read "Daily Planet Extra". I know that DC began to morph its fanpage which had been called Direct Currents into a newspaper-style offering called The Daily Planet in their various comics of the early 80's. Was this the earliest time that the Daily Planet format was used for such an announcement? Hm. That's another mystery I'll have to track down.
The Neal Adams cover of Batman #227 seemed like an homage to me, so I ended up briefly going down a rabbit hole looking for covers. What I found was that it looks (to me) very much like the cover of Detective #31:
Detective #31 was one of my favorite Batman stories that involved The Mad Monk. It had been reprinted in a 70's Giant-Size edition that I happened upon as a kid. It was much later that I saw the cover of the original issue. I could've sworn that there were wolves on the cover. I was wrong. However, in Matt Wagner's series Batman and the Mad Monk the homage to that original cover had wolves on it! Perhaps Wagner added them in as homages to both issues?
A bit later, Alex Ross created his own homage to Detective #31. No wolves.
