Hair’s the kicker

Wonder Woman splitting a few hairs

I got to wondering the other day, if I could have one superhero attribute, what would it be?

What's a ghoul to do?

I went through all of the usual suspects one by one, but discarded each of them in turn: exoskeleton – nah, might increase my dress size; flight – not so sure about the whole heights thing; invisibility – what’s the point of a superpower that nobody can see; superstrength – sure, then all of my frends will expect me to help them move; x-ray vision – frankly, there’s a whole lot of stuff about people that I just DON’T want to see.

Then I realized there was one totally cool, absolutely awsome, superhuman power that would never fail me: perfect hair.

Almost all of the best superheroines have long flowing tresses that, no matter what the conflict – extraterrestrials, mad doctors with poison that will end civilization as we know it, multi-limbed bomb-toting megalomaniacs or, as shown above, strangulation by the undead – the hair not only doesn’t move, it often remains a full cascade of follicle perfection that ripples and tumbles, sometimes sweeping out both sideways and upwards.

Generations of hair perfection

And only comic book women are able to pull off this amazing feat. While I’ve been writing this, my husband has had the 1971 Western “Red Sun” with Charles Bronson and Ursula Andress (2 Desperados … 1 Hellcat … and a Samurai … the greatest fighting force the West has ever known!) on television. While leading lady Andress has managed to keep her tresses looking better than yours or mine would after being in a bordello, riding the plains, and being attacked and nearly killed by Indians, by the end it’s looking pretty ratty. While she is a pretty super Bond girl, she isn’t a superheroine. She is, after all, like the rest of us, merely mortal.

Magical Mystery Skrull

I found several Captain Britain and MI:13 comics in a bargain bin a couple of months ago and was immediately intrigued when I opened the first page and saw John Lennon.

Seriously. John Lennon.

OK, so he’s not really John Lennon, he just looks like John Lennon. He’s a Skrull and Skrulls can take on the appearance of absolutely anyone, making them difficult to discern from the average Brit.

Where, you may ask, are the rest of the Faux Four? Killed, according to Skrull John.

Paul really is dead.

“We were a bit of fun, the four of us. ‘Skrull Beatles!’ We were silly and great!” says Skrull John Lennon, who at the start of issue 1 is about to be terminated himself.

Anyone seen Spiderman?

I immediately bought all the issues they had.

All the issues they had turned out to be 1, 3, 4, 6 and 14 in a series of 15, so I definitely have some gaps to fill. But I broke my “don’t-read-until-I-have-the whole-series” rule and dug in.

As the series starts, England is under attach by the Skrulls, who, when they’re not looking like someone else, look a little like Willem Dafoe as Norman Osborne as the Green Goblin in the first “Spiderman”

The Skrulls have attacked Britain to get to Avalon — yes, that Avalon, complete with the sword in the stone, which also plays a part in the comic.
They have taken, “what England has more of than anyone else — Magic!” — as Pete Wisdom says — which they’ve used to create a Super-Skrull that wears the magic in a huge chain around itself and looks like some badly accessorized hip hop ghoul.

Meanwhile there are battles going on everywhere, London looks kid of like it did during the Blitz, and a dead Captain Britain is resurrected — he literally wraps himself in the flag; several in fact, which somehow transform into a skin-tight suit.

Apparently the Skrulls didn’t get all of the magic!

I’ll be looking to collect the rest of the series in the coming days. I’m also going to start tracking down a Marvel UK series, “Knights of Pendragon,” in which Captain Britain apparently stars in a political mythological New Age storyline.

Now that sounds like magic.