Halloween Spooklight: Captain Britain and MI13

Throughout October, a new supernatural character or story from the Marvel Universe gets a spooky spotlight leading up to Halloween!

There are no shortage of Super Hero teams in the Marvel Universe, but not all of them give their all defend Queen and Country from alien invaders, magic thieves, demons or an army of invading vampires lead by Dracula!

That distinction falls to the group seen in the underrated 2008-2009 series CAPTAIN BRITAIN AND MI13. Written by Paul Cornell and drawn by Leonard Kirk with a fill-in by Patrick Olliffe and an ANNUAL with stories rendered by Mike Collins and Adrian Alphona, the England-set ongoing dealt with plenty of dark elements.

Launching out of Secret Invasion, Pete Wisdom, Captain Britain, a good Skrull taking the form of John Lennon, the Black Knight, Spitfire, and a doctor-turned-Super Hero/Excaliber-wiedler named Dr. Faiza Hussain defend the magic of the country and the mystical Otherworld from the invaders, though not everyone makes it out alive.

Established as a team targeting monsters, the group carries on as a unified hero team backed by the U.K. government and its intelligence gathering capabilities with one very important new member: Blade!

The vampire made a bad first impression on his teammates when he stakes noted vampire hero Spitfire upon their first meeting. Luckily for everyone, Dr. Hussain uses her healing powers to stitch her back up. It's okay, though – after a fight surrounded by a hellfire-consumed building, Spitfire and Blade got a nice read of each other.

Meanwhile, their partners deal with a recently freed Duke of Hell by the name of Plokta who uses the Dream Corridor to give humans their dream's desires in exchange for their souls. He then planned on using those souls to create more Mindless Ones that would then be used to overtake the Earth so that Hell can possess it.

Thanks to some cleverness from everyone involved and more than a few revelations, Captain Britain and his squad came out on top, working together to capture Plokta in a contraption.

During the final arc, Blade's old foe Dracula reared his pristine head to cause trouble for Old Blighty. After having a meeting with Doctor Doom on the Moon to discuss his intentions to take over England, Vlad officially declares war on the land he intends to overtake by blowing up the members of MI13's super squad.

He also got an inside woman on the team by using Spitfire's resurrected son – a.k.a. Brother Blood – to bring her under his thrall. Working with a variety of vampires and embracing magic instead of fearing it, Dracula's forces seemed poised to succeed in their mission. However, Blade and his team came up with a way to set up a mystical barrier around the U.K. so that no vampire could enter without an invitation. Dracula thought he destroyed the focus of the spell, but it turned out to be a ruse designed by Wisdom to completely wipe his forces out!

Fright Fact

For a more street-level take on Pete Wisdom doing his investigative thing, check out the three-issue limited series PRYDE & WISDOM wherein Excalibur teammates Wisdom and Kitty Pryde do their best to find out who's creating mummified mutant corpses. Better yet, the 1996 series comes from modern day comic legends Warren Ellis and Terry Dodson!