JephYork wrote:Could you folks explain the Timesmasher/Captain Britain connection that you keep referring to?
-Jeph!
Yes, we could.
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Oh, wait. You mean "would you," not "could you." :P
I've mentioned the strip to you before - check your e-mail of 6th November 2008, back when we were discussing extras for the CB Omnibus, and later on 17th March 2010 when we discussed Marvel UK in general.
Rampage Magazine #40 starts the Timsmasher story with a time capsule crashing in Scotland in 1981, unleashing a wave of temporal energy that engulfs nearby creatures, including a potholer and local astronomer, MacMurdo (McMurdo in the last two installments - inconsistent spelling), inflicting violent dreams of various other eras. Woken, MacMurdo soon encounters an intruder, who claims to be a time traveller from the past and shows the suspicious MacMurdo (at the end of MacMurdo's blunderbuss) to the surprisingly sparse and low-tech capsule. There the traveller admits he was a condemned criminal - the method of time travel used required two capsules, each flung different directions in time with matching numbers of people on board. The travellers was the dummy ship, intended to self-destruct on arrival. Then a flash of light heralds a new arrival, terrifying the traveller.
Rampage #42 (they skipped an issue and ran Alan Davis' Crusader one-shot in #41) shows that the new arrival is more sophisticated capsule with killer robots on board. The humans try to hide, but are spotted, then saved by the arrival of a man glowing with energy who destroys the robots. MacMudro guesses (rightly) that this man must have been caught in the epicentre of the first ship's arrival, and they witness the man stop, gaze heavenward and call on Merlin and Arthur, asking for them to command him and show them the way. MacMurdo thinks he's demented, but the traveller is terrified - his people fled from the far future to the prehistoric past to escape the destruction of their civilisation by the glowing man.
Rampage #42 starts with a text box that identifies the glowing man as the potholer we briefly saw in a single panel in the first installment. The skies twist above the man, and Merlin appears (not a visage we've seen before), calling the man Kilgore Slaughter, and admitting he "shaped events this day to serve my leige Arthur, the once and future king." Merlin diverted the traveller's capsule to empower Slaughter, additionally giving the traveller the gift of life "as he travelled the mists of time....A diversion prevents his intended death, a diversion caused by the one known as Captain Britain...despatched by my leige Arthur on an eldritch journey to an Earth not his own." Merlin then tells the man some stuff about his task being his destiny, without actually explaining what he's supposed to do, and vanishes. MacMurdo and the time traveller try to slip away, but Kilgore spots them. They are terrified (especially the time traveller), but Kilgore offers out a hand of friendship. They check the robots' capsule and move to the nearby woods to hide it before the local villagers spot it. MacMurdo is fascinated by the idea of time travelling himself, but they'll need an even number to do so, and he returns to the observatory and wakes his engineering student daughter.
Rampage #43, and the daughter (now identified as Fiona McMurdo) works to repair the first, damaged capsule, the one that brought the original time traveller (now named as Ralf), with Ralf's assistance. With the repairs complete, the old astronomer plans to travel forward 1000 years, with Kilgore as his bodyguard because he figures the locals will consider him akin to a medieval peasant, while Fiona and Ralf go back to 981 - he advises them to stay inside the craft and have a picnic, as the locals of that era should have no way of getting into the vessel. However, as they power up, Kilgore (who has fashioned himself a crown and cape to go with the overalls McMurdo gave him to replace his damaged clothes) tells his travelling companion that Merlin commands him to go alone, and teleports McMurdo out. As the craft vanishes into the future, Fiona arrives, revealing she also got teleported out of the reciprocal vessel. Slaughter arrives in the future (presumably Ralf's people's original time, the one they fled to escape Slaughter), exits to a hostile reception (seems to be quite dystopian, from what little we see of it, hence I guess why a nice guy like Ralf is considered a condemned criminal and why Merlin wanted it destroyed), and smiles as his enemies approach. Back in 1981 the two capsules suddenly return - Ralf emerges and he and Fiona joyfully reunite, having apparently fallen for one another during their day working on repairing the damaged capsule. Slaughter also emerges, having taken 30 minutes to destroy Ralf's future civilisation (so the text box tells us). McMurdo tells the young couple to break it up, as momentous events are afoot, then turns to Slaughter, saying that their friend has much to tell them, and then much to accomplish here.
And that's where we ended - whatever the improbably named Kilgore Slaughter was intended to do next, we never got told.