Paul Cornell brings his first arc of Captain Britain – and with it, his obligatory Secret Invasion tie-in – to an end, and I have to say – what with making references to Clerks and Jasper Fforde in Fantastic Four : True Story and now this, he’s rapidly edging himself among my favourite writers currently working in the industry. An experienced telly bod he might be, but we must remember that he’s coming to this book with very little in the way of “proper” American comics background – and yet he’s guiding it with a firm hand, structuring and pacing it perfectly and with a superb blend of character, dialogue and action.

As a finale, it’s as rousing as the series has been up to this point, as Braddock and Wisdom take the fight to the Skrulls; and in classic fashion the thing the invaders are seeking – magic – turns out to be the thing that undoes them. Victory doesn’t come without cost, however, and it’s tremendously disappointing that not every member of this immensely likeable burgeoning team (we realise come the closing pages that what we’ve been reading all along is an origin story) makes it to the end. But rather than feeling cheap, it’s a natural and appropriate end to this character’s story – and besides, as Wisdom subsequently muses, there’s always loss involved in what he does (there’s a pleasing nod at this point not only to the original Wisdom mini, but to an X-related  association, controversial as it is, that’s as old as the character himself).

In interviews leading up to the beginning of this series, Cornell stated that one of his goals was to make Captain Britain a proper hero again – rather than simply a slightly lame Captain America knock-off that we Brits were characteristically slightly ashamed of. In addition to redefining (or, perhaps, restating) notions of heroism (as Wisdom makes the distinction from “bring a hero back” to “bring hero back”), one of the strongest points of the way the story wraps up is that the British characters aren’t simply reliant on however Brian Michael Bendis decides to defeat the Skrulls over in the main title – they solve the problem their own way, and defend their own territory (even if, okay, there is a rather unsubtle – but funny – nod to how Bendis wrapped up a completely different story). Rather than simply being an annexe of the same battle, it’s an entirely separate struggle, and one that they independently win. At the same time, Cornell recognises that dressing up in a flag simply doesn’t mean the same thing here as in the US – “You have no idea what this flag means,” says Braddock, almost every line out of his mouth in this series so far an iconic one, “it isn’t popular, it’s not a gesture.”

The job is done, and Britain has a hero again – in fact, it has plenty, and a brief amusing cameo by Merlin confirms the creation of yet another. Successfully navigating out of a crossover that isn’t even finished yet while constructing a brand new lineup for an instantly classic, old-fashioned superhero yarn (albeit one with certain modern touches) is no mean feat, but Cornell and Kirk have achieved it with aplomb. All we await now is to see how they get on when the series begins to strike out on its own – but on the evidence so far, it’s going to be a lot of fun finding out.