Welcome to the Starlight Citadel.
I started this blog because I wanted to share my affinity for these characters and the the King Arthur
mythos with others and what better way than through a blog?
To understand how I came to this point, we have to journey 28 years ago, back to 1981 where it all started.
You see, that was the year a certain movie called "Excalibur" was released in the theaters.
As an eleven year old, I remember watching this movie and being completely engrossed in it and captured by it's majestic story. I must have watched this movie at least four or five times back then. I sat stunned, as visions of the Lady of the Lake, Merlin, the Knights of the Round Table, King Arthur and his sword Excalibur enfolded before me. I was completely mesmerized.
All of a sudden, a whole new and fascinating world was opened to me. Of course I had heard of King Arthur as a younger child, but it wasn't until I watched this movie that the story resonated so much with me.
*A quick fact--Excalibur starred three men that would go on to establish themselves as very fine actors: Liam
Neeson, Patrick Stewart and Gabriel
Byrne.
A year later, Avengers #225 & 226 came out, featuring the Black Knight:
Just look at the cover to #225! It's fantastic! The Black Knight looks like he is jumping off the cover. He instantly reminded me of the Knights of the Round Table from the movie. I decided right then and there to hunt down and find all of the back issues that the Black Knight had appeared in and I eventually ran across Marvel Super-Heroes #17:
Needless to say, I was blown away. This was the comic that cemented the Black Knight as one of my favorite characters. It's a tale that wonderfully incorporates Merlin and the King Arthur
mythos into his origin, and it remains one of my favorite reads.
Three years later in 1985, Captain America #305 & 306 came out on the spinner racks:
These two issues featured Captain America teaming up with Captain Britain (an emissary of Merlin) in Great Britain to defeat his confused foe
Modred. As I read them, my memory
harkened back to the movie Excalibur and all the things that I enjoyed about that movie came back to the forefront of my mind. I was now deeply entrenched in the stories unfolding from these two characters and couldn't get enough of them.
The Black Knight would go on to become a member of the Avengers, the Defenders,
Ultraforce, Heroes for Hire, a valued and trusted
Pendragon of the Lady of the Lake, as well as a friend and compatriot to Captain Britain (they teamed up in a back up story called "The
Otherworld Saga" that ran in Hulk UK comics).
Captain Britain would be featured in two short series of his own, followed by The Fury
storyarc, before going on to join the British super hero team Excalibur in the one-shot special from 1987:
It would then spin off into the regular series that started in 1988:
That series, most of which was beautifully illustrated and written by Alan Davis, would span 10 years and 125 issues, centering on Captain Britain's
tumultuous life, his wife
Meggan, his teammates and the mythology consisting of the Captain Britain Corps, Merlin, Roma, Avalon, and many other exciting things.
The Black Knight would be reunited with Captain Britain in the short 2001 Excalibur mini-series:
And both are now featured in the most recent comic series Captain Britain and MI:13 :
This series began in 2008 and is one of the finer reads in comics these days. It's superbly written by Paul Cornell and illustrated by Leonard Kirk.
So now you know the history behind my fascination with these characters and the mythology behind them. If you haven't already, do yourself a favor and read these marvelous books and watch the movie. You'll be glad you did.
*Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud--Proverbs 16:9
Unfortunately, the story ends there, so the full battle will be shown in the next issue.
