Mighty World of Marvel (Vol. 2) #12

"Endgame"
Published May 1984
Writer: Alan Moore
Penciler: Alan Davis
Inker: Alan Davis

What's Going On?
The battle between The Fury and Mad Jim Jaspers continues, and they seem evenly matched.  Finally, The Fury realizes that Jaspers warps reality around him; if he is in a void, like what was left of The Fury's original dimension, there would be nothing to warp.  The Fury transports them both there and executes Jim Jaspers with extreme prejudice. 

Seeing that The Fury has been weakened, Captain Britain attacks, but either The Fury is too strong still, or CapBrit is too weak from the Jaspers-and-Fury beating he recently took.  Watching Cap falling to The Fury triggers some repressed rage in Captain UK, who takes up the battle and beats The Fury into a purple puddle.  The Fury is finally dead.

Sub-Plots, oh the Sub-Plots!
- The Crazy Gang, created by Jaspers last issue, escapes to parts unknown after the Jaspers/Fury battle ends.

- Saturnyne takes a blood sample of the dead Jim Jaspers for unstated, but probably not altruistic, reasons.

- After The Fury is defeated, Captain Britain, Captain UK and Saturnyne find themselves teleported to Otherworld for Merlin's funeral.

Writing!
It's another issue mainly devoted to fight scenes, but I have to admit it's well done.  Moore has been building up to this battle for so long that it is cathartic to see the finale of the Jaspers/Fury fight AND the Captain Britain/UK fight vs. The Fury.  I had wondered after previous issues how CapBrit could stand up to either Jaspers or The Fury, given their power, but Moore did a fantastic job making the final conflict plausible; the ending was not obvious (to me, anyway), but still felt true to the known limits of these characters.  One of my favorite bits was how we followed The Fury's logic during the battle with Jaspers, as it prepared for the coup de grace. 

Art!
More great work from the "other" Alan on this title.  While there could be some improvement in the coloring department (a common complaint for this era), Davis' action scenes are consistently great.  Even the challenging design of Captain Britain's torn mask/flowing hair combo looked good here, to say nothing of the very cool Jaspers/Fury fight and the dismembering of The Fury. 

I've been a fan of Davis' graceful action scenes for many years, but this is a great example of how well he can do "savage."

Retrospectively Amusing:
- The scene that triggers Captain UK into action is a panel similar to --- but not an exact copy of --- the scene back in Daredevils #7 where Captain UK's lover is murdered by the Fury.  It's interesting that Alan Davis chose not to just photocopy the old art for this scene.  Maybe that wasn't a thing back in '84?

Here's the original scene, from Daredevils #7.  They are certainly similar, but definitely different.

Worth Noting:
- The Fury and Jim Jaspers both die in this issue.

Mighty World of Marvel (Vol. 2) #11

"Foolsmate"
Published April 1984
Writer: Alan Moore
Penciler: Alan Davis
Inker: Alan Davis


What's Going On?
The Fury finally catches up with Captain Britain and starts attacking him.  Cap doesn't have much fight left in him after the whooping he took from Jim Jaspers last issue, so he essentially plays the part of a rag doll here.  In the process of beating the life out of the good Captain, The Fury accidentally runs into Jaspers.  Jaspers doesn't like The Fury because he didn't create it, and The Fury doesn't like Jaspers because it struggled against its original programming (which kept it from killing the Jim Jaspers of Earth 238). 

The two near-omnipotent villains begin to battle.

Sub-Plots, oh the Sub-Plots!
- Jim Jaspers, playing the part of a bored godling, decides to create life from dirt.  The end result is the Crazy Gang.

- Saturnyne and Captain UK arrive on the scene, just in time to witness the Jaspers/Fury fight and take cover.

- Meanwhile, while overseeing the battle, Roma despairs, thinking that the multiverse is doomed.  When she tries to get her father to explain things to her, Merlin falls dead.

Writing!
This is essentially an extended fight scene, so there isn't a whole lot of "writing" to look at in this issue.  That's not a knock; Moore has clearly been building to this since he started his run, and it's pretty satisfying to see it come to fruition.  I am starting to realize that we won't be seeing the traditional heroic ending to this story.  Captain Britain seems almost incidental to the overarching plot of Jaspers v. Fury, and it seems unlikely that he will be the deciding factor in a story that is ostensibly about him.

Art!
Alan Davis clearly enjoys the reality-defying possibilities of the Jaspers/Fury fight, and that is fun to see on the page.

Retrospectively Amusing:
- Here's an evocative and bizarre set of captions that would never get past the editor nowadays:

Worth Noting:
- This is the first appearance of the Earth 616 version of the Crazy Gang.  Since my only exposure to them had been through Davis' Excalibur runs, I never realized what a batshit crazy origin they actually have.  I mean, they're Alice in Wonderland-themed villains, so I didn't think their origin would be "forced into a life of crime" or anything like that, but geez...

- Saturnyne uses the name of Mitras as a blasphemous expletive.  So what?  Well, Mitras is one of the various gods mentioned in old Conan comics, set in the Hyborean Age.  I'm pretty sure that Conan (being a licensed character and all) was not set in the Earth 616 Marvel Universe, so the existence of one of the Hyborean gods on an alternate Earth (Saturnyne is from Earth 9) is a cool little Easter egg for an alternate reality that Alan Moore (and no one else, really) ever chose to explain fully.