PUBLISHER: MARVEL UK (1990-1991)
WRITERS: DAN ABNETT & JOHN TOMLINSON
ARTIST: GARY ERSKINE
As discussed elsewhere, the late eighties and early nineties were a time of give and take for comic fans. The give was that Watchmen, DKR, Deadline and Zenith had made the idea of grown-ups buying comics seem strangely normal; the take was that we had to call the things graphic novels and that everyone writing for the things suddenly thought they were Alan fucking Moore. Marvel UK rarely needed much of an excuse to overreach themselves and after finally begrudgingly admitting no-one liked Dragon's Claws, Death's Head or The Sleeze Brothers their next attempt to be a proper publisher came in the form of Knights of Pendragon.
PUBLISHER: MARVEL (2006-2007)
WRITER: CHRISTOS GAGE
ARTIST: MIKE PERKINS
Union Jack's first mini had somehow been released in 1998 and very welcome it was, with an added round of surprise coming from Ben Raab actually putting in a good shift on the script despite his form. However, after those three issues it was back to jobbing cameos for Joe Chapman (though an unsuccessful pitch would lead to Paul Grist's superb Jack Staff) until he turned up in as one of Allan Jacobsen's New Invaders alongside other long-established but semi-obscure characters such as US Agent, the original Human Torch and the Thin Man. While this only lasted nine issues it presumably put this four-issue series on the table to give the character another try-out.
It took me a while to warm to Paul Cornell's interpretation of Pete Wisdom in the character's rocky solo series but here, as the kingpin of MI13 and master tactician of British superheroes, he's on top form so fair play. Indeed, Cornell writes strong for everyone here from Brian (whose relationship with Meggan, one of the most charming, warm and real of the whole Marvel Universe, is captured perfectly), Blade and Dane Whitman right down to a significant cameo from Doctor Doom.
Union Jack has been one of my favourite minor Marvel character for some considerable time, be it cameoing in The Invaders or Captain America or being a semi-regular in The Knights of Pendragon (preferably the first, good series). I was pleased to discover the first issue of this series until I saw the name on the cover - Raab. Ben Raab. A spectacularly untalented man who'd taken the new lease of life Warren Ellis gave to Excalibur and pissed it away by making it the X-Men reserve Team title, effectively jettisoning everyone but Shadowcat, Colossus and Nightcrawler.
